Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6: With His Letters and JournalsMoore, Thomas
General
Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6: With His Letters and Journals
Moore, Thomas
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
But he is fighting the battles of the Catholics abroad; his noble
brother has this night advocated their cause, with an eloquence which
I shall not depreciate by the humble tribute of my panegyric; whilst
a third of his kindred, as unlike as unequal, has been combating
against his Catholic brethren in Dublin, with circular letters,
edicts, proclamations, arrests, and dispersions;--all the vexatious
implements of petty warfare that could be wielded by the mercenary
guerillas of government, clad in the rusty armour of their obsolete
statutes. Your Lordships will, doubtless, divide new honours between
the Saviour of Portugal, and the Dispenser of Delegates. It is
singular, indeed, to observe the difference between our foreign and
domestic policy; if Catholic Spain, faithful Portugal, or the no less
Catholic and faithful king of the one Sicily, (of which, by the by,
you have lately deprived him,) stand in need of succour, away goes a
fleet and an army, an ambassador and a subsidy, sometimes to fight
pretty hardly, generally to negotiate very badly, and always to pay
very dearly for our Popish allies. But let four millions of
fellow-subjects pray for relief, who fight and pay and labour in your
behalf, they must be treated as aliens; and although their "father's
house has many mansions," there is no resting-place for them. Allow
me to ask, are you not fighting for the emancipation of Ferdinand
VII., who certainly is a fool, and, consequently, in all probability
a bigot? and have you more regard for a foreign sovereign than your
own fellow-subjects, who are not fools, for they know your interest
better than you know your own; who are not bigots, for they return
you good for evil; but who are in worse durance than the prison of a
usurper, inasmuch as the fetters of the mind are more galling than
those of the body?
Upon the consequences of your not acceding to the claims of the
petitioners, I shall not expatiate; you know them, you will feel
them, and your children's children when you are passed away. Adieu to
that Union so called, as "_Lucus a non lucendo_," a Union from never
uniting, which in its first operation gave a death-blow to the
independence of Ireland, and in its last may be the cause of her
eternal separation from this country. If it must be called a Union,
it is the union of the shark with his prey; the spoiler swallows up
his victim, and thus they become one and indivisible. Thus has Great
Britain swallowed up the parliament, the constitution, the
independence of Ireland, and refuses to disgorge even a single
privilege, although for the relief of her swollen and distempered
body politic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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