Letter VIII. begins with the statistics of Ireland, its area, population, trade, manufactures, exports and imports. "Ireland has the greatest possible facilities for carrying on commerce with the whole of Europe. It contains, within a circuit of 750 miles, 66 secure harbours, and presents a western frontier against Great Britain, reaching from the Firth of Clyde north to the Bristol Channel south, and varying in distance from 20 to 100 miles; so that the subjugation of Ireland would compel us to guard with ships and soldiers a new line of coast, certainly amounting, with all its sinuosities, to more than 700 miles--an addition of polemics, in our present state of hostility with all the world, which must highly gratify the vigorists and give them an ample opportunity of displaying that foolish energy upon which their claims to distinction are founded. Such is the country which the Chancellor of the Exchequer would drive into the arms of France." Religious freedom, continues Peter, is the strongest safeguard of states. France has it, and is victorious over Europe; England lacks it, and is in imminent peril. "How sincerely and fervently have I often wished that the Emperor of the French had thought as Mr. Spencer Perceval does upon the subject of government; that he had entertained doubts and scruples upon the propriety of admitting the Protestants to an equality of rights with the Catholics, and that he had left in the middle of his empire these vigorous seeds of hatred and disaffection. But the world was never yet conquered by a blockhead. One of the very first measures we saw him recurring to was the complete establishment of religious liberty. If his subjects fought and paid as he pleased, he allowed them to believe as they pleased. The moment I saw this, my best hopes were lost. I perceived in a moment the kind of man we had to do with. I was well aware of the miserable ignorance and folly of the country upon the subject of Toleration; and every year has been adding to the success of that game which it was clear he had the will and the ability to play against us." Abraham has suggested that the Emperor is not a religious man, and that his tolerance is the fruit of indifference. But, says Peter, "if Bonaparte is liberal in subjects of religion because he has no religion, is this a reason why we should be illiberal because we are Christians? If he owes this excellent quality to a vice, is that any reason why we may not owe it to a virtue? Toleration is a great good, and a good to be imitated, let it come from whom it will."