The Works Author:Edmund Burke Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER A PEER OF IRELAND ON THE PENAL LAWS AGAINST IRISH CATHOLICS, PREVIOUS TO THE LATE REPEAL OF A PART THEREOF IN THE SESSION OF THE IRISH PAR-... more » LIAMENT, HELD A. D. 1782. LETTER. Chables Street, London, Feb. 21, 1782. MY LORD, — I am obliged to your Lordship for your communication of the heads of Mr. Gardiner's bill. I had received it, in an earlier stage of its progress, from Mr. Braughall; and I am still in that gentleman's debt, as I have not made him the proper return for the favor he has done me. Business, to which I was more immediately called, and in which my sentiments had the weight of one vote, occupied me every moment since I received his letter. This first morning which I can call my own I give with great cheerfulness to the subject on which your Lordship has done me the honor of desiring my opinion. I have read the heads of the bill, with the amend ments. Your Lordship is too well acquainted with men, and with affairs, to imagine that any true judgment can be formed on the value of a great measure of policy from the perusal of a piece of paper. At present I am much in the dark with regard to the state of the country which the intended law is to be applied to. It is not easy for me to determine whether or no it was wise (for the sake of expunging the black letter of laws which, menacing as they were in the language, were every day fading into disuse) solemnly to reaffirm the principles and to re- enact the provisions of a code of statutes by whichyou are totally excluded from The Privileges Of The Commonwealth, from the highest to the lowest, from the most material of the civil professions, from the army, and even from education, where alone education is to be had. Whether this scheme of indulgence, grounded at once on contempt and jeal...« less