Page:Letters, speeches and tracts on Irish affairs.djvu/458



LETTER to Dr. Laurence.

My dear Laurence,

I AM satisfied that there is nothing like a fixed inten- tion of making a real change of system in Ireland ; but that they vary from day to day as their hopes are more or less sanguine from the Luttrellade. The system of military government is mad in the extreme — merely as a system, but still worse in the mad hands in which it is placed. But my opinion is, that if Windham has not been brought into an absolute relish of this scheme, he has been brought off from any systematical dislike to it. When I object to' the scheme of any military government, you do not imagine that I object to the use of the military arm in its proper place and order ; but I am sure that so long as this is looked upon as prin- cipal, it wUl become the sole reliance of Government — and that from its apparent facility, everjrthing whatso- ever belonging to real civil policy in the management of a people will be postponed, if not totally set aside. The truth is, the government of Ireland grows every day more and more difficult ; and, consequently, the incapacity of the jobbers there every day more and more evident ; but as long as they can draw upon Eng- land for indefinite aids of men and sums of money, they