Hence the necessity of keeping open all the avenues to knowledge, and of allowing the freest scope to human investigation: and where knowledge precedes improvement, and peaceable measures follow steady principles, society ameliorates as it alters: men become as willing to correct their mistakes as to discover them, and advance in benevolence, as they advance in wisdom. But certainly admiration may exceed the limits of justice. It has been frequently observed, that the exertions of private humanity might reach almost every case of real distress: and so it probably would in a properly constituted state of society.

In conclusion, too, it should be observed, that censure and punishment also may exceed their just limits. In the cases of the persons lately indicted for a conspiracy, treason or sedition, it should be recollected, that many of them have been pronounced NOT GUILTY by a JURY of their COUNTRY. Justice, therefore, requires that they at least should receive no pecuniary injury. In this pamphlet, indeed, those convicted of sedition, whether justly or unjustly, are coupled with such as have been pronounced innocent of higher crimes.-They are here, it is true, stated merely as cases of distress, without any reasonings; and the reader must make what use of them he thinks proper. He must, however, be reminded, that the bill of rights has declared, that excessive fines ought not to be imposed, nor cruel and unjust punishments inflicted that the reasonableness of fines too ought to be regulated by the determination of MAGNA CHARTA, one clause of which is, that no freeman shall be amerced for a small crime, but according to the measure of his crime, and that the amercement should be in mercy; and that this amercement should be according to the particular circumstances of the offence and the offender. In the present instance the persons are utterly incapable of paying their fines; and if they are not assisted, they and their families must be in danger of perishing.

On a retrospective view of the entire subject of this Dissertation on Benevolence, the reader will please to consider all its aims and pretensions.

'See Blackstone's Commentaries.-Vol. iv. chap. 29.

A

LETTER

ΤΟ

HENRY BROUGHAM, ESQ. M.P.

FROM

JOHN IRELAND, D. D.

FORMERLY VICAR OF CROYDON, NOW DEAN OF

WESTMINSTER.

LONDON:

1819.

A LETTER

ΤΟ

HENRY BROUGHAM, Esq.

SIR,

IF you have ever started at the sound of unexpected and unmerited reproach, if you have ever felt the glow of shame, that your character and actions had not secured you from the imputation of crimes, of which you were incapable ;-and if your bosom has ever swelled with indignation, that any bold accuser had dared to charge you with practices equally abhorrent from your nature and your station in society;-you will know how to judge of the feelings which have been excited in me by your letter to Sir Samuel Romilly, and by the evidence on which it professes to be founded. -But if you have never experienced this moral tenderness, these observations will be lost upon you; you will be a stranger to the injury of which you are the author;-you will smile at the pain which you have produced ;-you will have scattered your "firebrands," and be at ease while others burn in the flames kindled by your cruel sport.

There are those, however, who will peruse this remonstrance with suitable emotions; and I shall be secure of the protecting feelings of all who know the charm of pure character, and, therefore, shrink from the attempts of unsupported and unprincipled slander. The transactions of a parish are, indeed, obscure and deadening subjects; nor, in themselves, do they hold out to the reader an expectation of any thing but fatigue and disgust. But accident sometimes lends an interest to insignificant matters. You have shed the sanction of a Committee of the House of Commons over ignorance and falsehoods, which, on the spot of the transac

tions, are derided and scorned by almost every person of decent station and character; and those who, in their neighbourhood, would scarcely be believed without a voucher, have been anxiously listened to by you, as if they were the oracles of all truth. They are delighted at so unexpected a protection; and, doubtless, they have wondered at the sudden and unusual importance attributed to their assertions.

In the inquiry instituted by you in June last concerning the Hospital of Archbishop Whitgift at Croydon, you thought proper, by a question to one of your witnesses, to implicate me in a responsibi lity for its management. Had you asked specially, whether my situation, as vicar, gave me any control over the Hospital, the answer must have been, no. But from this you abstained, and have left me in the unpleasant situation of which I complain. You have thrown upon me an appearance of guilt which you can never substantiate.—I must, therefore, inform you what has been the amount of my occasional agency at the Hospital, under the sanction of the visitor. And, as I perceive, that those on whose reports you have so unhappily relied, have either misinformed you, or have left you in a convenient ignorance, concerning the other endowed charities of that place, I will present to you a general sketch of them, and the nature of my connection with them.

1st. The Hospital of Archbishop Whitgift was founded for certain poor people of the parishes of Croydon and Lambeth. The Archbishop of Canterbury was to be the visitor; and the Vicar of Croydon was to hold that office only during the vacancy of the See. A Grammar School was annexed to the Hospital; where the very poor of Croydon were to be taught freely, and those of a better condition were to pay something to the schoolmaster. Perhaps, for about half a century past, there have been no scholars. When, in 1812, it became expedient to open a new school in connection with the National Institution, it was suggested, that the vacant Grammar School might, perhaps, be used, if care were taken, at the same time, to provide another room for the founder's scholars, should any offer themselves. The proposal was submitted to counsel; and the now Mr. Justice Park, Mr. Justice Best, and Mr. Serjeant Taddy, who were either inhabitants of the parish, or visitants there, readily contributed their opinions, that the measure was both meritorious and legal. Under this sanction, I had no scruple to apply to the Archbishop of Canterbury for the old room, which his Grace instantly and cheerfully granted. This is the real state of the offence which the witness has coupled with my name, and magnified into the Archbishop's refusal to revive the original school.

If the funds of the Hospital had been touched for this purpose,

blame might still have been laid : but all was done at our own pri vate expense. The Master of the new school was paid by the subscription of the friends of the church establishment; and the new room, adjoining to the original Grammar School, was built, from the same fund, for the Grammar scholars of Archbishop Whitgift, if any should choose to come. On recent inquiry from the present schoolmaster of the foundation, it appears, that not a single proposal has been made to him for the admission of children there. One of the witnesses informs you, that the inhabitants do not know the privilege they have to send scholars. It is their own fault. It has been repeatedly announced. Once it was done through my own advice; and notices were stuck on the church door and all the public places of the parish.

As to the revenues of the Hospital, I might omit all mention of them, as I have already told you that I have no concern with them. They are administered entirely by the members of the Hospital. On one occasion only did I become acquainted with them. The schoolmaster had, from custom, managed the property,-subject, however, to the orders of the Archbishop, and had kept the accounts. But, some years since, suspicions having arisen of clandestine transactions; and complaints having been made to the visitor, his Grace appointed the late Dr. Vyse and myself his agents to ascertain the balance of the accounts between the late schoolmaster and the Hospital. I will not here repeat the particulars of so unfortunate a discovery. I shall only observe, that, since that event, and the necessary resignation of the schoolmaster, the warden of the Hospital, and the two clavigers, keep all monies in their strong box under their own keys. I have mentioned this for the purpose of convincing you, that, without the special authority of the visitor, I could not have touched the books of the Hospital; and hence, the insinuation to which the testimony points, that I have been wanting in my duty, because, during an incumbency of twenty years, I did not restrain the proceedings, is utterly groundless. I had no power. I was excluded by the very constitution of the Hospital.

I am now about to add another particular which, perhaps, will surprise you namely, that not only was I excluded from the management of the property, but the Archbishop himself. When the warden and poor brethren took the affairs of the Hospital into their own hands, the Archbishop, acting on the customary autho rity, sent them an injunction not to proceed with the destruction of the timber on the estates, which had already begun, without the usual reference to him. But having now the benefit of other advice, they answered his Grace, that all the power which they conceived to be given him by the statutes was to come among them