Anecdotes by
��treated the Americans as we ought, and as they deserved, we
should have at once razed all their towns, and let them
enjoy their forests .' After this wild rant, argument would
but have enraged him, I therefore let him vibrate into calmness, then turning round to me, he, with a smile, says, * After all Sir, though I hold the Irish to be rebels, I dont think they have been so very wrong, but you know that you compelled our Parliament, by force of arms, to pass an act in your favour. That, I call rebellion/ ' But Doctor,' said I, ' did the Irish claim anything that ought not to have been granted, though they had not made the claim.' { Sir, I wont dispute that matter with you, but what I insist upon is that the mode of requisition was rebellious.' * Well Doctor, let me ask you but one question, and I shall ask you no more on this subject, do you think that Ireland would have obtained what it has got by any other means?' 'Sir,' says he candidly, 'I believe it would not. However, a wise government should not grant even a claim of justice r if an attempt is made to extort it by force 1 .' I said no more 2 .
��governed, and made.to yield sufficient revenue by the means of influence, as exemplified in Ireland, while the people might be pleased with the imagination of their participating of the British constitution, by having a body of representatives without whose consent money could not be extracted from them.' Life, iii. 205. For influence see Ib. iii. 205, n. 4, and Letters, i. 107, n. I.
When in March, 1782, Lord North's government was overthrown, Johnson said : ' I am glad the Minis try is removed. Such a bunch of imbecility never disgraced a country.' Life, iv. 139.
1 Johnson wrote on Aug. 4, 1782 :
- Perhaps no nation not absolutely
conquered has declined so much in so short a time. We seem to be sinking. Suppose the Irish, having already gotten a free trade and an independent Parliament, should say
��we will have a King and ally our selves with the house of Bourbon, what could be done to hinder or to overthrow them.' Letters, ii. 264.
2 Campbell published the following account of this conversation in his Strictures on the History of Ireland, ed. 1789, p. 336: 'This considera tion was vehemently urged against me by Dr. Johnson, in a conversation I once held with him respecting the affairs of this country (Ireland). The conversation appeared to my dear friend Dr. Wilkinson (to whom I re peated it within an hour or two after it passed) so extraordinary that he gave me pen, ink and paper to set it down immediately. But first let me premise a circumstance or two. Having spent the winter of the year 1777 in London, I had been honoured (and it is my pride to acknowledge it) with his familiarity and friendship. I had not seen him from that time
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