Note 60 — PREFACE.

It has been said with great truth that “the politics of Molyneux long continued to be no less revered by the Irish than the morality of Confucius by the Chinese.” The burning of his excellent work, the “Case of Ireland,” the prosecution of Swift’s “Drapier’s Letters,” and the imprisonment of his spirited publisher, Faulkner, had the great merit of bringing the doctrine of libel into public discussion, and of first awakening the people of Ireland to the value of the liberty of public speaking and writing, the most important of the many blessed constitutional rights extorted from power at the Revolution. It is pleasant to observe, that patriotism becomes an heir-loom, and to note that the immediate descendant of William Molyneux, who inherits his principles with his property and name, is a permanently resident Irish gentleman!