ABSTRACT
Edmund Burke sent Two Letters on the Trade of Ireland to merchants in his Bristol constituency to answer concerns about his support in Parliament for limited measures to liberalize Irish trade. Burke lost his seat in Bristol in the election of 1780, and he attributed his problems with his constituents to his efforts on behalf of free trade with Ireland and relief of Irish Catholics. He wrote his Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe in the midst of a campaign to win the franchise for Irish Catholics, and according to O'Brien, it represented Burke's first major public statement on Irish affairs. In Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, Burke systematically attacked the various rationales used to justify the exclusion of the Irish Catholics from the franchise and the full benefits of the British constitution. The Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe is interesting as well because in it Burke weaves together Ireland, America, India, and the French Revolution—all strands of Burke's international thinking.
