stics, which did not come within our
definition.[15] Whoever bears a true veneration for the glorious memory
of King William, as our great deliverer from Popery and slavery; whoever
is firmly loyal to our present Queen, with an utter abhorrence and
detestation of the Pretender; whoever approves the succession to the
Crown in the House of Hanover, and is for preserving the doctrine and
discipline of the Church of England, with an indulgence for scrupulous
consciences; such a man we think acts upon right principles, and may be
justly allowed a Whig: And I believe there are not six members in our
House of Commons, who may not fairly come under this description. So
that the parties among us are made up, on one side, of moderate Whigs,
and on the other, of Presbyterians and their abettors; by which last I
mean, such who can equally go to a Church or Conventicle, or such who
are indifferent to all religion in general, or lastly such who affect to
bear a personal rancour toward the clergy: These last are a set of men
not of our own growth, their principles at least have been imported of
late years; yet this whole party put together will not, I am confident,
amount to above fifty men in Parliament, which can hardly be worked up
into a majority of three hundred.

[Footnote 15: The passage beginning with "I remember when I was last in
England," and ending with "within our definition," is omitted by
Faulkner. [T.S.]]

As to the House of Lords, the difficulty there is conceived at least as
great as in ours. So many of our temporal peers live in England, that
the bishops are generally pretty near a par of the House, and we reckon
they will be all to a man against repealing the Test; and yet their
lordships are generally thought as good Whigs upon our principles as any
in the kingdom. There are indeed a few lay lords who appear to have no
great devotion for Episcopacy; and perhaps one or two more with whom
certain powerful motives might be used for removing any difficulty
whatsoever; but these are in no sort of a number to carry any point
against the conjunction of the rest and the whole bench of bishops.

Besides, the whole body of our clergy is utterly against repealing the
Test, though they are entirely devoted to her Majesty, and hardly one in
a hundred who are not very good Whigs in our acceptation of the word.
And I must let you know, that we of Ireland are not yet come up to other
folk's refinements; for we generally love an