ng my attachments.

There are three great domestic questions, viz. the liberty of the press,
parliamentary reform, and Roman Catholic concession, which, if I briefly
advert to, no more need be said at present.

A free discussion of public measures through the press I deem the _only_
safeguard of liberty: without it I have neither confidence in kings,
parliaments, judges, or divines: they have all in their turn betrayed
their country. But the press, so potent for good, is scarcely less so
for evil; and unfortunately they who are misled and abused by its means
are the persons whom it can least benefit. It is the fatal
characteristic of their disease to reject all remedies coming from the
quarter that has caused or aggravated the malady. I am _therefore_ for
vigorous restrictions; but there is scarcely any abuse that I would not
endure rather than sacrifice, or even endanger, this freedom.

When I was young (giving myself credit for qualities which I did not
possess, and measuring mankind by that standard) I thought it derogatory
to human nature to set up property in preference to person as a title
for legislative power. That notion has vanished. I now perceive many
advantages in our present complex system of representation which
formerly eluded my observation; this has tempered my ardour for reform:
but if any plan could be contrived for throwing the representation
fairly into the hands of the property of the country, and not leaving it
so much in the hands of the large proprietors as it now is, it should
have my best support; though even in that event there would be a
sacrifice of personal rights, independent of property, that are now
frequently exercised for the benefit of the community.

Be not startled when I say that I am averse to further concessions to
the Roman Catholics. My reasons are, that such concessions will not
produce harmony among the Roman Catholics themselves; that they among
them who are most clamorous for the measure care little about it but as
a step, first, to the overthrow of the Protestant establishment in
Ireland, as introductory to a separation of the two countries--their
ultimate aim; that I cannot consent to take the character of a religion
from the declaration of powerful professors of it disclaiming doctrines
imputed to that religion; that, taking its character from what it
_actually teaches to the great mass_, I believe the Roman Catholic
religion to be unchanged in its doctrines and uns