l influences
arising out of them, has aggravated the evil consequent upon
independence lost as hers was. The writers of the time of Queen
Elizabeth have pointed out how unwise it was to transplant among a
barbarous people, not half subjugated, the institutions that time had
matured among those who too readily considered themselves masters of
that people. It would be presumptuous in me to advert in detail to the
exacerbations and long-lived hatred that have perverted the moral sense
in Ireland, obstructed religious knowledge, and denied to her a due
share of English refinement and civility. It is enough to observe, that
the Reformation was ill supported in that country, and that her soil
became, through frequent forfeitures, mainly possessed by men whose
hearts were not in the land where their wealth lay.

But it is too late, we are told, for retrospection. We have no choice
between giving way and a sanguinary war. Surely it is rather too much
that the country should be required to take the measure of the
threatened evil from a Cabinet which by its being divided against
itself, which by its remissness and fear of long and harassing debates
in the two Houses, has for many years past fostered the evil, and in no
small part created the danger, the extent of which is now urged as
imposing the necessity of granting their demands.

Danger is a relative thing, and the first requisite for being in a
condition to judge of what we have to dread from the physical force of
the Romanists is to be in sympathy with the Protestants. Had our
Ministers been truly so, could they have suffered themselves to be
bearded by the Catholic Association for so many years as they have been?

I speak openly to you, my Lord, though a member of his Majesty's Privy
Council; and begging your pardon for detaining you so long, I hasten to
a conclusion.

The civil disabilities, for the removal of which Mr. O'Connell and his
followers are braving the Government, cannot but be indifferent to the
great body of the Irish nation, except as means for gaining an end. Take
away the intermediate power of the priests, and an insurrection in
Brobdignag at the call of the King of Lilliput might be as hopefully
expected as that the Irish people would stir as they are now prepared to
do at the call of a political demagogue. Now these civil disabilities do
not directly affect the priests; they therefore must have ulterior
views, and though it must be flattering to the