ng the affairs of Europe--these are leaps
which seem to justify the fondest dreams of mothers and of aunts.

I do not say that the disabilities to which the Catholics are exposed
amount to such intolerable grievances, that the strength and industry
of a nation are overwhelmed by them: the increasing prosperity of
Ireland fully demonstrates to the contrary. But I repeat again, what I
have often stated in the course of our correspondence, that your laws
against the Catholics are exactly in that state in which you have
neither the benefits of rigour nor of liberality: every law which
prevented the Catholic from gaining strength and wealth is repealed;
every law which can irritate remains; if you were determined to insult
the Catholics you should have kept them weak; if you resolved to give
them strength, you should have ceased to insult them--at present your
conduct is pure, unadulterated folly.

Lord Hawkesbury says, 'We heard nothing about the Catholics till we
began to mitigate the laws against them; when we relieved them in part
from this oppression they began to be disaffected.' This is very true;
but it proves just what I have said, that you have either done too
much or too little; and as there lives not, I hope, upon earth, so
depraved a courtier that he would load the Catholics with their
ancient chains, what absurdity it is, then, not to render their
dispositions friendly, when you leave their arms and legs free!

You know, and many Englishmen know, what passes in China; but nobody
knows or cares what passes in Ireland. At the beginning of the
present reign no Catholic could realise property, or carry on any
business; they were absolutely annihilated, and had no more agency in
the country than so many trees. They were like Lord Mulgrave's
eloquence and Lord Camden's wit; the legislative bodies did not know
of their existence. For these twenty-five years last past the
Catholics have been engaged in commerce; within that period the
commerce of Ireland has doubled--there are four Catholics at work for
one Protestant, and eight Catholics at work for one Episcopalian. Of
course, the proportion which Catholic wealth bears to Protestant
wealth is every year altering rapidly in favour of the Catholics. I
have already told you what their purchases of land were the last year:
since that period I have been at some pains to find out the actual
state of the Catholic wealth: it is impossible upon such a subject to
arrive at