y produce to another, or hardly
venture to bring in any plain shape to his own mind, he will utter in
obscure, ill-explained doubts, jealousies, surmises, fears, and
apprehensions, and that in such a fog they will appear to have a good
deal of size, and will make an impression, when, if they were clearly
brought forth and defined, they would meet with nothing but scorn and
derision.

There is another way of taking an objection to this concession, which I
admit to be something more plausible, and worthy of a more attentive
examination. It is, that this numerous class of people is mutinous,
disorderly, prone to sedition, and easy to be wrought upon by the
insidious arts of wicked and designing men; that, conscious of this, the
sober, rational, and wealthy part of that body, who are totally of
another character, do by no means desire any participation for
themselves, or for any one else of their description, in the franchises
of the British Constitution.

I have great doubt of the exactness of any part of this observation. But
let us admit that the body of the Catholics are prone to sedition, (of
which, as I have said, I entertain much doubt,) is it possible that any
fair observer or fair reasoner can think of confining this description
to them only? I believe it to be possible for men to be mutinous and
seditious who feel no grievance, but I believe no man will assert
seriously, that, when people are of a turbulent spirit, the best way to
keep them in order is to furnish them with something substantial to
complain of.

You separate, very properly, the sober, rational, and substantial part
of their description from the rest. You give, as you ought to do, weight
only to the former. What I have always thought of the matter is
this,--that the most poor, illiterate, and uninformed creatures upon
earth are judges of a _practical_ oppression. It is a matter of feeling;
and as such persons generally have felt most of it, and are not of an
over-lively sensibility, they are the best judges of it. But for _the
real cause_, or _the appropriate remedy_, they ought never to be called
into council about the one or the other. They ought to be totally shut
out: because their reason is weak; because, when once roused, their
passions are ungoverned; because they want information; because the
smallness of the property which individually they possess renders them
less attentive to the consequence of the measures they adopt in affairs
of m