_argumentatively_ specious, would go _practically_ to the inevitable
ruin of the kingdom. The opposition always connects the emancipation of
the Catholics with these schemes of reformation: indeed, it makes the
former only a member of the latter project. The gentlemen who enforce
that opposition are, in my opinion, playing the game of their
adversaries with all their might; and there is no third party in Ireland
(nor in England neither) to separate things that are in themselves so
distinct,--I mean the admitting people to the benefits of the
Constitution, and a change in the form of the Constitution itself.

As every one knows that a great part of the constitution of the Irish
House of Commons was formed about the year 1614 expressly for bringing
that House into a state of dependence, and that the new representative
was at that time seated and installed by force and violence, nothing can
be more impolitic than for those who wish the House to stand on its
present basis (as, for one, I most sincerely do) to make it appear to
have kept too much the principle of its first institution, and to
continue to be as little a virtual as it is an actual representative of
the commons. It is the _degeneracy_ of such an institution, _so vicious
in its principle_, that is to be wished for. If men have the real
benefit of a _sympathetic_ representation, none but those who are heated
and intoxicated with theory will look for any other. This sort of
representation, my dear Sir, must wholly depend, not on the force with
which it is upheld, but upon the _prudence_ of those who have influence
upon it. Indeed, without some such prudence in the use of authority, I
do not know, at least in the present time, how any power can long
continue.

If it be true that both parties are carrying things to extremities in
different ways, the object which you and I have in common, that is to
say, the union and concord of our country _on the basis of the actual
representation_, without risking those evils which any change in the
form of our legislature must inevitably bring on, can never be obtained.
On the part of the Catholics (that is to say, of the body of the people
of the kingdom) it is a terrible alternative, either to submit to the
yoke of declared and insulting enemies, or to seek a remedy in plunging
themselves into the horrors and crimes of that Jacobinism which
unfortunately is not disagreeable to the principles and inclinations of,
I am afraid,