ar_, or a _Term_ whereby to give Notice for Onset. On the contrary, I
had observed that wherever People are united by _Interest_, though of a
thousand opposite Sects, Persuasions and Professions, they never fail to
join in the Maintenance and Defence of _common Rights_.

I, therefore, did not fear the _Roman Catholics_, as having a different
_Religion_, but as having an _Interest_ that was different from the
Interest of _Protestants_. Were they a Compound of all the Follies,
Absurdities, and Contradictions that ever were generated by
Monster-bearing Superstition, had their Interest bound them to us, I
should not have feared their _Fealty_.

But this was not the Case. The _French_ Invasion of _Great Britain_ was
headed by a Person who was, by Birth, Education, Principle, and Interest,
an Enemy to the Freedom and Rights of a Constitution that was established
on the Dispossession of his Ancestors; and he was, consequently, an Enemy
to the general Change of Privilege and Property, that ensued on the said
Establishment. The said Change, as we all know, was to the Disadvantage of
_Roman Catholics_. Had the Invader prevailed, a Change would again have
ensued, in their Favour. Men naturally with Success to an Event from
whence they propose Benefit; and it is as natural for them to act
conformable to those Wishes.

Had _Roman Catholics_ been possessed of an unrestrained Property, along
with the other Liberties, Blessings, and Enjoyments, which they derived,
in common with us, from the Establishment at the Revolution, no spiritual
or temporal Power on Earth could have tempted them to permit, much less to
wish, a Change of a Constitution whose Equal they could not find upon
Earth.

But as this was very far from being the Fact, I feared that _Interest_
might prove an Incentive to _Desire_; and Desire equally prove an
Incentive to _Action_; and, I am not ashamed to confess, that my
Expectations were greatly, though happily, disappointed, by the Steadiness
of their peaceful and loyal Demeanour on that trying Occasion.

Believe me, my Friend, at the Time that I wrote those Papers, which have
given you so much Offence, I looked upon the _Papists_ of this Kingdom, by
the Patronage of _France_ and _Spain_, by their Numbers, by their Wealth,
and by their Union with each other, to be vastly superior to _Irish
Protestants_, in Power; and my Spirit of Opposition rose, in Proportion to
my Idea of their Ability. But neither then, before, n