y deferential to Clare; that at Holwood
Clare represented him as a convert to the ultra-Protestant tenets; and
that Pitt accepted the statements of the Irish Chancellor. William
Elliot, Under-Secretary at War at Dublin, who saw Pitt a week later,
found him disinclined to further the Catholic claims at the present
juncture, though equally resolved not to bar the way for the future.
Possibly the King now intervened. It is a significant fact that Clare
expected to have an interview with him before returning to Ireland. If
so, he must have strengthened his earlier resolve. Pitt, then, gave way
on the question of the admission of Dissenters and Catholics to the
Irish Parliament. But he kept open the more important question of the
admission of Catholics to the United Parliament. Obviously, the latter
comprised the former; and it was likely to arouse the fears of the Irish
Protestants far less. On tactical grounds alone the change of procedure
was desirable. It is therefore difficult to see why Elliot so deeply
deplored his surrender to the ultra-Protestants. Pitt had the approval
of Grenville, who, owing to the religious feuds embittered by the
Rebellion, deprecated the imposition of the Catholic claims on the
fiercely Protestant Assembly at Dublin.[543] Yet he warmly supported
them in the United Parliament, both in 1801 and 1807.

The next of the Protestant champions whom Pitt saw was Foster, Speaker
of the Irish House of Commons, whose forceful will, narrow but resolute
religious beliefs, and mercantile connections gave him an influence
second only to that of Clare. In the course of a long conversation with
him about 15th November, Pitt found him frank in his opinions,
decidedly opposed to the Union, but not so fixedly as to preclude all
hope of arrangement. On this topic Pitt dilated in a "private" letter of
17th November, to Cornwallis:

... I think I may venture to say that he [Foster] will not
obstruct the measure; and I rather hope if it can be made
palatable to him personally (which I believe it may) that he
will give it fair support. It would, as it seems to me, be worth
while for this purpose, to hold out to him the prospect of a
British peerage, with (if possible) some ostensible situation,
and a provision for life to which he would be naturally entitled
on quitting the Chair. Beresford and Parnell do not say much on
the general measure, but I think both, or at least the former