t, while the
_Letters to Archdeacon Singleton_, though not an avowed recantation,
are in the nature of a palinode--always an awkward thing--_Plymley_ is
frankly and confidently, not to say wantonly, aggressive. These
_Letters_, ten in number, were written just after the fall of the
mainly Whig Ministry of 'All the Talents,' to which Sydney had been
indebted for his preferment of Foston, and which lost its position
not least owing to its intended support of the 'Catholic' claims.
Those claims were not admitted for twenty years later; and Sydney's
advocacy of them was regarded as a little too exuberant by some even
of his own party. But there is no doubt that the _Letters_ had a great
influence in laughing if not in arguing sections of the public round
to the Emancipation side._)

LETTER II.

Dear Abraham--The Catholic not respect an oath! why not? What upon
earth has kept him out of Parliament, or excluded him from all the
offices whence he is excluded, but his respect for oaths? There is no
law which prohibits a Catholic to sit in Parliament. There could be no
such law; because it is impossible to find out what passes in the
interior of any man's mind. Suppose it were in contemplation to
exclude all men from certain offices who contended for the legality of
taking tithes: the only mode of discovering that fervid love of
decimation which I know you to possess would be to tender you an oath
"against that damnable doctrine, that it is lawful for a spiritual man
to take, abstract, appropriate, subduct, or lead away the tenth calf,
sheep, lamb, ox, pigeon, duck," etc., etc., etc., and every other
animal that ever existed, which of course the lawyers would take care
to enumerate. Now this oath I am sure you would rather die than take;
and so the Catholic is excluded from Parliament because he will not
swear that he disbelieves the leading doctrines of his religion! The
Catholic asks you to abolish some oaths which oppress him; your answer
is that he does not respect oaths. Then why subject him to the test of
oaths? The oaths keep him out of Parliament; why, then, he respects
them. Turn which way you will, either your laws are nugatory, or the
Catholic is bound by religious obligations as you are; but no eel in
the well-sanded fist of a cook-maid, upon the eve of being skinned,
ever twisted and writhed as an orthodox parson does when he is
compelled by the gripe of reason to admit anything in favour of a
dissenter.

I w