ill not dispute with you whether the Pope be or be not the Scarlet
Lady of Babylon. I hope it is not so; because I am afraid it will
induce His Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer to introduce several
severe bills against popery, if that is the case; and though he will
have the decency to appoint a previous committee of inquiry as to the
fact, the committee will be garbled, and the report inflammatory.
Leaving this to be settled as he pleases to settle it, I wish to
inform you, that, previously to the bill last passed in favour of the
Catholics, at the suggestion of Mr. Pitt, and for his satisfaction,
the opinions of six of the most celebrated of the foreign Catholic
universities were taken as to the right of the Pope to interfere in
the temporal concerns of any country. The answer cannot possibly leave
the shadow of a doubt, even in the mind of Baron Maseres; and Dr.
Rennel would be compelled to admit it, if three Bishops lay dead at
the very moment the question were put to him. To this answer might be
added also the solemn declaration and signature of all the Catholics
in Great Britain.

I should perfectly agree with you, if the Catholics admitted such a
dangerous dispensing power in the hands of the Pope; but they all deny
it, and laugh at it, and are ready to abjure it in the most decided
manner you can devise. They obey the Pope as the spiritual head of
their Church; but are you really so foolish as to be imposed upon by
mere names? What matters it the seven-thousandth part of a farthing
who is the spiritual head of any Church? Is not Mr. Wilberforce at the
head of the Church of Clapham? Is not Dr. Letsom at the head of the
Quaker Church? Is not the General Assembly at the head of the Church
of Scotland? How is the government disturbed by these many-headed
Churches? or in what way is the power of the Crown augmented by this
almost nominal dignity?

The King appoints a fast-day once a year, and he makes the bishops:
and if the government would take half the pains to keep the Catholics
out of the arms of France that it does to widen Temple Bar, or
improve Snow Hill, the King would get into his hands the appointments
of the titular Bishops of Ireland. Both Mr. C----'s sisters enjoy
pensions more than sufficient to place the two greatest dignitaries of
the Irish Catholic Church entirely at the disposal of the Crown.
Everybody who knows Ireland knows perfectly well, that nothing would
be easier, with the expenditure