.[26]

Whether this scheme of indulgence, grounded at once on contempt and
jealousy, has a tendency gradually to produce something better and more
liberal, I cannot tell, for want of having the actual map of the
country. If this should be the case, it was right in you to accept it,
such as it is. But if this should be one of the experiments which have
sometimes been made before the temper of the nation was ripe for a real
reformation, I think it may possibly have ill effects, by disposing the
penal matter in a more systematic order, and thereby fixing a permanent
bar against any relief that is truly substantial. The whole merit or
demerit of the measure depends upon the plans and dispositions of those
by whom the act was made, concurring with the general temper of the
Protestants of Ireland, and their aptitude to admit in time of some part
of that equality without which you never can be FELLOW-CITIZENS. Of all
this I am wholly ignorant. All my correspondence with men of public
importance in Ireland has for some time totally ceased. On the first
bill for the relief of the ROMAN CATHOLICS of Ireland, I was, without
any call of mine, consulted both on your side of the water and on this.
On the present occasion, I have not heard a word from any man in office,
and know as little of the intentions of the British government as I
know of the temper of the Irish Parliament. I do not find that any
opposition was made by the principal persons of the minority in the
House of Commons, or that any is apprehended from them in the House of
Lords. The whole of the difficulty seems to lie with the principal men
in government, under whose protection this bill is supposed to be
brought in. This violent opposition and cordial support, coming from one
and the same quarter, appears to me something mysterious, and hinders me
from being able to make any clear judgment of the merit of the present
measure, as compared with the actual state of the country and the
general views of government, without which one can say nothing that may
not be very erroneous.

To look at the bill in the abstract, it is neither more nor less than a
renewed act of UNIVERSAL, UNMITIGATED, INDISPENSABLE, EXCEPTIONLESS
DISQUALIFICATION.

One would imagine that a bill inflicting such a multitude of
incapacities had followed on the heels of a conquest made by a very
fierce enemy, under the impression of recent animosity and resentment.
No man, on reading that bill, could