keep it so. The king, as first magistrate of the
state, is obliged to take the oath of abjuration,[29] and to subscribe
the Declaration; and by laws subsequent, every other magistrate and
member of the state, legislative and executive, are bound under the same
obligation."

As to the plan to which these maxims are applied, I cannot speak, as I
told you, positively about it: because neither from your letter, nor
from any in formation I have been able to collect, do I find anything
settled, either on the part of the Roman Catholics themselves, or on
that of any persons who may wish to conduct their affairs in Parliament.
But if I have leave to conjecture, something is in agitation towards
admitting them, under _certain qualifications_, to have _some share_ in
the election of members of Parliament. This I understand is the scheme
of those who are entitled to come within your description of persons of
consideration, property, and character,--and firmly attached to the king
and Constitution, as by "law established, with a grateful sense of your
former concessions, and a patient reliance on the benignity of
Parliament for the further mitigation of the laws that still affect
them."--As to the low, thoughtless, wild, and profligate, who have
joined themselves with those of other professions, but of the same
character, you are not to imagine that for a moment I can suppose them
to be met with anything else than the manly and enlightened energy of a
firm government, supported by the united efforts of all virtuous men, if
ever their proceedings should become so considerable as to demand its
notice. I really think that such associations should be crushed in their
very commencement.

Setting, therefore, this case out of the question, it becomes an object
of very serious consideration, whether, because wicked men of _various_
descriptions are engaged in seditious courses, the rational, sober, and
valuable part of _one_ description should not be indulged in their sober
and rational expectations. You, who have looked deeply into the spirit
of the Popery laws, must be perfectly sensible that a great part of the
present mischief which we abhor in common (if it at all exists) has
arisen from them. Their declared object was, to reduce the Catholics of
Ireland to a miserable populace, without property, without estimation,
without education. The professed object was, to deprive the few men,
who, in spite of those laws, might hold or obtain