s house, but missed him. However, in
answer to his letter, I had before, and instantly on the receipt of it,
written to him at large, and urged such topics, both with regard to the
Catholics and Dissenters, as I imagined were the most likely to be
prevalent with him. This letter I followed to town on Thursday. On my
arrival I was much alarmed with a report that the ministry had thoughts
of rejecting the whole bill. Mr. M'Namara seemed apprehensive that it
was a determined measure; and there seemed to be but too much reason for
his fears.

Not having met the Chancellor at home, either on my first visit or my
second after receiving his letter, and fearful that the Cabinet should
come to come unpleasant resolution, I went to the Treasury on Friday.
There I saw Sir G. Cooper. I possessed him of the danger of a partial,
and the inevitable mischief of the total rejection of the bill. I
reminded him of the understood compact between parties, upon which the
whole scheme of the toleration originating in the English bill was
formed,--of the fair part which the Whigs had acted in a business which,
though first started by them, was supposed equally acceptable to all
sides, and the risk of which they took upon themselves, when others
declined it. To this I added such matter as I thought most fit to engage
government, as government,--not to sport with a singular opportunity
which offered for the union of every description of men amongst us in
support of the common interest of the whole; and I ended by desiring to
see Lord North upon the subject. Sir Grey Cooper showed a very right
sense of the matter, and in a few minutes after our conversation I went
down from the Treasury chambers to Lord North's house. I had a great
deal of discourse with him. He told me that his ideas of toleration were
large, but that, large as they were, they did not comprehend a
promiscuous establishment, even in matters merely civil; that he thought
the established religion ought to be the religion of the state; that, in
this idea, he was not for the repeal of the sacramental test; that,
indeed, he knew the Dissenters in general did not greatly scruple it;
but that very want of scruple showed less zeal against the
Establishment; and, after all, there could no provision be made by human
laws against those who made light of the tests which were formed to
discriminate opinions. On all this he spoke with a good deal of temper.
He did not, indeed, seem to think th