favour of a
dissenter.

I will 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