The policy of granting such endowment was equally conspicuous.  No measure could so bind the clergy to the government; and no such security for the loyalty and peaceful, orderly behavior of the poorer classes could be provided, as might be expected from the attachment to the government of those who had over them an influence so powerful in its character and so unbounded in its strength as their priests.  And the Duke of Wellington, who had at one time been himself the Irish Secretary, and, as an intimate friend of Lord Castlereagh, who held that office at the time of the Union, had a perfect knowledge of what had been intended at that time—­and who was, of course, aware of the very decided favor which the House of Commons had so lately shown to the project—­proposed to follow out Pitt’s plan in that particular, and to connect a provision[211] for the Roman Catholic clergy with the removal of their political disabilities from the laymen.  Unluckily, Peel, who, throughout the whole transaction, was, of all the cabinet, the counsellor on whose judgment he most relied, took a different view of the expediency of making such a provision, having, indeed, “no objection to it in point of principle.”  But he saw many practical difficulties, which he pressed on the Duke with great earnestness.  He argued that for the government “to apply a sum of money to the payment of the ministers of the Church of Rome in Ireland, granting a license for the performance of their spiritual functions, would be a virtual and complete supersession, if not repeal, of the laws which prohibit intercourse with Rome;” and asked, “Could the state affect to be ignorant that the bishop whom it paid derived his right to be a bishop from the See of Rome?” Another difficulty he found in the apprehension that “the admission of the right of the Roman Catholic clergy to an endowment might produce similar claims on the part of the Dissenters in England, who contribute in like manner to the support of their own religion and of the established religion also.”  He suggested, farther, that, if the Roman Catholic priest were allowed, in addition to his stipend, “to receive dues, Easter offerings, etc., from his parishioners, his condition would then be better than that of the ministers of the Established Church in many of the parishes in Ireland.”  And, finally, he urged the practical objection, that the endowment would greatly strengthen the opposition to the whole measure, by the reluctance which, “on purely religious grounds,” many would feel to the endowment of the Roman Catholic faith, who would yet be inclined to acquiesce in the removal of the disabilities, “on grounds rather political than religious.”  He was “not insensible to the importance of establishing some bond of connection between the Roman Catholic clergy and the state;” but he believed that the omission of a provision for their endowment “was important to the ultimate success of the government in proposing the measure before them.”