Now, sir, in answer to your question, whether if an attempt should be made here for repealing the Sacramental Test, it would be likely to succeed?  The number of professed dissenters in this Parliament was, as I remember, something under a dozen, and I cannot call to mind above thirty others who were expected to fall in with them.  This is certain, that the Presbyterian party having with great industry mustered up their forces, did endeavour one day upon occasion of a hint in my Lord Pembroke’s speech, to introduce a debate about repealing the Test clause, when there appeared at least four to one odds against them; and the ablest of those who were reckoned the most staunch and thorough-paced Whigs upon all other occasions, fell off with an abhorrence at the first mention of this.

I must desire you to take notice, that the terms of Whig and Tory, do not properly express the different interests in our parliament.  I remember when I was last in England, I told the King, that the highest Tories we had with us would make tolerable Whigs there; this was certainly right, and still in the general continues so, unless you have since admitted new characteristics, which did not come within our definition.[15] Whoever bears a true veneration for the glorious memory of King William, as our great deliverer from Popery and slavery; whoever is firmly loyal to our present Queen, with an utter abhorrence and detestation of the Pretender; whoever approves the succession to the Crown in the House of Hanover, and is for preserving the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, with an indulgence for scrupulous consciences; such a man we think acts upon right principles, and may be justly allowed a Whig:  And I believe there are not six members in our House of Commons, who may not fairly come under this description.  So that the parties among us are made up, on one side, of moderate Whigs, and on the other, of Presbyterians and their abettors; by which last I mean, such who can equally go to a Church or Conventicle, or such who are indifferent to all religion in general, or lastly such who affect to bear a personal rancour toward the clergy:  These last are a set of men not of our own growth, their principles at least have been imported of late years; yet this whole party put together will not, I am confident, amount to above fifty men in Parliament, which can hardly be worked up into a majority of three hundred.

[Footnote 15:  The passage beginning with “I remember when I was last in England,” and ending with “within our definition,” is omitted by Faulkner. [T.S.]]

As to the House of Lords, the difficulty there is conceived at least as great as in ours.  So many of our temporal peers live in England, that the bishops are generally pretty near a par of the House, and we reckon they will be all to a man against repealing the Test; and yet their lordships are generally thought as good Whigs upon our principles as any in the kingdom.  There are indeed a few lay lords who appear to have no great devotion for Episcopacy; and perhaps one or two more with whom certain powerful motives might be used for removing any difficulty whatsoever; but these are in no sort of a number to carry any point against the conjunction of the rest and the whole bench of bishops.