“Suppose Bonaparte were to retrieve the only very great blunder he has made, and were to succeed, after repeated trials, in making an impression upon Ireland, do you think we should bear anything of the impediment of a Coronation Oath? or would the spirit of this country tolerate for an hour such ministers and such unheard-of nonsense, if the most distant prospect existed of conciliating the Catholics by every species even of the most abject concession?  And yet, if your argument is good for anything, the Coronation Oath ought to reject, at such a moment, every tendency to conciliation, and to bind Ireland for ever to the Crown of France.”

After a cursory reference to Abraham’s fears about Popish fires and faggots, and a reminder that “there were as many persons put to death for religious opinions under the mild Elizabeth as under the bloody Mary,” Peter concludes with these vigorous sentences—­

“You tell me I am a party man.  I hope I shall always be so, when I see my country in the hands of a pert London joker[43] and a second-rate lawyer.[44] Of the first, no other good is known than that he makes pretty Latin verses; the second seems to me to have the head of a country parson and the tongue of an Old Bailey barrister.  If I could see good measures pursued, I care not who is in power; but I have a passionate love for common justice and for common sense, and I abhor and despise every man who builds up his political fortune upon their ruin.”

Abraham’s next objection to emancipation appears to have been that a Roman Catholic will not respect an oath.  “Why not?” asks Peter in Letter II.  “What upon earth has kept him out of Parliament, or excluded him from all the offices whence he is excluded, but his respect for oaths?  There is no law which prohibits a Catholic to sit in Parliament.  There could be no such law; because it is impossible to find out what passes in the interior of any man’s mind....  The Catholic is excluded from Parliament because he will not swear that he disbelieves the leading doctrines of his religion.  The Catholic asks you to abolish some oaths which oppress him; your answer is, that he does not respect oaths.  Then why subject him to the test of oaths?  The oaths keep him out of Parliament; why, then he respects them.  Turn which way you will, either your laws are nugatory, or the Catholic is bound by religious obligations as you are.”

From Roman Catholics in general, Peter now turns to the Roman Catholics of Ireland.—­

“The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence, and common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants and the fatuity of idiots.  Whatever your opinion may be of the follies of the Roman Catholic religion, remember they are the follies of four millions of human beings, increasing rapidly in numbers, wealth and intelligence, who, if firmly united