“Suppose the person to whom he applied for the Meltings had withstood every plea of wife and fourteen children, no business, and good character, and had refused him this paltry little office, because he might hereafter attempt to get hold of the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster for life; would not Mr. Perceval have contended eagerly against the injustice of refusing moderate requests, because immoderate ones may hereafter be made?  Would he not have said (and said truly), ’Leave such exorbitant attempts as these to the general indignation of the Commons, who will take care to defeat them when they do occur; but do not refuse me the Irons and the Meltings now, because I may totally lose sight of all moderation hereafter’?”

Letter IV. begins with a reply to those who contended that England ought not to pay for the education of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland.

“The whole sum now appropriated by Government to the religious education of four millions of Christians is L13,000—­a sum about one hundred times as large being appropriated in the same country to about one-eighth part of this number of Protestants.  When it was proposed to raise this grant from L8000 to L13,000, its present amount, this sum was objected to by that most indulgent of Christians, Mr. Spencer Perceval, as enormous; he himself having secured for his own eating and drinking, and the eating and drinking of the Master and Miss Percevals, the reversionary sum of L21,000 a year of the public money,[48] and having just failed in a desperate and rapacious attempt to secure to himself for life the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster; and the best of it is, that this Minister, after abusing his predecessors for their impious bounty to the Catholics, has found himself compelled, from the apprehension of immediate danger, to grant the sum in question.”

Abraham now goes on to plead that our present relations with the Roman Catholics date from the Revolution of 1688, and that laws passed at that period are unalterable.  To this Peter replies:—­

“When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool....  Besides, it happens that, to the principal incapacities under which the Irish suffer, they were subjected after that great and glorious Revolution, to which we are indebted for so many blessings....  The Catholics were not excluded from the Irish House of Commons, or military commands, before the 3rd and 4th of William and Mary, and the 1st and 2nd of Queen Anne.”

Then he goes on to cite the example of Scotland.  There the English government had, in times past, tried to force the national conscience in matters of faith and worship.  The government had failed, as it deserved to fail, for Scotland was resolute and rebellious.  Then “the true and only remedy was applied.  The Scotch were suffered to worship God after their own tiresome manner, without pain, penalty, and privation.”  And Scotland had become a contented, loyal, and profitable part of the United Kingdom.  Exactly the reverse was happening in Ireland.  A vehement hostility to the Union was spreading through all parts of the country and all classes of the people.