on inquiry, that such a thing was mentioned, or even remotely alluded to, in the general meeting of the Catholics from which so much violence was apprehended.  I have considered the other publications, signed by individuals on the part of certain societies,—­I may mistake, for I have not the honor of knowing them personally, but I take Mr. Butler and Mr. Tandy not to be Catholics, but members of the Established Church.  Not one that I recollect of these publications, which you and I equally dislike, appears to be written by persons of that persuasion.  Now, if, whilst a man is dutifully soliciting a favor from Parliament, any person should choose in an improper manner to show his inclination towards the cause depending, and if that must destroy the cause of the petitioner, then, not only the petitioner, but the legislature itself, is in the power of any weak friend or artful enemy that the supplicant or that the Parliament may have.  A man must be judged by his own actions only.  Certain Protestant Dissenters make seditious propositions to the Catholics, which it does not appear that they have yet accepted.  It would be strange that the tempter should escape all punishment, and that he who, under circumstances full of seduction and full of provocation, has resisted the temptation should incur the penalty.  You know, that, with regard to the Dissenters, who are stated to be the chief movers in this vile scheme of altering the principles of election to a right of voting by the head, you are not able (if you ought even to wish such a thing) to deprive them of any part of the franchises and privileges which they hold on a footing of perfect equality with yourselves. They may do what they please with constitutional impunity; but the others cannot even listen with civility to an invitation from them to an ill-judged scheme of liberty, without forfeiting forever all hopes of any of those liberties which we admit to be sober and rational.

It is known, I believe, that the greater as well as the sounder part of our excluded countrymen have not adopted the wild ideas and wilder engagements which have been held out to them, but have rather chosen to hope small and safe concessions from the legal power than boundless objects from trouble and confusion.  This mode of action seems to me to mark men of sobriety, and to distinguish them from those who are intemperate, from circumstance or from nature.  But why do they not instantly disclaim and disavow those who make such advances to them?  In this, too, in my opinion, they show themselves no less sober and circumspect.  In the present moment nothing short of insanity could induce them to take such a step.  Pray consider the circumstances.  Disclaim, says somebody, all union with the Dissenters;—­right.—­But when this your injunction is obeyed, shall I obtain the object which I solicit from you?—­Oh, no, nothing at all like it!—­But, in punishing us, by an exclusion from the Constitution through the