of favoring those whom they meant to favor, as long as the Dissenters could find means to get themselves included, this would make them, instead of their only being subject to restraint themselves, the arbitrators of the fate of others, and that not so much by their own strength (which could not be prevented in its operation) as by the cooeperation of those whom they opposed.  In the conclusion, I recommended, that, if they wished well to the measure which was the main object of the bill, they must explicitly make it their own, and stake themselves upon it; that hitherto all their difficulties had arisen from their indecision and their wrong measures; and to make Lord North sensible of the necessity of giving a firm support to some part of the bill, and to add weighty authority to my reasons, I read him your letter of the 10th of July.  It seemed, in some measure, to answer the purpose which I intended.  I pressed the necessity of the management of the affair, both as to conduct and as to gaining of men; and I renewed my former advice, that the Lord Lieutenant should be instructed to consult and cooperate with you in the whole affair.  All this was, apparently, very fairly taken.

In the evening of that day I saw the Lord Chancellor.  With him, too, I had much discourse.  You know that he is intelligent, sagacious, systematic, and determined.  At first he seemed of opinion that the relief contained in the bill was so inadequate to the mass of oppression it was intended to remove, that it would be better to let it stand over, until a more perfect and better digested plan could be settled.  This seemed to possess him very strongly.  In order to combat this notion, and to show that the bill, all things considered, was a very great acquisition, and that it was rather a preliminary than an obstruction to relief, I ventured to show him your letter.  It had its effect.  He declared himself roundly against giving anything to a confederacy, real or apparent, to distress government; that, if anything was done for Catholics or Dissenters, it should be done on its own separate merits, and not by way of bargain and compromise; that they should be each of them obliged to government, not each to the other; that this would be a perpetual nursery of faction.  In a word, he seemed so determined on not uniting these plans, that all I could say, and I said everything I could think of, was to no purpose.  But when I insisted on the disgrace to government which must arise from their rejecting a proposition recommended by themselves, because their opposers had made a mixture, separable too by themselves, I was better heard.  On the whole, I found him well disposed.