In the state of my mind, so discordant with the tone of ministers, and still more discordant with the tone of opposition, you may judge what degree of weight I am likely to have with either of the parties who divide this kingdom,—­even though I were endowed with strength of body, or were possessed of any active situation in the government, which might give success to my endeavors.  But the fact is, since the day of my unspeakable calamity, except in the attentions of a very few old and compassionate friends, I am totally out of all social intercourse.  My health has gone down very rapidly; and I have been brought hither with very faint hopes of life, and enfeebled to such a degree as those who had known me some time ago could scarcely think credible.  Since I came hither, my sufferings have been greatly aggravated, and my little strength still further reduced; so that, though I am told the symptoms of my disorder begin to carry a more favorable aspect, I pass the far larger part of the twenty-four hours, indeed almost the whole, either in my bed or lying upon the couch from which I dictate this.  Had you been apprised of this circumstance, you could not have expected anything, as you seem to do, from my active exertions.  I could do nothing, if I was still stronger, not even si meus adforet Hector.

There is no hope for the body of the people of Ireland, as long as those who are in power with you shall make it the great object of their policy to propagate an opinion on this side of the water that the mass of their countrymen are not to be trusted by their government, and that the only hold which England has upon Ireland consists in preserving a certain very small number of gentlemen in full possession of a monopoly of that kingdom.  This system has disgusted many others besides Catholics and Dissenters.

As to those who on your side are in the opposition to government, they are composed of persons several of whom I love and revere.  They have been irritated by a treatment too much for the ordinary patience of mankind to bear into the adoption of schemes which, however argumentatively specious, would go practically to the inevitable ruin of the kingdom.  The opposition always connects the emancipation of the Catholics with these schemes of reformation:  indeed, it makes the former only a member of the latter project.  The gentlemen who enforce that opposition are, in my opinion, playing the game of their adversaries with all their might; and there is no third party in Ireland (nor in England neither) to separate things that are in themselves so distinct,—­I mean the admitting people to the benefits of the Constitution, and a change in the form of the Constitution itself.