letter. Such as I have represented them were the natural and existing securities which he unfolded to the view, and offered to the confidence of his Sovereign; such were the artificial ones which he proposed for his adoption. former were great, convincing, and impregnable; the latter meagre both in amount and importHe thought the concession of paramount

ance.

necessity:

"He proved it more in deed than word.”

The

He had long stood in the highest post of power and consideration which this country offers to a subject. With the exception of Napoleon alone, he filled the eye of the world more than any man in existence. He was not insensible to the gratifications of power; he was not deficient in ambition. But he relinquished this proud and commanding situation, because he was convinced that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland could not be well governed without the concession of the Catholic claims. "He trusts your Majesty will believe, "that every principle of duty, gratitude, and "attachment, must make him look to your

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Majesty's ease and satisfaction, in preference "to all considerations, but those arising from a "sense of what, in his honest opinion, is due to "the real interest of your Majesty and your

"dominions."* Still he "finds himself obliged "to add, that this opinion is unalterably fixed "in his mind. It must, therefore, ultimately "guide his political conduct."† The experience of six-and-twenty years has but too amply, and too miserably, proved the justice of his views.

There are three corollaries which necessarily follow from the above view of Mr. Pitt's sentiments; on each of which, as they include points either of natural importance to the main question, or such as have assumed importance from the line which the controversy has taken, I must beg to have a few words.

The first is, that Mr. Pitt clearly did not contemplate the veto on the appointment of Catholic bishops as a part of his proposed measure. On an occasion when he descends to the minute detail of applying a test to schoolmasters, and when he proposes means for prospectively influencing the Catholic clergy in Ireland, he would not have omitted to notice a security of so much greater consequence. Lord Grenville, indeed, as quoted in your pamphlet, ‡ seems to intimate, that such an arrangement was contemplated at the period of the Union, and that there was reason to believe, that the matter might have been adjusted with the Catholics; but after a lapse of 案 Letters, &c. &c. p. 29. + Id. p. 33.

Letter I. p. 9.

eight years his lordship's memory may have deceived him, or he may have been ill reported. The negative testimony of Mr. Pitt's plans, as recorded by himself, is a much safer guide, and I think we cannot err in concluding, that either Mr. Pitt did not approve the veto as a security, or that, approving of it, he did not mention it to the King, because he was uncertain whether it would be conceded by the Catholics. If the latter be the correct supposition, he clearly did not consider it a sine quá non. Lord Grenville, who, as quoted in your Letter, says of himself and Mr. Pitt: "our opinions on this subject "were not only in complete unison, but I may "truly say they were formed together by mutual "communication and unreserved confidence;"* has proved by his subsequent conduct that he does not think it a sine quá non.

For myself, I must declare, that I think the effectual veto one of the most unsatisfactory and objectionable securities which could possibly be invented. An effectual veto is, in fact, the power of appointing Catholic bishops. It is all the power which the King of Great Britain possesses in the appointment of the GovernorGeneral of India; it is all, I believe, which he possesses in the appointment of the bishops of our own Establishment. Just in the same light, with reference to religious feelings, in *Letter I. p. 7.

which we Protestants should view the nomination of our bishops by a Catholic sovereign, must the Catholic consider the nomination of his by our Sovereign. We should consider such a concession on our part as most irreligious. He, if he has any religious feeling, must consider it the same. Were I a Catholic, I would strenuously use every lawful means in my power to escape from a ban, which debarred myself and my posterity from privileges, open to those of my own station in life, who are of another persuasion; but I would not purchase the escape by conceding the veto. I should consider the Catholic, who deliberately and advisedly made the concession,, as debased in religious feeling, and of suspicious political integrity; and I should be very far from thinking, that his qualifications for a seat in our legislature were thereby augmented. You, Sir, can see no reason why the Catholics should refuse obedience to the Pope's order to concede the veto, except that such obedience "would coincide with the claims of duty to their temporal sovereign."* I wonder you are not ashamed of such a pitiful affectation of loyalty. It is no more the duty

* "Such was the language of Pius VII. himself on this "subject. But even the mandates from Rome are deemed "by your Irish friends unworthy of their attention, when "they coincide with the claims of duty to their temporal 'sovereign."-Letter I. p. 63.

of the Catholics to allow the King to appoint their bishops, than it is your duty to allow him to appoint a tutor to your children If there could be degrees of nothingness, it is less so. You would only make a sacrifice of personal independence. They would make a sacrifice of religion.

My second corollary is, that from the following sentence in Mr. Pitt's letter, it is quite clear, that he knew nothing of the new light respecting the transubstantiation oath, which you have let in on us on the authority of Father Walsh:*. “That if such an oath, containing (among other "provisions) a denial of the power of absolu❝tion from its obligations, is not a security "from Catholics, the sacramental test is not "more so." +

I am not so rash as to oppose myself to you on a point of ecclesiastical history, but I may

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"Father Walsh has told us, that there are tenets which, by the indispensable condition of Roman Catholic communion, may not be dissembled upon oath, and that "transubstantiation is one of them; (as well, I suppose, as every other article of Pius IV.'s Creed.) He has, more"over, told us, that to another class of oaths the same "sacredness of obligation does not belong,-that to them equivocation and mental reservation may be very safely applied,—and that this is especially the case with oaths of "allegiance or supremacy taken to the king. I heartily con"gratulate you, Sir, on a discovery so honourable to the persons, whose cause you support."—Letter I. p. 78. + Letters, &c. &c. p. 31.

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