of taking tithes: the only mode of discovering that fervid love of
decimation which I know you to possess would be to tender you an
oath "against that damnable doctrine, that it is lawful for a
spiritual man to take, abstract, appropriate, subduct, or lead away
the tenth calf, sheep, lamb, ox, pigeon, duck," &c., &c., &c., and
every other animal that ever existed, which of course the lawyers
would take care to enumerate. Now this oath I am sure you would
rather die than take; and so the Catholic is excluded from
Parliament because he will not swear that he disbelieves the leading
doctrines of his religion! The Catholic asks you to abolish some
oaths which oppress him; your answer is that he does not respect
oaths. Then why subject him to the test of oaths? The oaths keep
him out of Parliament; why, then, he respects them. Turn which way
you will, either your laws are nugatory, or the Catholic is bound by
religious obligations as you are; but no eel in the well-sanded fist
of a cook-maid, upon the eve of being skinned, ever twisted and
writhed as an orthodox parson does when he is compelled by the gripe
of reason to admit anything in favour of a dissenter.

I will not dispute with you whether the Pope be or be not the
Scarlet Lady of Babylon. I hope it is not so; because I am afraid
it will induce His Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer to
introduce several severe bills against popery, if that is the case;
and though he will have the decency to appoint a previous committee
of inquiry as to the fact, the committee will be garbled, and the
report inflammatory. Leaving this to be settled as he pleases to
settle it, I wish to inform you, that, previously to the bill last
passed in favour of the Catholics, at the suggestion of Mr. Pitt,
and for his satisfaction, the opinions of six of the most celebrated
of the foreign Catholic universities were taken as to the right of