seem to me absolutely impossible but that we must perish; and take
this with you, that we shall perish without exciting the slightest
feeling of present or future compassion, but fall amidst the
hootings and revilings of Europe, as a nation of blockheads,
Methodists, and old women. If there were any great scenery, any
heroic feelings, any blaze of ancient virtue, any exalted death, any
termination of England that would be ever remembered, ever honoured
in that western world, where liberty is now retiring, conquest would
be more tolerable, and ruin more sweet; but it is doubly miserable
to become slaves abroad, because we would be tyrants at home; to
persecute, when we are contending against persecution; and to
perish, because we have raised up worse enemies within, from our own
bigotry, than we are exposed to without, from the unprincipled
ambition of France. It is indeed a most silly and affecting
spectacle to rage at such a moment against our own kindred and our
own blood; to tell them they cannot be honourable in war, because
they are conscientious in religion; to stipulate (at the very moment
when we should buy their hearts and swords at any price) that they
must hold up the right hand in prayer, and not the left; and adore
one common God, by turning to the east rather than to the west.

What is it the Catholics ask of you? Do not exclude us from the
honours and emoluments of the state because we worship God in one
way, and you worship Him in another. In a period of the deepest
peace, and the fattest prosperity, this would be a fair request; it
should be granted, if Lord Hawkesbury had reached Paris, if Mr.
Canning's interpreter had threatened the Senate in an opening
speech, or Mr. Perceval explained to them the improvements he meant
to introduce into the Catholic religion; but to deny the Irish this
justice now, in the present state of Europe, and in the summer