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A

LETTER

то

A PEER OF IRELAND,

ON THE

PENAL LAWS

AGAINST

IRISH CATHOLICS;

PREVIOUS TO THE LATE REPEAL OF A PART THEREOF, IN THE SESSION OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT, HELD A. D. 1782.

MY LORD,

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Charles-ftreet, London, Feb. 21, 1782.

A M obliged to your lordship for your communication of the heads of Mr. Gardiner's bill. I had received it, in an earlier ftage of its progrefs, from Mr. Braughall; and I am fill in that gentleman's debt, as I have not made him the proper return for the favour he has done me. Bufinefs, to which I was more immediately called, and in which my fentiments had the weight of one vote, occupied me every moment fince I received his letter. This firft morning, which I can call my own, I give with great chearfulness to the fubject on which your lordfhip has done me the honour of defi.ing my opinion. I have read the heads of the bill, with the amendments. Your lordship is too well acquainted with men, and with affairs, to imagine that any true judgment can be formed on the value of a great measure of policy from the perufal of a piece of paper. At prefent I am much in the dark with regard to the ftate of the country, which the intended law is to be applied to *. It is not eafy for me to determine whether or no it was wife (for the fake. of expunging the black letter of laws, which, menacing as they were in the language, were every day fading into difufe) folemnly to re-affirm the principles, and to re-enact the provifions of a code of statutes, by which you are totally excluded from THE PRIVILEGES OF THE COMMON-WEALTH, from the highest to the loweft, from the molt material of the

The sketch of the bill fent to Mr. Burke, along with the repeal of fome acts, re-affirmed many others ine e: Lcode. It was altered afterwards, and the claufes refining the incapacities left out; but they all ftill exilt, and are in full force.

the civil profeffions, from the army, and even from education, where alone education is to be had.

Whether this fcheme of indulgence, grounded at once on contempt and je iloufy, has a tendency gradually to produce fomething better and more liberal, I cannot tell, for want of having the actual map of the country. If this fhould be the cafe, it was right in you to accept it, fuch as it is. But if this fhould be one of the experiments, which have fometimes been made before the temper of the nation was ripe for a real reformation, I think it may poffibly have ill effects, by difpofing the penal matter in a more fyftematic order, and thereby fixing a permanent_bar against any relief that is truly fubftantial. The whole merit or demerit of the measure depends upon the plans and difpofitions of thofe by whom the act was made, concurring with the general temper of the Proteftants of Ireland, and their aptitude to admit in time of fome part of that equality, without which you never can be FELLOW-CITIZENS.-Of all this I am wholly ignorant. All my correfpondence with men of public importance in Ireland has for fome time totally ceafed. On the first bill for the relief of the ROMAN CATHOLICS of Ireland, I was, without any call of mine, confulted both on your fide of the water and on this. On the prefent occafion, I have not heard a word from any man in office; and know as little of the intentions of the British government, as I know of the temper of the Irish parliament. I do not find that any oppofition was mace by the principal perfons of the minority in the houfe of commons, or that any is apprehended from them in the houfe of lords. The whole of the difficulty feems to lie with the principal men in government, under whofe protection this bill is fuppofed to be brought in. This violent oppofition and cordial fupport, coming from one and the same quarter, appears to me fomething myfterious, and hin

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