Setting, therefore, this case out of the question, it becomes an object
of very serious consideration, whether, because wicked men of _various_
descriptions are engaged in seditious courses, the rational, sober, and
valuable part of _one_ description should not be indulged in their sober
and rational expectations. You, who have looked deeply into the spirit
of the Popery laws, must be perfectly sensible that a great part of the
present mischief which we abhor in common (if it at all exists) has
arisen from them. Their declared object was, to reduce the Catholics of
Ireland to a miserable populace, without property, without estimation,
without education. The professed object was, to deprive the few men,
who, in spite of those laws, might hold or obtain any property amongst
them, of all sort of influence or authority over the rest. They divided
the nation into two distinct bodies, without common interest, sympathy,
or connection. One of these bodies was to possess _all_ the franchises,
_all_ the property, _all_ the education: the other was to be composed of
drawers of water and cutters of turf for them.
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