I meant to write you a long letter: I
have written a long dissertation. I might have done it earlier and
better. I might have been more forcible and more clear, if I had not
been interrupted as I have been; and this obliges me not to write to you
in my own hand. Though my hand but signs it, my heart goes with what I
have written. Since I could think at all, those have been my thoughts.
You know that thirty-two years ago they were as fully matured in my mind
as they are now. A letter of mine to Lord Kenmare, though not by my
desire, and full of lesser mistakes, has been printed in Dublin. It was
written ten or twelve years ago, at the time when I began the
employment, which I have not yet finished, in favor of another
distressed people, injured by those who have vanquished them, or stolen
a dominion over them. It contained my sentiments then: you will see how
far they accord with my sentiments now. Time has more and more confirmed
me in them all. The present circumstances fix them deeper in my mind.
I voted last session, if a particular vote could be distinguished in
unanimity, for an establishment of the Church of England _conjointly_
with the establishment, which was made some years before by act of
Parliament, of the Roman Catholic, in the French conquered country of
Canada.
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