would fall in with France, would declare indepen dence, and draw or force our colonies into the fame defign. The independence happened according to his prediction; but in directly the reverfe order. All our English Proteftant colonies revolted. They joined themfelves to France; and it fo happened that Popish Canada was the only place which preferved its fidelity; the only place in which France got no footing; the only peopled colony which now remains to Great Britain. Vain are all the prognoflics taken from ideas and paffions, which furvive the ftate of things which gave rife to them. When laft year we gave a popular reprefentation to the fame Canada, by the choice of the landholders, and an ariftocratic reprefentation, at the choice of the crown, neither was the choice of the crown, nor the election of the landholders, limited by a confideration of religion. We had no dread for the Proteftant church, which we fettled there, because we permitted the French Catholics, in the utmoft latitude of the defcription, to be free fubjects. They are good fubjects, I have no doubt; but I will not allow that any French Canadian Catholics are better men or better citizens than the Irish of the fame communion. Paffing from the extremity of the weft, to the extremity almost of the eaft; I have been many years (now entering into the twelfth) employed in fupporting the rights, privileges, laws and immunities of a very remote people. I have not as yet been able to finish my task. I have ftruggled through much difcouragement and much oppofition; much obloquy; much calumny, for a people with whom I have no tie, but the common bond of mankind. In this I have not been left alone. We did not fly from our undertaking because the people are Mahometans or Pagans, and that a great majority of the Chriftians amongst them are Papiits. Some gentle- ' men in Ireland, I dare fay, have good reafons for what

they

I do not

they may do, which do not occur to me. prefume to condemn them; but thinking and acting, as I have done, towards thefe remote nations, I fhould not know how to fhew my face, here or in Ireland, if I fhould fay that all the Pagans, all the Muffulmen, and even all the Papifts (fince they muft form the higheft ftage in the climax of evil) are worthy of a liberal and honourable condition, except those of one of the defcriptions, which forms the majority of the inhabitants of the country in which you

and I were born. If fuch are the Catholics of Ireland,-ill-natured and unjust people, from our own data, may be inclined not to think better of the Proteftants of a foil, which is fuppofed, to infufe into its fects a kind of venom unknown in other places.

You hated the old fyftem as early as I did. Your firft juvenile lance was broken against that giant. I think you were even the firft who attacked the grim phantom. You have an exceeding good underftanding, very good humour, and the beft heart in the world. The dictates of that temper and that heart, as well as the policy pointed out by that underftanding, led you to abhor the old code. You abhorred it, as I did, for its vicious perfection. For I must do it juftice it was a complete fyftem, full of coherence and confiftency; well digefted and well compofed in all its parts. It was a machine of wife and elaborate contrivance; and as well fitted for the oppreffion, impoverishment, and degradation of a pecple, and the debafement, in them, of human nature itfelf, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man. It is a thing humiliating enough, that we are doubtful of the effect of the medicines we compound. We are fure of our poifons. My opinion ever was (in which I heartily agreed with thofe that admired the old code) that it was fo conftructed, that if there was once a breach in any effe.tial part

of

of it; the ruin of the whole, or nearly of the whole, was, at fome time or other, a certainty. For that reafon I honour and fhall for ever honour and love you, and thofe who firft caufed it to ftagger, crack, and gape.-Others may finish; the beginners have the glory; and, take what part you please at this hour, (I think you will take the best) your firft fervices will never be forgotten by a grateful country. Adicu! Prefent my beft regards to thofe I know, and as many as I know in our country, I honour. There never was fo much ability, or I believe, virtue, in it. They have a tafk worthy of both. I doubt not they will perform it, for the ftability of the church and ftate, and for the union of the honest and peaceable of all sects; for their separation from all that is ill-intentioned and feditious in any of them.

BEACONSFIELD,

January 3, 1792.

FINI S.

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