saw Sir G. Cooper. I possessed him of the danger of a partial, and the inevitable mischief of the total rejection of the Bill, I reminded him of the understood compact between parties, upon which the whole scheme of the Toleration, originating in the English Bill, was formed; of the fair part, which the Whigs had acted in a business, which, though first started by them, was supposed equally acceptable to all sides; and the risk of which they took upon themselves, when others declined it. To this I added such matter as I thought most fit to engage Government, as Government;-not to sport with a singular opportunity, which offered for the union of every description of men amongst us, in support of the common interest of the whole; and I ended by desiring to see Lord North upon the subject, Sir Grey Cooper showed a very right sense of the matter; and, in a few minutes after our conversation, I went down from the Treasury Chambers to Lord North's house. I had a great deal of discourse with him. He told me, that his ideas of toleration were large but that, large as they were, they did not comprehend a promiscuous establishment, even in matters merely civil: that he thought the established religion ought to be the religion of the State-that, in this idea, he was not for the repeal of the Sacramental Test:-that indeed he knew the Dissenters in general did not greatly scruple it--but that very want of scruple showed less zeal

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against the Establishment; and, after all, there could no provision be made by human laws against those, who made light of the Tests, which were formed to discriminate opinions. On all this he spoke with a good deal of temper. He did not, indeed, seem to think the Test itself, which was rightly considered by Dissenters as in a manner dispensed with by an annual Act of Parliament, and which in Ireland was of a late origin, and of much less extent than here, a matter of much moment. The thing, which seemed to affect him most, was the offence, that would be taken at the repeal by the leaders among the Church Clergy here, on one hand, and on the other the steps, which would be taken for its repeal in England in the next Session, in consequence of the repeal in Ireland. I assured him, with great truth, that we had no idea among the Whigs of moving the repeal of the Test. I confessed very freely, for my own part, that if it were brought in, I should certainly vote for it; but that I should neither use, nor did I think applicable, any arguments drawn from the analogy of what was done in other parts of the British dominions. We did not argue from analogy, even in this Island and United Kingdom. Presbytery was established in Scotland. It became no reason either for its religious or civil establishment here. In New England the Independent Congregational Churches had an established legal maintenance; whilst that country continued part of the British Empire, no argument in favour

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of Independency was adduced from the practice of New England. Government itself lately thought fit to establish the Roman Catholick religion in Canada; but they would not suffer an argument of analogy to be used for its establishment any where else. These things were governed, as all things of that nature are governed, not by general maxims, but their own local and peculiar circumstances. Finding, however, that, though he was very cool and patient, I made no great way in the business of the Dissenters, I turned myself to. try whether, falling in with his maxims, some modification might not be found, the hint of which I received, from your Letter relative to the Irish Militia Bill, and the point I laboured was so to alter the Clause, as to repeal the Test quoad Military and Revenue Offices. For these being only subservient parts in the economy and execution, rather than the administration, of affairs, the politick, civil and judicial parts would still continue in the hands of the Conformists to religious establishments:—without giving any hopes, he however said, that this distinction deserved to be considered.

After this, I strongly pressed the mischief of rejecting the whole Bill:--that a notion went abroad, that Government was not at this moment very well pleased with the Dissenters, as not very well affected to the Monarchy:-that, in general, I conceived this to be a mistake,-but if it were not,

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the rejection of a Bill in favour of others, because something in favour of them was inserted, instead of humbling and mortifying, would infinitely exalt them. For if the Legislature had no means of favouring those, whom they meant to favour, as long as the Dissenters could find means to get themselves included, this would make them, instead of their only being subject to restraint them selves, the arbitrators of the fate of others, and that, not so much by their own strength (which could not be prevented in its operation) as by the co-operation of those, whom they opposed. In the conclusion I recommended, that if they wished well to the measure, which was the main object of the Bill, they must explicitly make it their own, and stake themselves upon it; that hitherto all their difficulties had arisen from their indecision, and their wrong measures; and, to make Lord North sensible of the necessity of giving a firm support to some part of the Bill, and to add weighty authority to my reasons, I read him your Letter of the 10th of July. It seemed, in some measure, to answer the purpose, which I intended. I pressed the necessity of the management of the affair, both as to conduct and as to gaining of men; and I renewed my former advice, that the Lord Lieutenant should be instructed to consult and cooperate with you in the whole affair. All this was, apparently, very fairly taken.

In the evening of that day I saw the Lord Chancellor. With him, too, I had much discourse. You know, that he is intelligent, sagacious, systematick and determined. At first he seemed of opinion, that the relief contained in the Bill was so inadequate to the mass of oppression it was intended to remove, that it would be better to let it stand over, until a more perfect and better digested plan could be settled. This seemed to possess him very strongly. In order to combat this notion, and to show, that the Bill, all things considered, was a very great acquisition, and that it was rather a preliminary, than an obstruction, to relief, I ventured to show, him your Letter. It had its effect. He declared himself roundly against giving any thing to a confederacy, real or apparent, to distress Government: that if any thing was done for Catholicks or Dissenters, it should be done on its own separate merits, and not by way of bargain and compromise:--that they should be each of them obliged to Government, not each to the other :that this would be a perpetual nursery of faction. In a word, he seemed so determined on not uniting these plans, that all I could say, and I said every thing I could think of, was to no purpose. But when I insisted on the disgrace to Government, which must arise from their rejecting a proposition recommended by themselves, because their opposers had made a mixture, separable too by themselves,