has not arisen from any means which were in existence at the time when you were in office, and which there had been then any indisposition or objection to direct to that object, but it has grown out of events which have subsequently occurred, and which may place at the disposal of government means which were at that time unavoidably applied to another service.

As this letter is merely explanatory, I will not give you the trouble of returning any answer to it; but I am sure you will see the justice and propriety of considering it as a part of the correspondence which has passed between us on the subject to which it relates.

1 am, &c. (Signed) LIVERPOOL. Marquis Wellesley, K. G.

No. 6.

Copy of Lord Wellesley's Reply to Lord Liverpool's Explanatory Letter of the 19th May, 1812.

Apsley House, May 21, 1912. My dear Lord,-Although you have had the goodness to dispense with my returning any answer to your letter of the 19th inst. some further observations on my part may, perhaps, contribute to promote the professed object of that letter, by explaining and correcting whatever may appear doubtful or erroneous in the course of our recent correspondence.

When you informed me, that your opinion upon the claims of the Roman Catholics remained unchanged, and that you were not aware of any change in the opinion of your colleagues on that subject, I certainly concluded, that the policy which has been pursued during

the present session of parliament, would be continued by the new cabinet. Subsequent reflection satisfies me, that such a conclusion was just and reasonable; nor can F admit, that I have fallen into any misapprehension of that system of policy, when I have described it as consisting, not only in the de nial of any present relief to the Roman Catholics, but even a pei remptory refusal to consider the state of the law which affects their civil condition.

Whatever may be the different character or complexion of the opinions of the several members of the present cabinet, the practical result has been to pursue the course which I have described, during the present session of parliament; and your explanation on this point closes with an admission that you are all agreed to continue the same policy in the present mo ment.

No suggestion is made of the time or circumstances, in which any alteration of this system of po icy can be expected; no prospect is afforded of any conciliatory proceeding, which might tend to open the way to an amicable settlement; and, while a desire of hearing specific propositions of security is pro fessed, the very consideration of the question is denied to parliament, and is not pursued by any other authority.

This statement is no misappre bension of the tenor of your explanatory letter; and in such a state of the practical consequences of the united councils of the present cabinet, it may be deemed superfluous to analyze individual sefitiments.

This task (however useless with regard

regard to present practice) is required from me, by the strong protest which you have made against any inference to be drawn from any declaration of your's "that it is, or ever has been your opinion, that under no circumstances it would be possible to make any alteration in the laws, respecting the Roman Catholics." To this protest, you have added an assurance, "That upon the last occasion, on which the subject was discussed in parliament, you expressly stated that circumstances might arise in which, in your judgment, some alteration in those laws would be adviseable."

I confess freely to you, that I had always understood your recorded opinion on this subject in a very different sense: I had supposed, that you considered the disabilities imposed by statute upon the Roman Catholics, not as temporary and occasional securities, against a temporary and occasional danger, but as an integral and permanent part of the constitution in church and state, established at the revolution.

In this opinion, I had always understood, that several of the principal members of the present cabinet concurred with you; and that you feit, in common, an apprehension, that the removal of any im portant part of this system of restraint would endanger the foundations of the establishment of our laws, liberties, and religion.

Viewing in this light your sentiments, and those of the respectable persons to whom I refer, I am persuaded that I shall not be sus pected of intending to cast any reflection upon the honour or honesty of those principles, or of the persons who maintain them.

I have ever considered those principles to be pure and honest in the minds in which I supposed them to reside; and, while I gave full credit to their sincerity, I lamented their erroneous foundation and dangerous tendency.

I must further declare, that from some accident, I did not hear the statement in parliament to which you refer, as having been made by you, on the last occasion in the House of Lords.

I now, however, understand your opinion to be, that circumstances may arise, in which, in your judgTM ment, some alteration would be advisable in the laws affecting the Roman Catholics.

I should be desirous of urging the same inquiry respecting circum stances, which you have made respecting securities; and I should bẹ anxious to hear the specific statement of all, or any of those cir cumstances, under which you would advise any alteration in the laws respecting the Roman Catholics.

The explanation which you require respecting securities, is attainable only by a full consideration and discussion of the whole subject; and I therefore view the declared intention of resisting the first step towards such a discussion, as an effectual barrier against that explanation, which you consider to be the necessary preliminary to any alteration of the existing sta

tutes.

The details of your reasoning on this part of the question render the prospect of any settlement utterly hopeless.. You require a change. in the state of the opinions, teelings, conduct, and temper of the Roman Catholics, as a preliminary,

even to the consideration of the causes of their complaints. But is it possible to expect effectual change in the temper of the Roman Catholic body, while you refuse even to inquire into the nature of their grievances?

The repeated rejection of their claim, without any other deliberation than that which has arisen on the mere question of taking the petition into consideration, is not a course of proceeding calculated to mitigate the severity of disappoint

ment.

"Reason and moderation must appear in our consideration of their prayer, if we hope to infuse those qualities into their proceedings.

You require, also, a change in the circumstances of Europe.-Ignorant of the events which may have furnished any hope of such a change, since I had the honour of a share in his Royal Highness's councils, I must consider the determination to delay this interesting question, until Europe shall have assumed a new aspect, as a virtual negative upon the substance of the claim; and I feel this point with a greater degree of pain, because I am convinced, that the continuance of Ireland in her present condition, must protract, if not perp tuate, the present unhappy condition of Europe.

But, until these preliminaries shall have been established, you declare, that it will be your duty to resist parliamentary inquiry, which, in your judgment, could be productive of no other effect, than to alarm the Protestants, and to delude the Roman Catholics." At the same time, you offer no hope, that the means of relief will be opened by any other authority.

I cannot understand through" what channel of reason, or passion, the Protestants should be alarmed, or the Catholics deluded, by a full and fair consideration of the stateof the laws affecting the latter body. Indeed, I cannot conceive any proceeding so likely to remove alarm, and prevent delusion, as that which appears to you likely to create both.

On the other hand, I apprehend much more danger, both of alarm and of delusion, from any system of measures to be founded on the ge." neral and indistinct terms, in which you state, that "circumstances may arise, in which some alteration in the laws would be advisable."

You refer to considerations of a "very high importance," which, until a very late period of time, have precluded the executive government and parliament from entertaining this measure; and you suggest, that in the opinion of some persons, these considerations have not lost their weight.

I presume, that you refer to the sentiments of the mo-t exalted and venerable authority in these realms, on the claims of his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects.

As your letter seems to bear some reference to the course of my conduct in parliament, and in his Majesty's councils on this subject, I avail myself of this opportunity to explain the motives, both of my former silence, and of the recest declaration of my sentiments.

At the remote period of the year 1797, upon the eve of my depar ture for India, I stated to the late Mr. Pitt my solicitude, that he should direct his attention to 'the settlement of Ireland; and I ex-" pressed

pressed to him my conviction, that Ireland could neither be happily settled, nor firmly united to Great Britain, without a concurrent settlement of the claims of his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects. The opinions which I declared to Mr. Pitt, at that time, respecting the substance of those claims, were precisely similar to those which I have stated in the House of Lords during the present session of parliament.

It is not necessary to enter upon any review of the transactions which passed during my absence in India, with relation to Ireland, or to the claims of the Roman Catholics.

I arrived from India in the month of January, 1806; and after one short interview with Mr. Pitt, I assisted in performing the last sad office of following his remains to the grave.

You are aware, that long before that period of time, the " high considerations" to which you refer, had been fixed in full force; that no attempt to change those sentiments could have been made with any prospect of successs; and that the result, even of a successful proceeding in parliament, would have tended only to produce the most dreadful extremity of confusion.

You must remember, that I have always lamented (as serious national calamities, menacing the constitution of the monarchy) the reference, which has necessarily been made to the existence of those personal sentiments, and the causes which have occasioned that necessity.

With the warmest sentiments of personal veneration, attachment, and gratitude, my opinion has al

ways been, that the duty of loyalty and affection towards a British sovereign does not consist in submissive obedience, even to the honest prejudices or errors of the royal mind, but rather in respectful endeavours to remove those prejudices and errors, by free advice in council, and by temperate remonstrance in Parliament.

But the time for such endea-, vours had passed: and I submitted reluctantly, not to my sense of the genuine duty of a faithful coonsellor towards his sovereign, but to. the painful, and, by me, irreversible necessity of the case.

This is a subject of the utmost, of the most perilous delicacy :-your letter has opened it :-I will pursue it no, further than to assure you, that when, on the 31st of January, I declared in the House of Lords, my sentiments respecting the Roman Catholic claims, the necessity which had occasioned my silence appeared to me to have en-. tirely ceased.

The second point of your explanatory letter refers to the management of the war in the Peninsula.

Your suggestions are necessarily indistinct, with regard to the additional means (which have occurred since my resignation), of extending our military efforts in that quarter: I think I can collect even from your hints, that although those means are extraneous, the probability of their existence might have been foreseen, as the natural result of instructions which were in progress of execution previously to my resignation.

But my objection to the system pursued in the Peninsula, at the time of my resignation, was applied to the whole frame and fabric

of

No. 1. Minute of Mr. Canning's Communication to the Earl of Liverpool, May 23d.

Fife House, May 23d, 1812. The Prince Regent having laid his commands on Lord Wellesley to form a plan of an administration, to be submitted for his Royal Highness's approbation, Mr. Canning was requested by Lord Wellesley, (as the channel of communication thought likely to be most agreeable to Lord Liverpool,) to inquire of Lord Liverpool, whether there would be a disposition on the part of Lord Liverpool, and of his colleagues, or of any of them, to entertain any proposal which should be made to them for forming part of such an adminis

tration.

The principles upon which the administration was intended to be formed, were stated to be,

1st. The taking into the early and serious consideration of the executive government the state of the laws affecting the Roman Catholics, with a sincere and earnest desire to bring that important question to a final and satisfactory settlement.

2dly. The prosecution of the war in the Peninsula, with the best means of the country.

It was stated that there would be the strongest wish to compre hend in the arrangement, without any individual or party exclusion whatever, as many as possible of such persons as might be able to agree in giving their public service to the country on these two principles.

With respect to the distribution of offices, it was stated that nothing of any sort was decided, or stipulated; but that every thing would be open to be arranged to the honour and satisfaction of all parties.

No. 2. Lord Liverpool's Letter to Mr. Canning, May 23d.

Fife House, May 23d, 1812. My dear Canning, I have communicated to my colleagues the memorandum which I received from you this afternoon.

They do not think it necessary to enter into any discussion of the principles stated in that me moranduni, because they all feel themselves bound, particularly af ter what has recently passed, to decline the proposal of becoming members of an administration to be formed by Lord Wellesley.

Believe me, &c. &c.

LIVERPOOL.