JET. 51.] THE CATHOLIC QUESTION. 5OI 



considered as affording the first indications of his opin- 

 ions Arbuthnot, for instance, Sir Henry Hardinge, Sir 

 George Murray, and even Lord Lyndhurst would 

 lead to the same conclusion. Add to this the way in 

 which the places in the Government have been filled 

 up or kept vacant ; none of the appointments having 

 been anti-Catholic, and all of them seeming to indicate 

 a reservation of the means of making a future and 

 more permanent arrangement. 



" To this, however, is to be set in opposition the 

 ignorance in which we are kept as to the Duke's ulti- 

 mate views, at a time which seems to call for an 

 immediate declaration of them. His difficulties, no 

 doubt, must be very great with the King, the state of 

 whose health must latterly have made any decisive 

 explanation impossible. My last account was dated 

 Wednesday last. He was then still confined to his 

 bed, where he had been for three weeks, not only with 

 gout, but with an inflammation on the chest. No 

 alarm was expressed ; but considering both the subject 

 and the nature of the complaint, there must have been 

 ground for anxiety; and we know, even when all 

 uneasiness may have passed away, how readily his 

 Majesty can avail himself of a plea of this nature to 

 avoid any disagreeable discussion. 



" In the mean time the proceedings of Lord Anglesey 

 and the speech of Dawson must have added to the 

 embarrassments of the Government, if they had any 

 right measures in view, by calling into action all the 

 violence of the high Protestant party. But a difficulty 

 is not lessened by standing still and staring at it ; and 

 a difficulty of this nature required the most prompt 

 and vigorous measures to counteract it. 



