JET. 51.] CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. 513 



sioners) are scattered up and down Ireland. This 

 and all the other bad features of the case, he says, are 

 well known to Government; and he describes Hardinge 

 (whom he has seen) as extremely well informed on 

 the nature and extent of the danger, which, I take 

 it, includes some considerable uncertainty as to the 

 Koman Catholics among the soldiers. 



" His (Parneirs) belief is that some measure will be 

 tried, and is in agitation, and that all these confer- 

 ences with bishops and archbishops mean this. In 

 fact, if the Duke of Wellington intends doing any- 

 thing, they are the very gentry he would begin with, 

 because of the expediency of finding what securities, 

 &c. they would require. He (Parnell) agrees, how- 

 ever, as to the necessity of keeping no terms, if either 

 nothing or as bad as nothing is done. 



" The accounts are various of what is to be tried. 

 Some say the whole measure with the wing ; others 

 the whole except Parliament (! ! !), with the same 

 wing; others, this fraction without the wing.* To 

 be sure, if Parliament is to be cut out of it, there 

 is no great matter whether they add the wing or 

 not. Others, again, say Parliament, but not offices. 

 I suppose no one can doubt that it is not to be 

 treated as emancipation at all, or as amounting to 

 anything like it, if Parliament be not a part of it. 

 But I should feel much greater difficulty if either the 

 whole, or even Parliament without offices, were offered 

 clogged with the 40s. wing. I opposed that wing with 

 you in 1825, and assuredly what has since happened 



* The bill disfranchising the 40s. freeholders. This and the bill for 

 suppressing the Catholic Association were popularly called "The 

 Wings." 



VOL. IT. 2 K 



