--
"I am much obliged by your polite letter. You appeal to my good-nature
to prevent me from considering your letter as a decent method of
putting me off. Your appeal, I assure you, is not made in vain. I do
not think you mean to put me off; because I am the most prominent, and
was for a long time the only, clerical advocate of that question, by
the proper arrangement of which you believe the happiness and safety
of the country would be materially improved. I do not believe you mean
to put me off; because, in giving me some promotion, you will teach
the clergy, from whose timidity you have everything to apprehend, and
whose influence upon the people you cannot doubt, that they may, under
your Government, obey the dictates of their consciences without
sacrificing the emoluments of their profession. I do not think you
mean to put me off; because, in the conscientious administration of
that patronage with which you are entrusted, I think it will occur to
you that something is due to a person who, instead of basely chiming
in with the bad passions of the multitude, has dedicated some talent
and some activity to soften religious hatreds, and to make men less
violent and less foolish than he found them."
In July he wrote to a friend:--
"The worst political news is that Canning is not well, and that the
Duke of Wellington has dined with the King.
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