You say, favourably enough for your own Disposition, that you have long looked on the _Roman-Catholics_ of these Kingdoms as a discountenanced and pitiable People. That you would choose to allow to others the same Latitude of Conscience that you like for yourself. That it is not a Part of Humanity to break a Reed already bruised. That such a Treatment would be blameable respecting any Individual; how much more so, in Prejudice of a whole People. That those Papers are pointed with a Keenness of Enmity, for which the Talents, which you are pleased to ascribe, cannot sufficiently apologize. And, that you did not think me capable of exasperating Government and Power against a Set of Men who were already under the Displeasure and Depression of the Law. These, my dear Friend, are home and heavy Accusations, however tempered by Expressions of Kindness and Affection from the Man whom I sincerely love and respect. But, if I know any-thing of myself, the Quality, called Ill-nature, is not my Characteristic. I would not exchange one Grain of Good-heart for all the Wit of a _C----d_ or Comprehension of a _P--tt_, independent of their Virtue. And I may say, with great Truth, that an Excess of Humanity hath occasioned all the Misfortunes and Distresses of my Life. I most solemnly assure you, that when I wrote those Letters I was in perfect Love and Charity with every _Roman Catholic_ in the Kingdom of _Ireland_. I knew that they were a depressed People. I had long pitied them as such. I was sensible that the Laws, under which they suffered, had been enacted by our Ancestors, when the Impressions of Hostility were fresh and warm, and when Passion, if I may venture to say so, co-operated, in some Measure, with Utility and Reason. I will go a Step further. I thought those Laws not severe enough to suppress them as Enemies, nor yet sufficiently favourable to attach them to us as Friends. They were not so cruel as, wholly, to serve for quelling; and yet they had a Poignancy that might tend to provoke. And all this I imputed to the Resentment that was blended with the Humanity of our Ancestors. Their Humanity left to Papists a Power of hurting, while their Resentment abridged the Inducements that might engage them to serve us. Believe me, Sir, I never was of a cruel or persecuting Disposition. I was grieved to see the Discouragements under which the _Roman Catholics_ of this Kingdom laboured, but these very Discouragements made me fear them the more.