Everything I see and everything I hear contribute to make me more and more sanguine respecting the Catholic question. The tide clearly sets at present in its favour, and the King's good inclinations are every day more and more surmised. The principal defalcation of strength which we have to apprehend arises from the present disjointed and divided state of the Opposition, the members of which are outrageous against each other, and, according to Macdonald's report, may be expected by the next Session to split into three or more distinct parties. He did not specify either the persons likely to form these, or the points in dispute. At present one can only see the Mountain and their lukewarm coadjutors; but what the third is to be, remains to be shown. The amendments which you suggest to the Catholic Bills appear to me, in general, improvements, with the exception of the addition of the Chancellorship of Ireland to the excepted offices, and the requiring that the King should signify his _approbation_ to the Bishops before the exercise of episcopal functions. Both of these would have the effect of extremely diminishing the _effect_ of the measure in Ireland. Lord Grenville strongly objected to the exception even of the English Chancellor, as justifiable upon no principle, when the exercise of ecclesiastical patronage had been provided for in the other part of the Bill; and it is difficult to discover what principle can justify the exclusion of the Chancellor of Ireland, which would not also extend to every other judicial situation. We must recollect that the Irish Catholic barristers are just the body who have, after the priests, the greatest influence, and whom it is most desirable not to leave a perpetual badge of degradation and inferiority upon. With respect to the necessity of signifying the King's express approbation, it is one of the points which the Irish clergy most objected to, and the omission of which has most reconciled them to the measure; and if the efficient control is attained, it surely is desirable that we should not be nice as to the exact mode in which it shall be exerted. In my own view--and, what is far more important, in that of my uncle--the question of securities is, from the great alteration in the situation of Europe since 1813, become of comparatively small importance, and rather to be conceded to satisfy the scruples of others, and facilitate the final success of this great measure, than to be insisted upon by ourselves. Dawson's speech against the army estimates last night occasioned surprise, and looks as if the Catholic question had occasioned some hitch in his _beau-pere_ Peel's negotiations. Ever most faithfully yours, C. W. W. MR. W. H. FREMANTLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM. Pall Mall, March 16, 1821. MY DEAR LORD,