"MY DEAR WILBER.,--I sincerely thank you for the communication you have made to me, and assure you that you may rely upon my profoundest silence. The cruel and corrupt means that were adequately resorted to, in order to effect the revolutionary Union which has subverted the prescriptive constitution of both these kingdoms, have so entirely infected the sweetness of affiance in my bosom, that whatever systems or changes are adopted my eye sets instantly to search among all possible motives in order to find the worst of issues. Can I see Addington climb upon the stooping neck of Mr. Pitt, and not believe that it is done in hostility, or in a masked confederacy? If the former, how am I to estimate the man who comes in? If the latter, what judgment can I form of the man who goes out? Is a retiring administration to be allowed, in a temporary agreement with opposition, to support the claims of Irish Popery, and by carrying their point in their new character, to exonerate the Cabinet of the charge; and are they to re-occupy their posts when there are no farther measures to be carried by them in their unresponsible situations? All this I foresaw, though not perhaps in the detail; and, indeed, it required no prophet's eye to foresee it, when hints which bind not were conscientiously substituted for promises in order to purchase a momentary calm. The downfall of the Church of England is still involved, and however the Papists of Ireland, on merging the two kingdoms into each other, may be considered as outnumbered by the Protestants, it is not by the Protestants of the Establishment, who will, on the whole, be outweighed by the incorporated force of the Protestant Dissenters with those of the same description in Ireland, who will derive the most unqualified assistance from the Romish body. Show favour to Popery, and the Dissenters' claims will be abetted by millions who will only infer a kind of right against all anticipation of consequences; or, on the other hand, deny the demands of Popery, and you instantly and directly unite the two denominations against the Church of England. I know but one mode to prevent all these, and ten thousand other unconsidered evils; at once declare the impracticability of carrying conditions into execution, and dissolve this ill-starred Union, from which no benefit will ever flow, but every evil that imagination can picture. "I will trouble you no farther now except to desire that you will not charge me with defective candour; the things that are already done will surely too clearly justify whatever inference I have drawn from them. "May every happiness attend you and yours--in opposition to prospects I say it; but if a few good men may not save a nation, they yet may save and purchase favour to themselves. "I am ever, my dear Wilber., "Most fervently yours, "W. B." _Lord Hardwicke to Mr. Wilberforce._ "_September 30, 1801._