It was a critical time. The besotted resistance of the King to the slightest concession in favour of his Roman Catholic subjects had driven the ministry of "All the Talents" out of office in the spring. The High Tories succeeded them, and the General Election which ensued on the change of government gave a strong majority for "No Popery" and reaction. Meanwhile the greatest genius that the world has ever seen was wading through slaughter to a universal throne, and no effective resistance had as yet been offered to a progress which menaced the freedom of Europe and the existence of its states. At such a juncture it seemed to Sydney Smith that England could not spare a single soldier or sailor, nor afford to alienate the loyalty of a single citizen. "Buonaparte," he wrote, "is as rapid and as terrible as the lightning of God; would he were as transient." It was nothing short of national suicide to reject men desirous of serving in the army and navy on account of their beliefs, to madden English Romanists by defrauding them of their civil rights, and to outrage the whole people of Ireland by affixing a legal stigma to their religion. His musings on this pregnant theme took shape in-- A LETTER ON THE SUBJECT OF THE CATHOLICS TO MY BROTHER ABRAHAM WHO LIVES IN THE COUNTRY BY PETER PLYMLEY. This Letter was published in the summer of 1807, and "its effect was like a spark on a heap of gunpowder," It was followed by nine more, bearing the same title, four of which appeared in the same year and five in the next. A little later Sydney Smith wrote to Lord Grey--"I wish I could write as well as Plymley: but, if I could, where is such a case to be found? When had any lawyer such a brief?" In 1808 _Peter Plymley's Letters_ were collected and published in a pamphlet, and the pamphlet ran through sixteen editions. "The government of that day," wrote Sydney Smith in 1839, "took great pains to find out the author; all that they _could_ find out was that they were brought to Mr. Budd, the publisher, by the Earl of Lauderdale.[39] Somehow or another it came to be conjectured that I was the author.[40]... They had an immense circulation at the time, and I think above twenty thousand copies were sold." Some little space must be bestowed upon these masterpieces of humour and wisdom. [19] "Yet mark one caution, ere thy next Review Spread its light wings of Saffron and of Blue, Beware lest blundering Brougham spoil the sale, Turn Beef to Bannocks, Cauliflowers to Kail." BYRON, _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. [20] Barrister, and writer of political pamphlets between 1791 and 1807. [21] George Ticknor (1791-1871), American traveller and man of letters. [22] Jeffrey's house near Edinburgh.