I find Clarendon's views in respect to the government of Ireland are becoming known, and producing no small sensation.[57] Lord Barrington asked me the other night if it was true that his opinions had undergone a great change, and that he was now convinced Ireland could only be governed in connexion with and by the support of the Orangemen. I told him there was, I apprehended, much exaggeration in this, but some truth; that I conceived a man of his penetration could not have governed Ireland for a year without seeing that the whole Catholic body were either disaffected and dangerous, or so timid as to be useless, and that in fact the Protestants alone were to be depended upon for attachment to the British connexion, and resolution to support it, but that I was convinced he would not suffer the ingratitude and misconduct of the Catholics to interfere with his determination to render equal justice to all. [Footnote 57: [When Lord Clarendon went to Ireland in 1847, he was animated by an earnest desire and hope to conciliate the Irish Catholic body. He invited their prelates and their leaders to the Viceregal Lodge, opened his mind to them freely, and expressed with perfect sincerity his liberal intentions towards them. But the experience of a year, and more especially the conduct of the Roman Catholics during the agitation which had prevailed in Ireland, convinced Lord Clarendon that no reliance at all could be placed on the loyalty of the Catholic population or of its chiefs. He arrived most reluctantly at this conclusion, but it never altered his determination to treat the Catholics with perfect courtesy and justice.]]