[27] It appears that Mr. Hutchinson meant this only as one of the means for their relief in point of education. A LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE, BART., M.P., ON THE SUBJECT OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF IRELAND, THE PROPRIETY OF ADMITTING THEM TO THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE, CONSISTENTLY WITH THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSTITUTION, AS ESTABLISHED AT THE REVOLUTION. 1792. My Dear Sir,--Your remembrance of me, with sentiments of so much kindness, has given me the most sincere satisfaction. It perfectly agrees with the friendly and hospitable reception which my son and I received from you some time since, when, after an absence of twenty-two years, I had the happiness of embracing you, among my few surviving friends. I really imagined that I should not again interest myself in any public business. I had, to the best of my moderate faculties, paid my club to the society which I was born in some way or other to serve; and I thought I had a right to put on my night-gown and slippers, and wish a cheerful evening to the good company I must leave behind. But if our resolutions of vigor and exertion are so often broken or procrastinated in the execution, I think we may be excused, if we are not very punctual in fulfilling our engagements to indolence and inactivity. I have, indeed, no power of action, and am almost a cripple even with regard to thinking; but you descend with force into the stagnant pool, and you cause such a fermentation as to cure at least one impotent creature of his lameness, though it cannot enable him either to run or to wrestle. You see by the paper[28] I take that I am likely to be long, with malice prepense. You have brought under my view a subject always difficult, at present critical. It has filled my thoughts, which I wish to lay open to you with the clearness and simplicity which your friendship demands from me. I thank you for the communication of your ideas. I should be still more pleased, if they had been more your own. What you hint I believe to be the case: that, if you had not deferred to the judgment of others, our opinions would not differ more materially at this day than they did when we used to confer on the same subject so many years ago. If I still persevere in my old opinions, it is no small comfort to me that it is not with regard to doctrines properly yours that I discover my indocility.