I am not at all enamored, as I have told you, with this plan of representation; as little do I relish any bandings or associations for procuring it. But if the question was to be put to you and me,--_Universal_ popular representation, or _none at all for us and ours_,--we should find ourselves in a very awkward position. I do not like this kind of dilemmas, especially when they are practical. Then, since our oldest fundamental laws follow, or rather couple, freehold with franchise,--since no principle of the Revolution shakes these liberties,--since the oldest and one of the best monuments of the Constitution demands for the Irish the privilege which they supplicate,--since the principles of the Revolution coincide with the declarations of the Great Charter,--since the practice of the Revolution, in this point, did not contradict its principles,--since, from that event, twenty-five years had elapsed, before a domineering party, on a party principle, had ventured to disfranchise, without any proof whatsoever of abuse, the greater part of the community,--since the king's coronation oath does not stand in his way to the performance of his duty to all his subjects,--since you have given to all other Dissenters these privileges without limit which are hitherto withheld without any limitation whatsoever from the Catholics,--since no nation in the world has ever been known to exclude so great a body of men (not born slaves) from the civil state, and all the benefits of its Constitution,--the whole question comes before Parliament as a matter for its prudence. I do not put the thing on a question of right. That discretion, which in judicature is well said by Lord Coke to be a crooked cord, in legislature is a golden rule. Supplicants ought not to appear too much in the character of litigants. If the subject thinks so highly and reverently of the sovereign authority as not to claim anything of right, so that it may seem to be independent of the power and free choice of its government,--and if the sovereign, on his part, considers the advantages of the subjects as their right, and all their reasonable wishes as so many claims,--in the fortunate conjunction of these mutual dispositions are laid the foundations of a happy and prosperous commonwealth. For my own part, desiring of all things that the authority of the legislature under which I was born, and which I cherish, not only with a dutiful awe, but with a partial and cordial affection, to be maintained in the utmost possible respect, I never will suffer myself to suppose that at bottom their discretion will be found to be at variance with their justice.