Although Peter is so seriously concerned about the military disasters which will fall on England unless she behaves more wisely to her Roman Catholic population, he is not the least afraid of any dangers arising from the Roman Catholic religion. England has done with it, once for all--
"Tell me that the world will return again under the influence of the smallpox; that Lord Castlereagh will hereafter oppose the power of the court; that Lord Howick and Mr. Grattan will each of them do a mean and dishonourable action; that anybody who has heard Lord Redesdale speak will knowingly and willingly hear him again; that Lord Eldon has assented to the fact of two and two making four, without shedding tears, or expressing the smallest doubt or scruple; tell me any other thing absurd or incredible, but, for the love of common sense, let me hear no more of the danger to be apprehended from the general diffusion of Popery. It is too absurd to be reasoned upon; every man feels it is nonsense when he hears it stated, and so does every man while he is stating it."
No, the only real danger which Peter sees--and this he sees with startling clearness--is that Ireland will be absorbed by France, and will welcome her deliverance from England; that the civil existence of England will be most seriously imperilled; and that the Irish themselves will, in the long-run, suffer grievously by the change,--
"Who can doubt but that Ireland will experience ultimately from France a treatment to which the conduct they have experienced from England is the love of a parent or a brother? Who can doubt that, five years after he has got hold of the country, Ireland will be tossed by Bonaparte as a present to some one of his ruffian generals, who will knock the head of Mr. Keogh against the head of Cardinal Troy, shoot twenty of the most noisy blockheads of the Roman persuasion, wash his pug-dogs in holy water, and confiscate the salt butter of the Milesian Republic to the last tub? But what matters this? or who is wise enough in Ireland to heed it? or when had common sense much influence with my poor dear Irish? Mr. Perceval does not know the Irish; but I know them, and I know that, at every rash and mad hazard, they will break the Union, revenge their wounded pride and their insulted religion, and fling themselves into the open arms of France, sure of dying in the embrace.... In the six hundredth year of our Empire over Ireland, have we any memorial of ancient kindness to refer to? any people, any zeal, any country, on which we can depend? Have we any hope, but in the winds of heaven and the tides of the sea? any prayer to prefer to the Irish, but that they should forget and forgive their oppressors, who, in the very moment that they are calling upon them for their exertions, solemnly assure them that the oppression shall still remain?"