In all this I am well aware that you are no otherwise to blame, than in permitting what, without disturbance to your health and tranquillity, you could not perhaps have prevented, or effectively modified. But the whole plan of Street's seems to me to have been motiveless from the beginning, or at least affected by the grossest miscalculations in respect even of pecuniary interest. For had the paper maintained and asserted not only its independence but its _appearance_ of it, it is true that Mr. Street might not have had Mr. Croker to dine with him, or received as many nods or shakes of the hand from Lord this, or that, but it is at least equally true, that the Ministry would have been far more effectually served, and that (I speak _now_ from facts) both paper and its conductor would have been held by the adherents of Ministers in far higher respect. And after all, Ministers do not _love_ newspapers in their hearts; not even those that support them. Indeed it seems epidemic among Parliament men in general, to affect to look down upon and to despise newspapers to which they owe 999/1000 their influence and character--and at least three fifths of their knowledge and phraseology. Enough! Burn this letter and forgive the writer for the purity and affectionateness of his motive.
With regard to the Catholic Question, if I write I must be allowed to express the truth and the whole truth concerning the imprudent avowal of Lord Castlereagh that it was not to be a _government question_. On this condition I will write immediately a tract on the question which to the best of my knowledge will be about from 120 to 140 octavo pages; but so contrived that Mr. Street may find no difficulty in dividing it into ten or twenty essays, or leading paragraphs. In my scheme I have carefully excluded every approximation to metaphysical reasoning; and set aside every thought which cannot be brought under one or the other of three heads--1. Plain evident sense. 2. Historical documental facts. 3. Existing circumstances, character, etc., of Ireland in relation to Great Britain, and to its own interests, and those of its various classes of proprietors. I shall not deliver it till it is wholly finished, and if you and Mr. Street think that such a work delivered entire will be worth fifty pounds to the paper, I will begin it immediately. Let me either see or hear from you as soon as possible. Cannot Mr. Street send me some one or other of the daily papers, without expense to you, after he has done with them? Kind respects to Mrs. Stuart.