I am glad to receive your letter, & quite confident I am that you have determined wisely in a matter of no little consequence both to yourself & the public.

I can have no hesitation in writing according to your wish to M^r Croker, – with whom I am upon such terms that a letter from me would appear as a natural & proper, tho not a common, occurrence. But with M^r Canning it would be otherwise. The personal civilities which I have received from him, are not much as to place me upon any footing of freedom with him. I can ask him a favour connected with any literary object (for example, to procure those Catalan books – if any such there had been,)

– because it was paying him a compliment to presume upon his willingness in such a case to grant one. But I am shy of obtruding myself upon a person so high in office; & especially unwilling to arrogate to myself any importance for the part which I may have borne in the QR.

There is also another motive which would withhold me from addressing him upon this topic. The time cannot be far distant when the Q. R. must take its part upon a most momentous subject, & chuse between M^r Canning & the Church.

I have always considered it as one of the greatest errors in the management of the Review that it should have been silent upon that subject so long. Something of what is going on, I know; (even at this distance from the sphere of public affairs) more than is publicly known; & the crisis is likely to be accelerated by the rebellion which may at any hour break out in Ireland, – where it cannot be doubted that the intention of a desperate party is to bring on a religious war. Let us take our stand upon the rock of high constitutional principles, & we shall have with us the integrity & the talents & the heart of the country. – But with this hope, & knowing what I know, it would be unfitting in me to do any thing which M^r. C. might suppose that the Q.R. would follow wherever he may lead. – There are other members of the Government to whom I can make such a communication without scruple, & for whose confidence I can answer.

I have long been looking wistfully for the books from Germany concerning the Peninsular War.

The Church Missionary Society will furnish more than one interesting subject.

Will you send me their “Proceedings”

– which I find announced in the Missionary Register as published in 3 volumes: the Miss: Register for 1823, & 1824; the Abstract of the Annual Reports of the Soc. for Promoting Christian Knowledge;

– & Cruise’s New Zealand.

My plan is to have one paper upon the Societies connected with the Established Church, – what they have done & are doing; Another upon New Zealand.

Let me have your last Number

with these (which I have never yet seen) – & the fair sheets of the Pen. War

beginning with X.