Henry Crabb Robinson, Bury St Edmunds, to the Rev. George Armstrong, [Bristol], 2 February [1851].

Bury St Edmunds

2d Feb.

Dear Sir

     Your letter has been forwarded to me here – I expect to return to London in the course of next ^the present^ week at all events in time to announce my ^own^ subscription to your “Infallibility not possible” ^at Chapmans^ – And any other if I should be able to procure any – I shall also immediately procure your pamphlet reviewed in the last Inquirer – I am very much pleased with the extracts and from them I infer that there will be more with which I shall harmonise in this pamphlet than in your larger work – I find that what I have just written does not well express what I meant to say – I have no doubt that I shall assent to every opinion advanced in this larger book; But I shall probably think that this is not the moment when such a view of the religious world is wanted – At least I shall not, if you join as I must infer you do, the herd of unitarians who are doing their best to spread a feeling of indifference towards the Papal Aggression – And this they are doing when they divert attention from the imminent peril in which the religious liberty of the world is placed, to what you are pleased to call the “similar & even the less excusable sins of all the Protestant Communions”  That you should write these words in your letter to me proves that my Protest has been altogether in vain as far as you are concerned – Indeed on reading my own paper I am grieved at its feebleness – I have wanted the power of convincing amplification I do not wonder that tho’ you make a complimentary allusion to it, yet in fact it has left you altogether unimpressed by it. Otherwise you would not be able to see the Borough School in the presence of the threatned Establishmt of Popery in this country – An establishment which if permitted – And our friends are aiding the establishment to the utmost of their power – will go far towards the restoration of Popery as the religion or Church of the people. As there may be much that is poetical in what does not pretend to be a poem – So there may be And indeed is a great deal that is papistical in the Church of England, but that church cannot be Popery – It is the duty of all dissenters to forget their private wrongs until this pressing danger is removed – And that cannot be done without strengthening their ^own^ cause against ^ultimately^ the Anglican Church whose oppressions compared with the tyranny of the Romish Church are a fly flea bite to a “chastisement with Scorpions” – There is no doubt that what you hint is true ^in one sense:^ by that intolerance is more inexcusable in the Protestant than in the Romanist, but that remark does not at all run counter to what I have endeavourd to enforce – It is ^more^ inexcusable, because it is not consistent with the other elements of protestantism – But that inconsistency so weakens the power of being effectively intolerant that it may the intolerance may be despised were the Ch: of England broken up – Its members would go – many to the Ch: of Rome – many into infidelity – many (perhaps as many) into calvinistic congregationalism And very few would become rational Christians – Woe indeed to the Country & age which behold the Citizen’s divided into two classes – that of the earnest conscientious bigotted Romanist – and that of the Antireligious suffringers [sic], with whom as the least mischievous might be united Unitarians & other varieties of serious free thinkers ^would probably unite themselves^ But here am I in others words repeating my Protest – So no more

                I am dear Sir

                          with sincere respect

                                    faithfully yours

                                                       H. C. Robinson

Rev G: Armstrong

I wish you would contrive to see the Times of last Thursday It has an admirable & short Art: on Papal Aggression

Text: WLL/1990.57.9, Wordsworth Trust and Museum, Grasmere. Robinson begins his diary entry on 2 February 1851 with a reference to the above letter: ‘I read in bed for a short time the Princess – I was nearly all this day at home – I read the Inquirer having had a letter from Armstrong of Bristol in which tho’ he alluded civilly to my Protest yet he betrayed an insensibility to my argument by referring to the Borough School – I in reply tho’ I consented to subscribe for the republication of a pamphlet against Popery, yet I reiterated the argument of my Protest and declined being deemed to be of the same opinion with himself.’