SOME years ago I set a sixth-form General Essay class to write
an essay on 'Religious Toleration'. On reading the results I said,
'Never mind, I will write one myself.' The ultimate outcome of
that rash promise was this book.

The book is a study of the political struggles over the repeal
of laws restricting or penalizing religious minorities in the later
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and of the opinions
and ideas expressed in the controversies surrounding these
struggles.

I have not tried to examine in detail either the actual opera-
tion of the statutory restrictions on the religious minorities, or
the social and political affiliations of these minorities. Both are
interesting questions and both present great practical difficulties.
A number of local surveys would probably be needed before any
conclusions of value could be drawn about them.

I wish to thank Earl Fitzwilliam and the trustees of the
Wentworth Woodhouse Estates for permission to quote
passages from Edmund Burke's unpublished letters, now in the
Central Reference Library at Sheffield. My thanks are also due
to Professor T. W. Copeland, to the University of Chicago
Press which has copyright in these letters, and to Mr. and Mrs.
Donald F. Hyde who hold the original Burke letter of 18th
February 1790 in the Hyde Collection, Somerville, New Jersey,
U.S.A. An early copy is in the Sheffield Central Reference
Library. I am obliged to Major Sir Henry d'Avigdor Gold-
smid for extensive use of the Letter Book of Isaac Lyon Gold-
smid which is now kept in the Mocatta Library, University
College, London, and to the Jewish Board of Deputies for
allowing me to look at their early Minute Books.

Much work as yet unpublished has been done on matters
relevant to this book. Dr. P. T. Underdown has kindly given me
permission to cite his thesis, ' Edmund Burke as Member of

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