He was so for two reasons.

One of them was his political sense of the inexpediency of proscribing men by whole nations, and excluding from the franchise on the ground of religion a people as numerous as the subjects of the King of Denmark or the King of Sardinia, equal to the population of the United Netherlands, and larger than were to be found in all the states of Switzerland.

His second reason was his sense of the urgency of facing trouble abroad with a nation united and contented at home; of abolishing in the heart of the country that "bank of discontent, every hour accumulating, upon which every description of seditious men may draw at pleasure." In the beginning of 1792 Burke's son went to Dublin as the agent and adviser of the Catholic Committee, who at first listened to him with the respect due to one in whom they expected to meet the qualities of his father.

They soon found out that he was utterly without either tact or judgment; that he was arrogant, impertinent, vain, and empty.

Wolfe Tone declared him to be by far the most impudent and opinionative fellow that he had ever known in his life.