The individual with whom he holds these conversations is a learned, intelligent, but highly-unprincipled person, of a character however very common amongst the priests of Rome, who in general are people void of all religion, and who, notwithstanding they are tied to Rome by a band which they have neither the power nor wish to break, turn her and her practices, over their cups with their confidential associates, to a ridicule only exceeded by that to which they turn those who become the dupes of their mistress and themselves.
It is now necessary that the writer should say something with respect to himself, and his motives for waging war against Rome.

First of all, with respect to himself, he wishes to state, that to the very last moment of his life, he will do and say all that in his power may be to hold up to contempt and execration the priestcraft and practices of Rome; there is, perhaps, no person better acquainted than himself, not even among the choicest spirits of the priesthood, with the origin and history of Popery.

From what he saw and heard of Popery in England, at a very early period of his life, his curiosity was aroused, and he spared himself no trouble, either by travel or study, to make himself well acquainted with it in all its phases, the result being a hatred of it, which he hopes and trusts he shall retain till the moment when his spirit quits the body.
Popery is the great lie of the world; a source from which more misery and social degradation have flowed upon the human race, than from all the other sources from which those evils come.

It is the oldest of all superstitions; and though in Europe it assumes the name of Christianity, it existed and flourished amidst the Himalayan hills at least two thousand years before the real Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judaea; in a word, it is Buddhism; and let those who may be disposed to doubt this assertion, compare the Popery of Rome, and the superstitious practices of its followers, with the doings of the priests who surround the grand Lama; and the mouthings, bellowing, turnings round, and, above all, the penances of the followers of Buddh with those of Roman devotees.

But he is not going to dwell here on this point; it is dwelt upon at tolerable length in the text, and has likewise been handled with extraordinary power by the pen of the gifted but irreligious Volney; moreover, the _elite_ of the Roman priesthood are perfectly well aware that their system is nothing but Buddhism under a slight disguise, and the European world in general has entertained for some time past an inkling of the fact.
And now a few words with respect to the motives of the writer for expressing a hatred for Rome.
This expressed abhorrence of the author for Rome might be entitled to little regard, provided it were possible to attribute it to any self-interested motive.