Thomas Conolly writes from Castletown, Co. Kildare to the Duke of Leinster [William Robert, 2nd Duke of Leinster (1749-1804], referring to copies of a printed paper, [possibly a petition?] which he says he refuses to sign as it will ‘only add fuel to the fire, by making the poor people (going nightly about in a cruel manner, frightening and plundering the peaceable inhabitants) suppose they have supporters or abettors in the higher orders of the community. His Majesty [George III] not having complied with the petitions of his English subjects legally convened by their Sheriffs, though not in open or smothered rebellion, will scarce listen to his Irish ones in the contrary predicament. I wished for the landed interest of this and other counties in Ireland to be called, to take their own peculiar situation into consideration, but not in Ireland to pray for the dismission of English ministers who do not belong to this country and by naming them make the cause of the landed interest sorely aggrieved appear a Party Cause which with instances like these, weaken a better one…’.