Excerpt from The Eve of Catholic Emancipation, Vol. 1 of 3: Being the History of the English Catholics During the First Thirty Years of the Nineteenth Century It may perhaps be thought that some apology is required for undertaking so ambitious a work as what is practically a history of English Catholics during an important and even critical epoch, on the part of one who has already a fair amount of practical work to occupy him, and who cannot possibly devote the amount of time and attention which the subject seems to require. If such is urged, the chief justification to plead would be the very kind reception which the Dawn of the Catholic Revival in England (1781-1803) - a similar work undertaken under similar conditions - met with, and the kind hope expressed - even with some importunity - by many persons whose wishes carry weight, that the work should be continued. The Archbishop of Westminster once more kindly offered the use of all the papers in his Archives, as also did the Bishop of Clifton, and the other Bishops and heads of Colleges who had helped the former work in this manner, repeated their kindness in the present instance. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.