In the rival "News Letter", William Bruce suggested that this was disingenuous: the "impartial representation of the Irish nation" the United Irishmen embraced in their test or oath implied, he argued, not only equality for Catholics but also that ""every woman" added, in short every rational being shall have equal weight in electing representatives". Drennan did not seek to disabuse Bruce as to "the principle"—he had never seen "a good argument against the right of women to vote"—but in a plea that recalled objections to immediate Catholic emancipation he argued for a "common sense" reading of the test of which he was the author. It might be some generations, he proposed, before "habits of thought, and the artificial ideas of education" are so "worn out" that it would appear "natural" that women should exercise the same rights as men, and thus attain their "full and proper influence in the world".