distressed people. In Dublin, the partakers of Royal bounty manifested their grateful attachment

quiet mob. He did not read the sympathy of exultation on every countenance. Various printed papers ha.l been for some days previously handed about, left under doors, or sent by the post to many expressive of the little reason the nation had to rejoice. He selects one out of several, which he fears but too truly anticipated the feelings of many.

"TO THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF IRELAND.

"Now is the opportunity, ye Catholic millions, to shew your grateful loyalty; to prove to those ignorant calumniators, who tax you with discontent and disaffection, that you are satisfied with your lot; that no indignant feeling of oppression or injustice, exists in your bosoms Hail with rapture the 50th anniversary of that Monarch's accession, who, with liberal wisdom, has permitted you to exist, nay, to multiply, and fatten, in your native land, who has repealed those dreadful laws, which poi soned the cup of your domestic peace, and prompted the violation of every social tie, which made your holy religion a crime, and its minister a felon ; which rewarded the wicked, and punished with unrelenting cruelty the innocent and the good, which would have changed, by their operation the generous nature of Irishmen, and transformed their ill-fated Erin, from an " ̄island of saints" to an island of demons. Celebrate the acces sion of a King, who has done all this, and who, you know, has done it freely and spontaneously, unpressed by foreign or domestic dangers, unawed by the Irish volunteer or American rifle

man.

"Let not your Jubilee be clouded by any intrusive feeling that you still are slaves; that the hand of oppression is still upon you; that you yet are aliens in your native land. While you look on those illuminated edifices, that adorn your metropolis, your castle, your courts of justice, your bank, your college, your custom house, remember not, that within their walls there is no place for you, of honor, of power, or emolument. Forget, that

1809.

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to the system by treating the people with splendid illuminations, and themselves with the choicest luxuries and festivities of the table. The example of the capital was followed by the great towns in the country throughout Ireland incredible crowds were drawn together, and dispersed without a shade of tumultuary or riotous disposition. His Majesty's predilection for Ireland was singularly manifested by a happy selection of some of her most liberal, enlightened, and patriotic Statemen, to close the hiatus in the Cabinet, and rivet the shivered vessel for temporary use. It was a base, though practical axiom with the system, that in torturing and aggravating the Irish people, the Irish renegado was ever the most forward, inventive, and indefatigable. Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning had by their Cabinet duel rendered

sentence has been passed upon you, of perpetual degradation; that you are doomed for ever to be a subordinate race; that the wise and enlightened King, whose Jubilee you are summoned to celebrate, has himself told you so, and has declared, that this opinion he can never yield, because it is not the conclusion of a policy, that might vary, but the dictate of his conscience, which must be immutable.

"Ye Catholics of Ireland, if you can by some " oblivious antidote thus purify your memory, then go forth and join in the Jubilee, and praise your benefactor; but if your generous hearts should beat with indignation at your privations and oppressions, be considerate enough to remain in your respective dwellings, nor damp, by your gloomy presence, the loyal festivities of Dr. Patrick Duigenan, Mr. Giffard the apothecary, and that elegant assemblage of polite, enlightened, and meritorious Orangemen, who, no doubt, will attend the carousal, and revel in their train."

themselves unworthy even of their former funct tions. The Marquis Wellesley was called to supply the wisdom and energy of his Grace of Portland in the Cabinet: Mr. Wellesley Pole from the Admiralty was brought into closer contact with his countrymen, and appointed to succeed Mr. Dundas as Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant and in order to keep up a countervailing Irish influence in the naval department, Mr. Croker was put into the place of Mr. W. Pole at the Admiralty.

1809.

tholics.

From this triumviral accession of Irish strengthi Malignant to the Government is to be traced a nenovation of ministry of the No Popery system; it became more ex-against Catended, more ferocious, more confident and determined. Opposition to Irish Catholicity was no longer the State anxiety, lest a Catholic people should be admitted to political power, but a fanatical crusade and malevolent persecution of Irishmen for performing the duties of the Catholic religion, In hatred of that religion, rather in execration of the Irish practiser of it, Ministers even rewarded their fanatic hirelings for usurping the. rights of the Deity to interfere with conscience, for robbing the Creator of the homage and duties of his creature, for accepting and acting under commissions from the arch enemy of man to des prive the sincere Christian of the means of pre paring his soul to appear before the grand tribunal*.

*This more than mortal malignity of refusing spiritual consolation to the departing Christian might have been expected

1809.

It required the malignity of a demon to intercept the intercourse of man with his Maker in the

from an Imperial decree of the apostate Julian, who affected to hate Christianity, which he had renounced. But shall it justify the sanctimonious Perceval, the pretender to evangelical purity, the modern Olympius, who advised his Sovereign to proscribe from his army and services all the talent and virtue possessed by Pagan, Arian, or other dissenter from the then established reli gion of the Empire? What shall bear him out in his monopoly of Christian consolation? Which chapter of the Christian code has instructed this new evangelizer to refuse to sanction by law the religious rights of his Majesty's natiye Catholic liege subjects, which are guaranteed by statute to his Catholic foreign mercenaries? What political sagacity, what human sympathy, what Christian charity inspire him to refuse to the native volunfeer, the impressed or the swindled Catholic soldier, the opportunity of performing the very duties, which the Established Church holds out and directs as the last obligatory functions of the dying Christian. Every beneficed Protestant functionary clergyman of the establishment, declares in the face of his congregation, and in the presence of his God, whose minister he then announces himself to be, his unfeigned consent and assent to and approbation of the 39 articles, and the Book of Common Prayer, and every thing therein contained. There (in the visitation of the sick) the following direction and injunction are to be found.

Here shall the sick person be moved to make a confession of "his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty After which confession, the Priest shall absolve him "(if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort: Our Lord "Jesus Christ, who hath left power to his Church to absolve all

"matter.

sinners, who truly repent and believe in him, of his great "mercy forgive thee thine offences; and by his authority com"mitted to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name of "the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen." This was strongly put by Mr. C. Keogh in the last Aggregate Meeting of the 28th of May 1811. "What can these men say

to the Irish militia-man in England, if they refuse to secure

cheering prospect of a blessed futurity. Numerous have been the instances under this No Popery administration, in which the spirit of persecution. has fallen collectively and individually upon the soldiery. These acts of persecution have three qualities. In Ireland they are against positive law, the violation of which ought to be severely visited by Government. In Great Britain they are conformable with law, though contravening the express promises of Government, and therefore tending to let it down in the affection, confidence, and estimation of the people. In foreign parts, where there is neither legal allowance nor restriction, the commander's discretion regulates the intolerant instructions of a persecuting Cabinet. Numerous instances have occurred in Great Britain, in which Catholic soldiers have been compelled to attend the established worship against their consciences. They have been punished for refusing it, as well as for attending their own worship. A notable case has been recently brought under the consideration of the House of Commons. It had been somewhat aggravated, and Sir John Cox Hippesley, out of tenderness and attention

"him in the exercise of his religion? They must say to him, "Go to battle; go fight for the safety of the English people, "and in defence of the British constitution; but remember, if you receive your death wound, you are not to expect the con"solation of religion in your dying hour; the minister of the

"

Gospel shall pass you by, as you lie gasping and expiring on "the earth; he will go to administer the Sacrament to a Ger"man Catholic; but you are an Irishman, you shall not be !! reconciled to your God.”

1809.