"To the Editor of the Protestant Advocate.

"SIR,-1. Will you be so good as to inform me, in what part of the "City of Dublin the statue of King George III, is erec ed, which the Ro66 man Catholic committee voted in grateful remembrance of his Majesty's "good ess to them, above eighteen years ago?"

On the authority of a gen leman who has resided, generally, in Dublin for the space of forty years; we answer, that the Roman Catholics have not erected any statue of his Majesty, in any part of Dublin; nor any where else, that has ever been heard of. We add, that they have rather she na marked disrespect to the King.-When the Jubilee was celebrated wh such enthusiasm, and some thousands of gentlemen kept three days' festivity in Dublin; and when the Lord Lieutenant was entertained by the Loyal Protestants in the Great Room,-the Rotunda,-notwithstanding vast pains were taken to bring the Roman Catholics to the meeting, only one of them attended ;-the Roman Catholics, however, have said there were three !!!

"2. Will you ascertain for me the name of the goldsmith who made the "golden vase, valued at one thousand guineas;-which the Roman "Catholics of Tipperary voted to General Mathew?"

We have not been able, though we have diligently enquired, to find the name of this goldsmith. General Mathew's services, as a soldier and commander, are well known, and justly appreciated.-We hope that Captain Stanhope will receive his piece of plate voted at a Roman Catholic dinner in the Rotunda, value an hundred guineas ;-a small recompence for one speech. We are sorry for Lord Harrington, the worthy father of this imprudent young man.

"3. Will you make out the exact space of time between the period of "the Catholic committee's having voted a large sum of money (and how "much? for I have forgot) to Todd Jones; and his having been obliged "to sue at law for the recovery of the same ?"

A report of the Committee of Accounts, appointed by the General Committee of the [soi-disant] Catholics of Ireland, now lies before us, dated April 22, 1793, by which it appears that "500 had been paid to William Todd Jones, Esq. in part of the sum of £1500 voted to him." It further appears from a report (same date) of a committee appointed to ex amine and report what honourable engagements the Catholics of Ireland lie under for services received; that a resolution passed, conceived in the following terms, That the sum of five hundred pounds be presented to William Todd Jones, Esq. for his eminent services to the Catholic cause; making, with the like sum heretofore presented to him, the sum of one thousand pounds; and that the third further sum of five hundred

pounds be also presented to him, provided there shall be funds to make good the same, after the positive engagements of this committee shall have been discharged." Hence it appears, that the third present was only a provisional one; and so guarded, that Mr. Jones could hardly bring an action against the Committee; especially considering, that the erecting a statue to the King, for which "the sum of two thousand pounds" was appropriated, proved to be one of those engagements which were never discharged. Mr. Jones long enjoyed the esteem of the Irish Roman Catholics, and endeavoured for many years to recommend their claims. It is believed, however, that he was unacquainted with the secret designs of some of them. In a letter which appeared in the Dublin Evening Post, August 26th, 1796, he declared that he was unconnected with their cabinet pretensions; and in the following words he condemned their negotiation with the French Government. "I never tendered to you these rash 'counsels, às desperate, as unwarrantable, of endangering all property, by Covering French invasion: or of meanly condescending to be obliged to foreign freebooters, for the restoration of domestic rights. These frantic counsels which have shoved the colossal statue of Catholic emancipation from the steadily-founded basis of its own intrinsic claims, have tumbled it upon dark and inauspicious ground, and flung its brightest prospects a century behind."-This language is Mr. Jones's, who seem to have taken great pains in forging this grand figure of speech; but, to talk of the prospects of a statue, is rather at odds with common sense. But, contrary to Mr.Jones's ideas, this colossus is once more set upon its legs; and King. Lords, and Com mons, are summoned by the Advocates of the Roman Catholic claims, to fall down before it, and worship it."-It will have another downfall, in spite of all their toil; for "the miry clay" which enters the composition of its feet, renders it unstable, and it already totters on its pedestal. It is generally understood that the Roman Catholic committee have conciliated Mr. Jones, by discharging their pecuniary obligations to him.

"4. I wish to know how the Roman Catholic committee remunerated "Theobald Wolfe Tone; or assisted his family after his death?"

We have not learnt that Tone's family received any thing after his death. It appears that 15341. 2s. 6d. were voted to this unhappy man, while yet alive, in quality of agent to the Roman Catholic committee; but we cannot say whether he received the money. Several respectable Papists in Ireland were members of that committee; but many of them were hanged, or transported, or fled, conscious of guilt and treason, to France. Theobald Wolfe Tone was pardoned by Government, and had money given him to transport himself to America. Thence he repaired to France, where he entered the army, and became Lieut. Colonel: He was taken on the

coast of Donegal, in the year of the rebellion, 1798; and being afterwards convicted of high treason, he cut his throat to evade the sentence of the law. At one time there were balls and dances in Dublin, in order to raise, by tickets of adm.ssion, some little money for Tone's family; and it has been said, that a person, now in the confidence of the Roman Catholic Board, received some assistance from this small and precarious fund. That person was a commissary while the rebels held Wexford. Government consented, on his own petition, that he should be transported for. life. He has since made his peace; and has absolutely written a tory of the Insurrection of the County of Wexford, A D. 1798 !"

His

In addition to the author ty of ou worthy friend in Dublin, we beg to say that we rely on the statements contained in a pamphlet intituled "The Proceedings of the General Committee of the Roman Catholics in Ireland in 1792 nd 1798.compared with the Proceedings of the Rom in Catholic Committee in 1810, and 1811; 2d edition, printed for our publisher, 41, PallMall. Our Irish friend, (with whom we corresponded through the mediam' of a man of rank, remarkable as well for his attachment to the Established Constitution of the United Kingdom, in Church' and State, as for his condescending affability) gives us to understand that this pamphlet was written by Sir Richard Musgrave. Having said thus much, we heed not add a syllable concerning the authenticity of every thing asserted in the pamphlet; Sir Richárd Musgrave being a complete master of the nature of historic evidence, and certainly a most impartial and intrepid recorder of facts. We must add that a Wexford freeholder's observations on the history of the Rebellion which disgraced that town, lies upon our table. The worthy freeholder's name has been confided to us; and we hope that what we have now written will be acceptable both to him and Posthumus.

We shall here conclude, with one observation.-The way in which the Roman Catholics have fulfilled their engagements, and carried their resolutions into effect, in the points above mentioned, may furnish us with a criterion how far we may trust to their professions and promises in the event of their obtaining that accession of power which they claim as their right.

Feb. 8. 1813.

THE EDITOR.

VALIDITY OF A PAPIST'S OATH SWORN ON THE ENGLISH

NEW TESTAMENT.

THE following article is intended to point out, on the authority of Dr. Milner, Bishop of Castabala, how far the obligation of an oath ad,

ministered to Roman Catholics on the English translation of the New Testament is valid with them, and what degree of security it affords to a Protestant State..

On the reverence to be paid to a solemn Oath administered according to law in Ireland, as taught and inculcated by a Vicar Apostolic of the Holy Roman See.

It is well known how little the Popish peasantry in Ireland regard Our English translation of the New Testament, as published by authority, and therefore, on the cover of the book used for the administration of oaths in the Courts of Justice, a git cross is stamped, which many of the persons sworn are believed to venerate more than the contents within. To this cause may, perhaps, be attributed the contradictory evidence which. is too often given in the most positive terms in the Irish Courts, and the disregard of an oath which the English ascribe to the inferior natives of Ireland when they have cro sed the Channel. What respect, then, will, in future ever be paid in Ireland to an oath administered according to law, when a person of high authority in the Romish Church has not scrupled to publish and declare, that he who takes such an oath there, merely "kisser the leather and paper of which the book consists?" This is an opinion most impressively inculcated by Dr. Milner, an English Roman Catholic Bishop, and a Vicar Apostolic of the Holy Roman See, in a publication intituled, "An Enquiry into certain vulgar Opinions concern"ing the Catholic Inhabitants, and the Antiquities of Ireland, in a series "of Letters from hence, &c. by the Rev. J. Milner, D.D. F.S.A. &c. "London, 1308," This book, though printed in London, was chiefly intended for Ireland, where it was industriously circulated; and that it might attract such as read for amy-ement, it is lettered on the back Dr. MILNER'S TOUR IN IRELAND In this publication, which contains the most, virulent attacks on the Established Church; the words already quoted occur at page 82, and convey to the world the Doctor's idea of that awful appeal made to the Almighty, in taking a solemn oath on the Holy Gospel to be nothing more than the act of " kissing the leather and paper of which the book consists !!!!

It has been mentioned above, that the Roman Catholic peasantry have little or no respect for our English translation, yet to remove all possi ble reverence for its contents, Dr. Milner brought over with him to Ireland, and had reprinted, by a subscription of the Roman Catholic Clergy, an old forgotton treatise, published in the reign of James II. containing the grossest misrepresentatiens, and the most indecent treatment of the Prelates and Ministers of the Established Church at that time, entitled, "Er

rata of the Protestant Bible," "Errors that are to be found in the English "Translation of the Bible as used by Protestants, &c. &c. by Thomas "Ward. London, 1688. Reprinted in Dublin by R. Coyne, 1807. 4to."

Henceforth, whose life or property is safe when either may be taken away by evidence on oath; when the person who takes an oath according to law, is taught to believe he only kisses the leather and paper of a book, the contents of which are thus represented to be ERRONEOUS and

་་་

UNDESERVING OF REGARD ?

JUVERNA.

BISHOP HOADLEY'S SENTIMENTS OF THE ROMAN CA

THOLICS.

AMONG the very few authorities which can be adduced as favouring the cause of Emancipation, the name of BISHOP HOADLEY stands the most prominent. Most of the arguments on this question, where arguments at least are ever used, are drawn from his writings, fortified by his sanction and protected by his name. The Clergy, in particular, who have lately displayed so honourable a zeal in the defence of our English Constitution in Church and State, are referred to the high authority of that celebrated Bishop, as the Bright example of Christian toleration, and the great adviser and friend of unqualified concession to the imperious demands of the Ro man Catholic body. In various papers, the signature" Hoadleianus" hae been considered as affording a sufficient countenance for the grossest and most unqualified abuse of that learned body, whose only crime is their constant attachment to the genuine principles of civil and religious liberty, and their resistance to the encroachment of a Church which never, in the annals of history, united the possession of power with the exercise of mercy.

It will be a point, therefore, of much importance to lay before the public the real and avowed opinions of this Prelate, respecting the power, the pretensions, and the views of the Roman Catholic Church, and to shew how far the arguments, which he so frequently enforced, respecting the admission of Protestant Dissenters to the high offices of State, will apply to the concession of political power, and the surrender of the Constitution into the hands of the Roman Catholics.

The following extract is taken from a sermon published in a volume with fifteen others under his own direction, and what is rather remarkable it stands next but one to the famous discourse on the words, "My kingdom is not of this world."

- With many opinions of Bishop Hoadley we cannot agree, but to every