ment, were ready to afford him; and for the spirited resolutions adopted in his behalf by that patriotic Nobleman, the EARL OF SHANNON; by Mr. Hyde, Sir N. Colthurst, and some other gentlemen; the probability is, that an innocent individual would have been plunged into bankruptcy and rvin.

-Shall I not add the case of Mr. Crofts, an extensive clothier in the liberties of Cork, as confirmatory of the truth of my former observations? On the day' he proposed to give his vote, he received a notice signed by TWENTY FIVÉ of his retail customers, stating that if he did not support Mr. Hutchinson the advocate of their claims, they should discontinué to purchase his cloth; thus making it in a manner imperative on him to vote contrary to his wishes. To prevent such ill consequences, as well as to avoid others, which would even more affect his property; he yielded, though with feluctance. What instance of bigotry and intolerance among Protestants,' could Mr. Hutchinson, and the whole tribe of Popish agitators and demagogues, produce like this? Where have Protestant landlords manifested) the least vindictive feeling at the base ingratitude of their tenantry? Where have they not acted with an high-minded libérality in forbearing to call in, what is known in Ireland, by the name of the indulgent gale? Where, in a word, does the Protestant, of whatever rank or description he be, make a distinction between one of his own, and one of the Popish Communion, whether in traffic, or in social intercourse; whilst unfortunately his liberality is repaid by prejudices of the worst kind, and by the most rancorous hostility, where fear or policy cease to operate? Let Mr. Hutchinson and others of his stamp, no longer stun us with imputations false as they are malicious; inasmuch as dirty work, corruption, and persecution, are charges more applicable to themselves, than to their opponents. But let Mr. Hutchinson in parti

1

Such language as this, comes with a peculiarly bad grace from the lips of Mr. Hutchinson, habituated, as his early days must have been, to the abuses, corruptions and oppressions practised by his father, when Provost of the Irish University. Could he forget, that the return of Mr. Richard H. Hutchinson (now Lord Donoughmore) to sit in Parliament, made as it was by the Provost counter to the wishes of the College Electors, was reversed within a few weeks, and reprobated with the strongest marks of censure, by a Committee of the House of Commons; while Mr. Fitzgibbon (the late Lord Clare). was declared the sitting member? Could he be ignorant that when he was dealing out his vulgar abuse of the government, of the Protestant clergy, and of the freemen at large, who supported his adversary; that at the same moment, bribery, perjury, subornation, and persecution were carrying on in his behalf, through the agency of his Popish par fisans? For the sake of charity let us suppose him to be unacquainted with all this, and even not to know that Power and the other wretches from Kinsale were suborned in order to secure him his election. 2 $

VOL. I. Prot. Adv. March 1813.]

cular, recollect that the administration of His Grace the Duke of Richmond, which, in the vulgar cant of "The Talents," he pronounced bigotted, intolerant, and persecuting, furnishes as perfect a pattern of every thing that is great and noble; of generous policy and dignified for bearance (of which characteristics, the undisturbed possession of the places held in the revenue by his brothers, although acting in open hostility to that government, which he reviled, is a memorable proof): as any to be met with in ancient or modern times.

As I fear I have trespassed too far on your patience, I shall conclude with entreating your earnest attention to the facts, which I have enumerated in the foregoing part of my letter. There, Sir, you see melancholy instances of the degraded state of the Popish freeholders, and of the dan gerous influence which their spiritual advisers exercise over them. While the clerical body anathematises, you see the infuriate bigots among the laics, passibus aquis, thundering forth civil excommunication against, and stigmatising with infamy, any Romanist, who dared to use the right even of private judgment :-witness the attempts of O'GORMAN and LAWLESS, 3gainst Messrs. Burke and Lalor. Need I point out to you the probable res sult of this baleful and wide-spread system, according to which men are forbid, not merely to act and speak, but even to think as they wish, if it be in opposition to the will of their tyrants? According to this system, the natural connexion between landlord and tenant must be dissolved, and the tie, which should unite them, broken asunder; the calls of friendship, or the claims of kindred, must not be listened to, or if they be, they must be sacrificed at the moment they became necessary;* promises of every kind must be cancelled, and gratitude, with which the bosom swelled (for the Irish peasant, taken from under the control of his Priest, is nature's child, endowed with her tenderest sensibilities), must be stifled in its first risings. I cannot, for my part, conceive any thing even in an oath more sacred than that allegiance, if I may so call it, that feeling of respect and

* The late Doctor Lanigan, titular Bishop of Ossory, when exculpating himself from having violated his promise to concede the VETO; thus observes: " when I signed in favour of that measure, I made only a serious, but not a solemn promise." He then points out four ways, applicable to all possible cases, by which a man may lull every qualm of conscience, and free his breast of every uneasiness about the fulfilment of an honourable engagement, viz. 1st. A promise is got rid of, if injurious to the person promising. 2dly. If injurious to the person to whom it is made. 3dly. If impossible to be performed. And 4thly. If circumstances afterwards so change, that had the person who promised foreseen them, he would not have committed himself." Where such rules are laid down, and by a Popish Bishop too, can it be matter of surprise, if Papists set little value on the sanctity of promises, engagements, or even oaths?

duty, which should bind the tenant to his landlord, under certain circumstances; nor, can I believe, if there be a difference, that the person, who violated the one, would feel any scruple about violating the other, when the interests of Holy Mother Church demanded it. I shall not therefore listen with patience to the hypocritical canting about oaths being a sufficient security to Protestants for the integrity of their Establishments in Church and State. Let those who laugh at Popery as an exploded system, made up only of legends and anile stories, look to the evidence of facts. By it, I, at least, am convinced, that it is, and ever will be, what it always has been, the most decided enemy to all liberty, civil as well as religious; and that to enlarge the privileges of its professors to a farther extent, would be to sever the two countries, and eventually to extirpate Protestantism from this land.

I am, Sir, respectfully yours,

Midleton, County of Cork,

January 1, 1813.

ANTI-PAPICOLA.

We hail, with peculiar pleasure, the increase of support to the Protestant cause which the correspondence of ANTI-PAPICOLA brings with it. We guess at the writer from the name of the place whence he dates his letter.-EDITOR.

To the Editor of the Protestant Advocate.

Mr. EDITOR-It must give pleasure to every sincere Protestant, to see, that the clergy of the Church of England are at length aroused to a sense of the danger to be apprehended from the Papists, and are beginning to express that sense in the form of manly and decided appeals to the Legis lature.

Too long, Sir, much too long have we remained silent. The moderation of the Church of England is indeed its peculiar glory: but even moderation may be carried too far. And when by some it is interpreted into fear, and by others into indifference, it is time for us to shew, that we feel the same attachment to our faith, and the same courage to defend it, by which our predecessors in our sacred office were distinguished.

The language of those who have taken upon themselves to advocate the cause of Popery, plainly speaks their hopes of a speedy victory. "We can not but be of opinion," say the Edinburgh Reviewers, "that it has gained ground very considerably within the last year. The divisions in the two

"Houses of Parliament, render it clear to those who are its enemies from "the love of office, as well as to those who are its enemies from principle, "that it must ultimately, and 'ere long, be completely triumphant."

Now, Sir, who may be its enemies from the love of office, I will not stay to enquire. The sapient reviewer has not told us to whom he alludes, and a general insinuation may probably suit the ends of faction better than a direct and positive charge. I will only take leave to say that, after the specimen which that party, whose oracle this review is become, have given us of their language when out of office, and their conduct when in; I should certainly think it an easier task to shew who were the Advocates of the Papists from a desire of gaining office, than who were their enemies from a wish to retain it. But, Sir, let that pass; I profess myself an enemy of the cause from principle, as a minister of the Protestant Church of England. In which character I have solemnly engaged to "be ready with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's word :" and to the triumphant language of the Popish Advocates. I would answer in the memorable advice of Ahab to the insolent Ben Hadad: "Let not him who girdeth on his harness, boast himself as him that putteth it off." The struggle is not yet well begun. The Church of England has hitherto been silent. Not because she has felt uninterested; not because she has beheld the persevering efforts of a turbulent faction to re-establish the tyrannical dominion of a persecuting and corrupt Church with indifference; least of all, because she or any part or portion of her members wished it might succeed;-but because she confided in the wisdom of Parliament, in the firmness and ability of his majesty's ministers, and above ali in the unshaken intrepidity, the true Protestant spirit of our venerable monarch.

But, Sir, the times are unfortunately changed, disease has deprived us of his aid, who for fifty years proved that he was in truth the Defender of the Faith. Providence has permitted the best and wisest of his ministers to be cut off by the hand of an assassin. And the Regent and his Ministers beset on all sides by a turbulent and unprincipled faction, have wisely appealed to the loyalty and good sense of the people. Now then Sir, when a new Parliament has been summoned, which will proceed to the discussion of this important question, unshackled by former votes, and uninfluenced, as we must presume, by any motives, but those of preserving the sacred pledge of the constitution entrusted to their care, and of providing in the best method for the quiet, the safety, and the prosperity of His Majesty's dominions ;-now is the time for all Protestants, but more especially for us, the ministers of the establishment, to shew, that we are determined to resist the end.oachments of Popery; that our opinions are unchanged; and

that our resolution to stand or fall in the defence of the Protestant Faith is unchangeable.

It has been said that the claims of the Irish Roman Catholics involve a mere political question; and it has therefore been urged, that the Clergy should not interfere in it; because, from the very nature of their sacred office, which must abstract their attention from secular affairs, they are to be supposed of all men the least competent to discuss it. The interfe rence, however, may well be denied, even if the premises be admitted. For, surely, it must be of some consequence to the Clergy who are their governors. Our lives and our liberties, our civil rights, and our property, scanty as it is, are all dear to us as well as to our fellow-subjects. And though we ought to be, and I trust are ready to risk, or even to part with all in defence of that far dearer, far more precious deposit intrusted to our keeping, the true religion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; still, Sir, where the support of that religion involves in it the protection of all these inferior blessings, we may be allowed, in their proper proportion, to feel the value of them also; to inquire how they may best be preserved, and with all Christian humility, to stand up in their defence. Claiming this, therefore, as our right, as the unalienable right of every Briton, be his profession what it may, it must be allowed us, to express our opinion, that, under the administration of a Popish Parliament, or a Popish Cabinet, or a Popish Monarch, (for why, if we allow of the two first, should we object to the third?) neither the property, nor the liberty, nor even the lives of a Protestant Clergy, would be objects of peculiar tender

ness or care..

But the question is by no means to be thus limited. It is in truth as much a religious as it is a political object at which the Roman Catholics aim. Political power is only the instrument by which they would acquire religious supremacy. Let those who doubt of this look at the manner in which they have formerly used political power in this country.-Let them reflect upon the way in which they exercised it, when the weak and bigotted Mary ascended the throne. If it should be objected that no argument against the modern Roman Catholics can fairly be drawn from the prac tices of times so far removed from us. It must be answered, that although the times are changed, the character of Popery remains the same. Dr. Troy declares, that "the principles of the Catholic Church are unchangeable, and therefore applicable to all times." Mr. Plowden has assured us, that "if any says, or pretends to insinuate, that the modern Roman Catholics differ in one iota from their ancestors, he either deceives himself, or he wishes to deceive others; semper eadem is more emphatically descriptive of our religion than our jurisprudence."-If it is imagined