with the sheriff's signature only, that petition is now in circulation, for the individual signatures of the freeholders; and I have the greatest reason to believe that it will be numerously, and, indeed, generally signed. In the western district of the county, it has been already signed by 338, and there are not more than fifty freeholders in that district who have not signed. In the parish of Paul, containing 119 freeholders, only 5 have refused to sign. A counter-petition is also now in circulation to which all signatures are admitted, and even vehemently solicited. I believe it has been signed by about five hundred persons, chiefly of the lowest class; it has been circulated in all the alehouses; and even lay for some time in one alehouse where not a single name was obtained to it. I can venture to assure you, that, in the county of Cornwall, at least twenty to one are adverse to the claims of the Roman Catholics; and I have no doubt that if the petition against these claims had been open to the signature of every individual, that, at least, twenty thousand names would have appeared to it; for the same feeling on that subject pervades a great majority of every class of society in that county. Those who dissent* from the Established Church are quite as adverse to the claims as the friends of the Establishment.

1

I have known the county of Cornwall for 35 years; and I am quite sure of the facts which I have stated above. I have " nothing extenuated mor set down aught in malice."

I am, Sir,

Your friend and well wisher,

London, March, 1813.

A FREEHOLDER OF CORNWALL.

P. S. Mr. Gregor first called the attention ofCornwall to this momentous subject. His pamphlet† is well worth your reading; it is argumentative, forcible, and moderate.

CORNISH DECLARATION.

P. S. Sir ;-In addition to the information I gave you in my last, I have now to communicate a Declaration made by several persons who signed the

• This gives us no small consolation. The Dissenters in Cornwall, at least, are true to their principles, and are equally friends to civil liberty, with the members of the Established Church.-Edit.

This excellent publication is well known to us; and will shortly be duly noticed. -Edit.

counter-petition in Cornwall, under false impressions, as appears from their statement, which I believe to be authentic.

I have the honor to be, Sir,

Your Friend and Wellwisher,

A FREEHOLDER OF CORNWALL.

London, March 17, 1813,

We declare that, had we known that the petition, lately presented to us by Wm. Colenso* of Penzance, had for its object to permit the Roman Catholics to be Members of Parliament, Privy Counsellors, Ministers, c. of England, we never would have signed it. Witness our hands, 26th February 1813.

(Signed)

The of F. Thomas-Wm. Ellicott, F.+-Wm. Tren with-J. Hosken, jun.-George Wallis-Peter Doble - James Crossman Humphry Crossman-Moses Carley-Francis Thomas-Wm. Williamst-Samuel Cooper-Edw. Williams, F.-B. Rowe-Wm. Angwyn-Joseph Grose-James Ever-Henry VigoSampson Reynolds-Enoch Tonkin, F.-Joseph Tonkin-Richard Leggoe-J. Tregear, F.- Nath. Mathews-Luke Nowel-Stephen Rowling-Timothy Lipchild-Wm. James-Horatio Lipchild-Richard Woolcock, sen.-Richard Woolcock, jun.-Richard Thomas-James Lipchild-James Tonkin.

* Agent for the West Briton, a party provincial paper.

W. W. is a child nine years old, Colenso

Those marked F. are Freeholders. asked if he could write, and then advised him to sign.

BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE CURSE.

MR. EDITOR ;-Judging that the following document will be instrumental in forwarding the views of your publication, I beg to offer you a copy of it, for insertion, if you admire it as much as I do. It was levelled against a man of my parish, about fifty years ago; and the original, from which I took the copy, is in the hands of his descendants. It is an amiable specimen of Papal Ascendancy.

I am, Mr. Editor,

Your obedient humble Servant,

Hampreston Rectory,

Dec. 29,

1812.

MATTHEW W. PLACE.

The Pope's Curse, by Bell, Book, and Candle, on a Heretic of Hampreston.

By the authority of the blessed Virgin Mary, of St. Peter and Paul, and of the Holy Saints, we excommunicate, we utterly curse and banish, commit and deliver to the Devil of Hell, Henry Goldney, of Hampreston, in the county of Dorset, an infamous heretic, that hath, in spite of God and St. Peter (whose church this is), in spite of all holy Saints, and in spite of our holy father, the Pope, (God's vicar here on earth), and of the reverend and worshipful the canons, masters, priests, jesuits, and clerks of our holy church, committed the heinous crimes of sacrilege, with the images of our holy Saints, and forsaken our most holy religion, and continues in heresy, blasphemy and corrupt lust; excommunicate be he finally, and delivered over to the Devil as a perpetual malefactor and schismatic; accursed be he, and given soul and body to the Devil to be buffeted; cursed be he in all holy cities and towns, in fields and ways, in houses and out of houses, and in all other places, standing, lying, or rising-walking, running, waking, sleeping, eating, drinking, and whatsoever he does besides. We separate him from the threshold, from all the good prayers of the church, from the participation of holy mass, from all sacraments, chapels, and altars, from holy bread and from holy water, from all the merits of our holy priests and religious men, and from all their cloisters, from all their pardons, privileges, grants, and immunities, all the holy fathers (Popes of Rome) have granted to them, and we give him over utterly to the power of the Devil; and we pray to our Lady, to St. Peter and Paul, and all holy Saints, that all the senses of his body may fail him, and that he may have no feeling except he come openly to our beloved priest at Stapehill in time of mass, within thirty days from the 3d time of pronouncing hereof by our dear Priest there, and confesses his heinous, heretical, and blasphemous crimes, and by true repentance make satisfaction to our lady, St. Peter, and the worshipful company of the Church of Rome, and suffer himself to be buffeted, scourged, and spit upon, as our said dear Priest, in his goodness, holiness, and sanctity, shall direct and prescribe.

Given under the seal of our holy Church of Rome, the 10th day of August in the year of our Lord Christ one thousand seven hundred and fifty-eight, and in the first year of our Pontificate.-C. R.

Pronounced the 1st time the 8th of October 1758.

N.B. At Stapehill there is still a convent of the female order of La Trappe, the property of Lord Arundel. There are about 12 or 14 nuns, and they have five-and-twenty acres of land which they cultivate.

THE JESUIT'S MEMORIAL.

To the Editor of the Protestant Advocate.

SIR, As the book from which the following extracts are taken is, I believe, rather scarce, I have transcribed them for the use of your important publication, if you think proper to insert them, in the hope that they may tend to confirm that happy spirit of resistance to all dangerous claims of the Roman Catholics which is now, and greatly by your labours, generally raised.

The book is entitled The Jesuit's Memorial. It was written by Parsons the Jesuit, and presented to James II. as a plan according to which Eng land might most eligibly and effectually be made subject to the Popish religion and power. This book was published in 1690 by Dr. Gee, from the original copy presented to King James by the Jesuits. To the Memorial Dr. Gee has added (besides the Dedication to Bishop Lloyd, who furnished him with the original memorial) an Introduction and Notes.

In the Introduction Dr. Gee observes, that as, by the Bull of Pius V. for the deposing of Queen Elizabeth, "the English Papists were not allowed to wait a favourable opportunity," the Jesuits" obtained faculties from "this Pope's successor, Gregory XIII, to free the Romanists from the "curse of that declaratory bull for the present, till things were riper, and 66 a more favourable juncture offered itself, which faculties, immediately "after Campion's execution," grant "that the same bull shall always oblige her and the beretics; but the Catholics it shall by no means bind as affairs do now stand, BUT HEREAFTER, when the public execution of "the said bull may be (the original words are poterit fieri, CAN BE) had or "made." (Int. p. 25, 26.) If such be the solemn decree of a Pope, how dangerous must their Church be to any state in which it has power?

46

In answer to the charge of persecution made against Queen Elizabeth, Dr. Gee says," Most, if not every one of those Roman Catholics that "suffered during her reign, suffered for rebellion or treason, and NOT for "religion. I will not vouch our historians for the truth hereof; but take "it in the words of their own secular Priests, who writ the* Important "Considerations, A.D. 1601, which ought (to put it down in their own

66

"

words) to move all and true sound Catholics, who are not wholly jesuited, to acknowledge, without all equivocations, ambiguities, or "shiftings, that the proceedings of her Majesty, and of the State, with "them, since the beginning of her Highness's reign, have been both MILD "and MERCIFUL." (Page 7. Note b.)

"Important Considerations," in a collection of several treatises concerning the reasons and occasions of the Penal Laws. (P.51.)

"

But to come to the Memorial itself. Though it be the work of an individual, yet Parsons was distinguished by political intrigues and great abilities; and the very presentation of the Memorial is evidence that it had the countenance, and probably the sanction of his order. So far, therefore, it has weight beyond that of the mere opinion of one well versed in the policy and pretensions of his Church. He was well aware that what he proposed, required cautious and gentle proceedings at first. Accordingly he says, "Perchance it would be good-not to press any man's con "science at the beginning for matters of religion for some few years ;— yet it may be provided jointly, that this toleration be only with such as "live quietly and are desirous to be informed of the truth, and do not teach "and preach." (P. 32.) He then proposes a public disputation, which he presumes is to terminate in favour of the Popish doctrines. He should' have thrown the sword into the Popish scale, here, to give it preponde-. rence, but he does not wholly forget it; having presumed on affected Parliament" under a Catholic Prince," which himself and the time will easily procure to begin of new, and to build from the very foundation the external face of the Catholic Church." (P. 15.) And when this is done, and the disputation on the controverted points, once settled, he proposes at first gentle checks to heretics, then a military order to control them, and at length, "some good and sound manner of INQUISITION-for that, without this care all will slide down and fall again." (P.99.) This is very true. Habemus confitentem.

66

a well

For the benefit of the Parliament, he proposes that not only Bishops and Abbots should have seats in it, but other principal men of religious orders, and the King of course a Council of such. And if Roman Catholic Bishops were to sit in Parliament, why not Roman Catholic mitred Abbots, as soon as any may be appointed? This seems not yet to have been noticed, though surely it it is necessary to be so.

However, such are the ideas of one who proposed to reduce England to a state conformably to the discipline ordained by the Council of Trent; of one who assuredly well understood the views and doctrines of that Council, and the wishes of the See of Rome; and was a most zealous and active agent in promoting them. As such, they may deserve a particular attention at this time, since it is to be feared, that if the Roman Catholics cannot do all they avish of what he has proposed, they are desirous of doing all they can.

I am, Sir, &c.

VOL. I. [Prot. Adv. April 1813.] 3 C

GRRUNTIUS.