ed with a power behind the throne; a favourite theme which The Morning Chronicle used to amuse its readers with some time ago, when its old friends were ousted by Mr. Perceval, in consequence of the Military Catholic Bill which Lord Grey (then Howick) introduced into the Commons. By what authority, then, does the Editor of this paper assert, that the ruffians "inflamed by their bigoted priests, and misled by a speech attributed to the Duke of Angoleme, have sworn the destruction of the Protestant religion in France, and consider themselves as having rendered an acceptable service to their God and their king, when they have immolated a heretic, or destroyed a meeting-house?" Shame upon the man who thus stoops to impose upon his readers by advancing a falsehood to support his cause. Let the Editor prove the charge upon one Catholic clergyman if he can, who has been instrumental in instilling the atrocious and irreligious ideas here stated into the minds of these desperadoes. Let him anthenticate one respectable individual actuated by these horrid motives. He kuows he cannot; he knows that the charge originates in his own morbid brain, and holds no other foundation but what existed in his own distorted and bigoted views. For my own part, on reading the defence, I found it impossible to keep my mind from dwelling on the state of Ireland; every complaint which is contained in this document bear so strong a parallel to the situation of that distractd country, and to the Catholics of this kingdom in general, that one could not help feeling the keenest indignation towards the man who can cant and whine so much against persecution, when it is exercised upon those who are not Catholics but foreigners, yet remain quite placid and unmoved at the sufferings and proscriptions of his own countrymen, who are of that faith. The defence complains, that secret contrivances, falsehoods, insults, vexations, and ar tifices of every kind, were resorted to by the agents of the persecuting party to accomplish their plan; and have not the Catholics of this kingdom been complaining that the same unjust practices are exercised against them, without being able to move the compassion of The Morning Chronicle, or the English people. But now, because some horrid and lamentable atrocities have been committed in a Protestant town in France, scarce a day has passed but this paper has been teeming with some dreadful tale to play upon the nerves of the ignorant and unwary, and raise a cry against the Catholic Clergy, and the doctrines of that church. Nor is this all; the kindness of The Chronicle is so great, and its consistency of so pure a nature, that nothing will satisfy its Editor but public meetings throughout the country in behalf of the suffering Protestants of France, in which the Irish Catholics, forsooth, are to take the post of honour. On the 9th, The Chronicle copied the following article from an Evening Paper, without giving its name:-"Several private letters have been received in town from France, conveying very painful accounts of the persecution of the Protestants in the southern provinces of that country. Some of these letters have been addressed to Clergymen, requesting them to state the particulars from their pulpits, in order to excite the feelings of their congregations, and thus to create a popular impulse that may have the effect of moving the British Government to interpose its influ ence with the Bourbon family for the relief and protection of the sufferers. Nothing can be more natural than this appeal, in the unnatural situation which has produced it. The situation is unnatural, because at this period of religious and political civilization and liberality; and after the awful and instructive lessons that the French Revolution has impressed, the revival of religious bigotry and persecution, in that country in particular, must have been universally considered impossi ble, if it was not, unhappily, matter | tholics for relief from their own grie vances most strongly rest. of fact: but the evil, however monstrous and incredible, being actually in existence, the recurrence for relief to this country was the most obvious course that could suggest itself. The precedents of the ancient times, when the Sovereign of Great Britain was the AVOWED PROTECTOR of all who professed the Protestant religion, and the part that England had more than once taken in the religious contests of France, must have furnished ground to hope for a similar interest and sympathy at present; and the obligations that Louis XVIII. and his family owe to this country in particular, for being now a second time seated on the French Throne, after expulsions apparently as decisive, and, by their own means, as irrecoverable as it is possible to imagine, could hardly admit a conception of ingratitude and hardness of heart so monstrous as to refuse the redress of this oppression, on the application of the British Court to that effect. We trust that the British Court has already made that application, and that its beneficial effect will soon be shewn and thankfully recognized in a formal declaration and acknowledgment from the Protestants of the south of France, that the molestations of which they now complain have terminated. We sincerely wish and hope that the British Government may be able to take credit for this generous proceeding, before any public steps shall be taken to drive them to it. "Besides the obligation of duty towards the sufferers, which should alone be sufficient to impel generous minds to the proceeding, it is a thing that must do them infinite honour with the liberal part of the world; and that would have, more than any other, the effect of depriving their most malignant enemies of the power of calumniating and injuring them." (It On the 18th, The Chronicle in again returning to the charge, observes that it is a strange neglect, or rather a culpable indifference of our Government, to view these scenes without interfering. Our arms have placed the Bourbons on that throne which they have already stained with the blood of our fellow-Protestants. may here be noticed that the Editor, in order to maintain his love of consistency, assured his readers, on the 25th, "We never charged the French Government with setting the Catholics against the Protestants, we distinctly made our charge against the Angouleme faction.") Our arms maintain them on it, in opposition to the wishes and opinions of their subjects. (If we are, however, to believe the defence so vauntingly alluded to by The Chronicle, there did not exist a Bonapartist party in France a few days after the fall of the oppressor.") But if we are strong enough to smother the general. voice of France, can we not employ the means which Providence has placed in our hands to procure one act of justice for our Protestant bre Otherwise we are satisfied, that the word is only wanted to produce public meetings on the subject through-thren." Oh! the admirable kindness out the United Kingdom, with unanimous Addresses to the Crown, and Petitions to Parliament from all classes, and the most earnest of all from the Roman Catholics of Ireland, who, indeed, we conceive, ought FIRST to set the example, and we hope they will do so. It is on the ground that no persecution nor oppression, on account of religion, ought to exist any where, that the claims of the Irish Ca and consistency of this philanthropic scribe, and his coadjutor in the evening paper. During the long contest with France, The Chronicle has been ever and anon condemning the war party for interfering in the internal concerns of independent governments. Thrones might be overturned, innocent victims might be imolated at the shrine of false liberty, the most barbarous atrocities might be committed against the ministers of the Catholic religion | gentlemen would say, if the Catholics -churches might be converted into of this country were to send accredithospitals and manufactories-undered agents to the foreign sovereigns of the pretence of extending the reign of their communion, to invoke the influreason and freedom-but the interfer- ence which they possess with this goence on the part of the neighbouring vernment, in behalf of their emancigovernments was unjustifiable, because pation. Oh! what charges of treason it was infringing upon the internal would be laid against them-what deconcerns of an independent nation.-clamations-what censures-nothing But now, that peace is happily concluded, because a disturbance has occurred in that part of France which is chiefly inhabited by Protestants, who have unfortunately been the sufferers, but from what cause we are not able to ascertain with certainty, these consistent writers turn round, and not only blame the Ministry of this country for not interfering with the government of that kingdom, but actually threaten, by the means of public measures, "TO DRIVE THEM TO IT." What an age of consistency do we live in! And what are the grounds on which these most consistent gentlemen build their pretensions of thus interfering in the internal affairs of an independent government? Why, because the Sovereign of Great Britain was once the avowed Protector of all who profess the Protestant religion. This is certainly a new era; and so our wiseacres would again make the King of England the Pope of the Protestant Churches, would they? Thus after causing the Catholics to swear that neither pope nor prelate has or ought to have any temporal influence in this realm, and will not even permit them to hold any civil office unless they further swear that he has no spiritual power likewise; they very consistently contend that our Sovereign has a right to protect the Protestant subjects of all other powers. Yes, and we are informed by The Morning Chronicle, that an accredited agent is actually arrived in London from the Protestants in the South of France, for the purpose of invoking the interference of our government in their behalf, to secure them from the horrors to which they are doomed. Now, I should like to know what these would satisfy them unless the whole forward at that period in favour of | mentioned, that the sentence of the first three prisoners who were convict. ed was, that "You be severally taken from this Court-house, and forthwith removed to the prison-ship, in Cork their Catholic fellow-subjects? Why did they not then shew the same zeal to emancipate their own countrymen, as they now do to ameliorate the sufferings of foreigners? Would it not be bet-harbour, to be from thence transported ter for them to be just before they are for seven years to Botany Bay." They generous? With what consistency can were immediately placed on a car, they request government to interfere and hurried off to Cork under an es in behalf of the Protestants of France, cort of dragoons. The Limerick pawhen five millions of their own fellow-pers also inform us, that at the special subjects are suffering penalties and proscriptions for religion's sake. With what justice can they call upon the Irish Catholics to interest themselves in behalf of foreigners, when they will not take one step to release the Catholics from the state of bondage in which the penal laws have placed them? With what conscience can they call upon the people of England to interfere in behalf of the inhabitants of Languedoc, when the sufferings of the people of Ireland are totally neglected by them?-In the most beautiful part of the latter country, a space, comprising a population of four hundred thousand souls, has been put under the paternal care of the Whig Mr. Grattan's Insurrection Act, by which the inhabitants are restrained from leaving their houses, in this dismal season of the year, from sun-set to sun-rise. Under the blessings of this act, seventy persons, in the county of Tipperary alone, have already been tried by a bench of Magistrates, charged with transportable felonies, out of whom only thirteen were convicted, leaving fifty-seven tried, but declared innocent. Here then we have a list of fifty-seven British subjects unjustly charged with transportable felonies in the course of three or four weeks, in one county alone; and the offences of which the thirteen were convicted, consisted of being out of their dwelling-houses at improper hours, or concealing fire-arms and ammunition.For the latter crime, an old wouan of excellent character, made one of the thirteen, but her sentence was respited, in consequence of the disturbed state of her mind. It should also beings of those individuals who are at sessions for that county, two men were charged before Sergeant Johnson and a bench of Magistrates, with being absent from their dwelling-houses, between the above-stated period." It was proved," says the editor," that they were found at night drinking whiskey in a public house, at Rathkeale; they were convicted, AND TRANSPORTED FOR SEVEN YEARS." Surely these strong measures ought to excite some feelings of interest and compassion on the part of the "friends of civil and religious freedom," and induce them to enquire into the cause which has given rise to such coercive proceedings. Hitherto, however, they have maintained a dignified silence, and The Chronicle has kindly abstain ed from laying these transactions in the sister island before the English public. And why is this the case? Because the Catholics have withdrawn the care of their petition from the Whig party. Because they have resolved that their emancipation shall not be made the means of increasing the already overgrown influence of the crown, by making their prelates the subservient tools of the ministry.. Because they have declared that their of cause shall rest upon the justice their claims, and not become a partyquestion for the purpose of harrassing or thwarting the ministers. In con sequence of this determination on the part of the Catholics, this servile partyprint has not only abandoned the cause of Ireland. but has bceome one of the bitterest enemies to the Catholic re ligion. Every opportunity is now seized by its editor, to insult the feel tached to that faith, by reviling and them, then, if they are desirous of libelling the sacred order of the priest-preserving their consistency, unite in hood, and calumniating the principles of the Church. If proof is wanted to substantiate these charges, the recommendation of the Reverend J.Cobbin's | publication of ¡ying trash and partial statements, will be sufficient evidence. Whether the French Protestants will be able to obtain that which the Irish Catholics have never yet succeeded in gaining, namely, the sympathy of the English people in their sufferings, remains to be developed. An attempt, however, has been made towards it in favour of the former.A special general meeting of the Protestant Society for the Protection of Religious Liberty, was held at the New London Tavern, Cheapside, on the 21st instant, at which several resolutions were passed, breathing the warmest declarations in favour of Li- | berty of Conscience, condemning, in strong terms, the horrid deeds which have been perpetrated at Nismes, and reprobating, in warm language, the systematic and cruel persecutions of the Protestants in France; but I cannot find the least notice taken of the present penal laws which oppress and aggrieve the Catholics of Ireland. The Morning Chronicle is quite in raptures at the conduct of these libertymen. "We hope," it says, "it will rouse the energies of the friends of religious freedom throughout the country, and penetrate the cities and courts of Europe, and that while it speaks consolation to the oppressed, it will intimidate the instigators of crimes which have appalled the benevolent and good in every part of Christendom." Well, time will discover. If these gentlemen are sincere in their professions of attachment to the cause of civil and religious liberty; if they really regard it as the inviolable, sacred, and unalienable right of every man, in every age, and in every country, to worship God according to his conscience," they must admit the injustice of the present situation of the English and Irish Catholics. Let petitioning the legislature for a removal of every religious restraint against the citizens of the united kingdom.-Let them declare for the abrogation of all the penal laws which disseizes a man of his civil rights for following the honest dietates of his own conscience. Let them do this, and their commisseration for their fel. low Protestants in France will have a better effect, and be more consistent. But should they, on the contrary, be governed by those narrow, selfish, and bigoted views, which have hitherto marked their conduct; should they reserve all their philanthropy and pity for foreigners, and remain unconcerned spectators of the struggle in which the Catholics are engaged to obtain "Freedom of Conscience for every British citizen," it is to be hoped, when the sound of their patriotism goes forth to the "cities and courts of Europe," it will not be forgotten to be told, that though a political squabble in the south of France, could create a great and lively interest among the kind and consistent "friends of religious freedom," in England, two centuries of persecution and proscription borne by the British and Irish Catholics could not move their pity. The "cities and courts of Eu. rope" will then be able to judge whe ther these gentlemen are real or sham "friends to religious liberty." PAGANISM SANCTIONED BY THE ENGLISH.-When William the Third entered into a treaty with the Irish Catholics under the walls of Limerick, he engaged to grant the free exercise of their religion, and the full enjoy ment of all their civil privileges in common with every other subject of the kingdom. This treaty was duly ratified, it passed the Great Seal of England, and was observed with fidelity just seven weeks. The Catholics were then harassed with penal statutes, and, in consequence it may be supposed of the abhorrence of the British Ministry |