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Editor of it, with whom I had been many years acquainted, was ever eager to do justice to truth, upon any matter of national importance; and I, perhaps vainly, thought that a topic introduced into a debate affecting the rights and dearest interests of above six millions of his Majesty's subjects, would have appeared to him of national importance. you, Sir John, last year found unsurmountable difficulties in procuring the insertion of your two letters to Lord Fingal in the British Press, and Globe newspapers, with the view of giving them, as you tell us, a more extensive circulation, than is usually obtained in the form of a pamphlet; so have I this year experienced the like contravention to my wishes but probably from unlike causes. You were on the spot, able and willing to allow to the Editor his full pecuniary remuneration for becoming the publisher of your elucubrations on the great measure, and had moreover the advantage of the powerful mediation of Mr. Butler, for whom you have great pride and pleasure in avowing a friendship; and his influence with the Editor of the Press and Globe newspapers was such, that about the very time of your disappointment, his Address to the Protestants found ready admission into those papers; as did every thing from his which related to the great measure. I neither sent nor offered money to the Editor of the Morning Chronicle, for inserting my letter: I had no mediator to back my wishes: and I made my application upon the unsatisfactory dry plea of using the same organ for the defence of truth, which had (though unconsciously and justifiably) been the instrument of her violation. With you, however, I admit, that I thought the Morning Chronicle (as you did the British Press) one of the readiest and best avenues, by which my statements could find

pen,

their way to the public. With you also, Sir John, have I been driven to avow, that disappointed in that object, the writer has had recourse to the present mode of publication.

Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio, said a great adept in composition. I often have inveighed, and ever shall persevere in my invectives against anonymous assailants and calumniators. Veritas nil veretur, nisi abscondi. You have contented yourself, with dryly informing your noble correspondent, that you were disappointed in your wishes of circulating your thoughts through the medium of a popular newspaper. I will go further. I submit to the public, the motives and grounds of my application for a similar purpose and my readers will judge of the cause of my disappointment. I complain not of Mr. Perry's refusal to give place to my letter in the columns of his paper. I neither paid, nor offered payment for the insertion: but he might have noticed my letter; he ought to have sent the manuscript to the persons I had desired to receive it, in case of his objecting to my request. Although I may not distinctly discover the relevancy and connection of my opinion upon the obligation of oaths, and of my sentiments upon the utility and advantage of the institution of the order of Jesuits, with your motion to print the rescript of Monsignor Quarantotti*, and the Prince Regent's private orders to Sir George Prevost to check the progress of Popery in Canada; yet as you, Sir John, have thought proper, and the most versed in senatorial tactics Mr. Speaker Abbot, did not call you to order, I am forced to conclude, that your introduction of my opinions and my writings.

* For the satisfaction of the reader, both these pieces are given in the Appendix. No. II. and No. III.

was not irrelevant to, but was in fact connected with the subject, then awaiting the decision of the House. Now, as every connection is essentially reciprocal, my notice of your charges can neither be deemed scandalous nor impertinent. We are at issue upon the truth or falsity of them. No privilege, parliamentary or other, can sanction falsehood, and deception. The following is the copy of the private letter, which I sent to Mr. Perry, whom I have always considered the editor and proprietor of the Morning Chronicle newspaper: and I know, that it was delivered at his house in the Strand; together with the public letter, which I wished and entreated him to insert in his newspaper, or deposit the manuscript of it, where I directed.

<< DEAR SIR.

«< 4th June, Paris, etc.

I anticipate your surprise at the receipt of a letter from an unfortunate exile, whom you have long lost sight, if not all recollection of. I learnt with emotions of confusion and gratitude the eager liberality, which drew forth your sympathies, when my daughter first apprized you of my troubles in 1809; and my sense of it will ever remain fixed and lively. Though now resident in a foreîgn land, my mind, feelings, and interest, are unceasingly taken up with my country. You will not wonder then, that I was strongly affected in reading the debates, which mentioned my name, in a manner, which bespoke a malicious and insidious intent in bringing it up coupled with all, that was deemed repulsive and contemptuous. I will not trouble you with any thing like a detail of the number and nature of my enemies, or of their underhand and artful workings to bring me into disrepute. Few like openly to grapple with me. You

will render me invaluable service by inserting the enclosed in your paper. I profess not to know the turn of the secret politics and interests, which may have taken place, since I quitted England. However, I speak with unreserved candor, when I entreat you to return the manuscript to the bearer of it (*** *** *** of *** street, who by the bye knows nothing of its contents), should there be a word in it, which breaks in upon your feelings, judgment, or interest. If I appear at all in your columns, it must be in my own manner. I confidently anticipate your forgiveness for causing you so much trouble, and for soliciting your countenance and recommendation amongst your friends, of the work, which now engrosses my whole time, and of which I enclose a prospectus. Wonderful are the resources and aids I find in this elysium of a literary man. I beg you to present my respectful homages to Mrs. Perry, and have the honor to be, with much regard and esteem,

Dear Sir,

Your devoted and obedient,
FRANCIS PLOWDEN.

То

Perry, Esq.

Morning Chronicle Office,

Strand, London.>>

<< TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE.

SIR, I trust, that your long tried and well known liberality and candor will devote a column or two of your paper, to the redress of an injured absentee, and the vindication of misrepresented truth, in a matter of high national importance; more especially, as through that medium, his character has been wounded, and the purity of truth

has been violated, by the discharge of your duty to the public. In reporting the speech of Sir John Cox Hippisley in the House of Commons, on the 17th of May, upon his motion for the printing of certain papers relating to the Catholic Question, and of his explanatory amendment of the report on the 24th of that month, when he moved for the production and printing of two other papers affecting the same subject, I find, to my utter astonishment, my name introduced into a debate, without the remotest relevancy of any part of my publications to the question then awaiting the decision of the House. Without affecting to touch the secret springs, which brought into the mind of the Honorable Baronet at one and the same time, the regulation of the Catholic discipline in Canada and Malta, the instructions sent by Government to Sir George Prevost, and the opinion of a private lawyer, upon the construction of an oath, I shall endeavour to throw some daylight upon this mysterious jostling of such disparate objects in the mind of a calm and temperate senator.

He draws the attention of the House to a point of much graver nature (than the interference of the crown in the nomination of Catholic Bishops), the Society of the Jesuits, whom it suits him to decry and criminate: and then he imputes to me generally, that I have written their eulogium, as if very unmerited; that I had asserted, that young men had been sent from Ireland to Naples, there to receive orders: and that treating of the tenets of the Jesuits, I differed from the soundest Roman Catholic Theologians, and the most accredited Jurists, namely, St. Isidore, and Justinian, as well as Paley and other writers of the establishment, by holding, that oaths are to be considered as obligatory secundum intentionem jurantis, et non

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