then, if with reference to the oath of supremacy, for the refusal of which Sir Thomas More was put to death, I said (p. 540), that «< the animus impo«< nentis can never warrant a juror to swear against << the conviction of his own conscience.» And (p. 108), « I cannot admit, that the sense put upon « an oath by the framers of it, contrary to what the words import to the juror, will justify a person << in taking it under such explanation.>> For these << reasons also was I induced to say (p. 568), « I << must essentially differ from an elegant modern << writer upon these subjects (Mr. Joseph Berring«ton), who attempts to prove, that such has been the legal acceptation of the oath (of supremacy), << from its enaction to the present day: and who holding the lawfulness of the present oath, thus interrogates his Roman Catholic brethren: Why << should we importune Government for a further << redress of grievances, or complain, that we are «aggrieved, if the remedy be in our own hands? « One bold man, by taking the oath, may dissipate << the whole charm of prejudice, and restore us the «< most valuable privilege of British citizens.»

The man, who admits the necessity of one Supreme Universal Bishop in the Church, cannot under any explanation lawfully swear, that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm, etc. as the words of the oath of supremacy run. I hope, Sir, that none of your impartial readers will impute to me, as the Honorable Baronet seems to have wished to fix me with, any principle disgraceful or dangerous, from which has emanated that opinion, which he (I presume) alludes to me in my history. It is contained in the preface to my Post Union History of Ire

land (v). << The author cannot subscribe to the generally received opinion, that an oath is to be << taken in the sense, in which it is imposed or required, secundum animum imponentis, but se«cundum animum jurantis; that is according to << the juror's understanding, and the common acceptation of the words, in which the oath is ex<< pressed.>>

«

What the Honorable Baronet's upright, honorable, and straight-forward views were in clogging the debate in the House of Commons on the 17th, and in interrupting it on the 24th of May with an explanatory amendment of, and scholium on my private opinion upon the construction of an oath, I leave to the determination of such auditors and readers, as perceive the relevancy of such private opinion to the propriety of the House of Commons ordering the instructions to the Governor of Canada to be printed. To his designs in forcing upon the public, even from the seat of legislature, no very gracious comparison of the doctrines of the Catholic Historian of Ireland, with those of the soundest Theologians and most accredited Jurists, both of the Roman Catholic and the Established Church, those gentlemen will adapt the most appropriate epithets, who best know the nature and spirit of that special commission, under which he has acted, ever since he declared in May 1815, that his fears upon that head were not Protestant fears, but Catholic fears: and he stated that fact in conformity with the wishes of the Catholics hemselves.

I have felt myself called upon to say thus much, through the medium of your paper, in which I first read the report of Sir John Cox Hippisley's speech, that mentioned me, in order to do justice to the respectable people, whose history I have written, to the cause of truth, which I have endeavoured to

C

uphold, and to the character of a private (though very insignificant) individual, Your obedient Servant,

« Paris, 4th June, 1814.»

FRANCIS PLOWDEN.

Disappointed in that object*, the writer has « had recourse to the present mode of publication. The letters are now published in their original «<state, and with their original dates.» As in this step I have followed your example, I expect, Sir John, to avoid your censure. I dissemble not the

acuteness of the painful sensations, which attended the lecture of your first discharges against me from the walls of St. Stevens. They were made up of pity and indignation. I could not then, nor to this hour can I comprehend, how you could so perseveringly clog the movements, of the great measure, you still boast yourself so solicitous for the success of, by obtruding so insignificant an object as me upon the attention of the House. Had you sought to relieve your heart-burns by a dose, however powerful, of invective, it would have produced nothing but contemptuous pity; but I became indignant on perceiving, that the false charges, obloquy, and calumny, directed against an absent and undefended individual, were used as a stalking-horse for carrying amongst your Protestant brethren your inoculated horrors of that body of men, of whom you never had Protestant, and but recently assumed, Catholic fears; and also for giving spring, energy, and lustre to a train of measures to check, thwart, and harass that power, which lately has revived (1) them, throughout the dispersed churches,

* Advertisement to Sir John Cox Hippisley's Letter to the Earl of Fingal. (v).

(1) As this was effected by the Constitution of his Holiness

at the unanimous solicitation of almost all Christendom. To complete your portrait, Sir John, whilst acting in the Catholic cause up to the present moment, you should be exhibited in the three commanding positions or attitudes you presented in the progress of the great measure, which you last year found it necessary, for some reason or other, to assert in open senate, you were still as solicitous for the ultimate success of, as you ever

had been.

You were liberal, serene, and unsuspecting, whilst not acted upon by Protestant fears. You then had no squeamishness, no dreads of the intrigues at Rome. With conscious pride you* avowed yourself to have been the organ of transactions of considerable moment during a long

any

Pope Pius VII. so recently as the 7th of last August, which was the octave of the festival of St. Ignatius of Loyola, and Sir J. C. Hippisley on the 21st of November gave notice to the House of Commons of his wish to add this to the other documents, which on his motion were on that day ordered to be printed, it is given in an English dress, in the Appendix No. I. As the worthy Baronet has thought proper to couple me and my historical works so closely with this important document, I conceive, that it may be desirable to refer to it, whenever one thinks it worth his while to read either the Baronet's charges, or my refutation of them. According to his favorite paper, the Globe, for the 22d of November, 1814, « Sir J. C. Hippisley said, he wished to draw the attention of the House << to this fact; more particularly in consequence of the misre<< presentations, that had gone forth on the subject. Mr. << Francis Plowden, who valued himself on being considered << the Historian of Ireland, but whose historic pages, were << more known by their bulk than their accuracy, had written << a very diffused eulogy of the order, in which he had been << educated. It was in Russia, he exclaims, that this plante « si rare flourishes in all its vigor, where it has its General, its professed, etc.>> We shall comment upon this hereafter. First Let. to Lord Fingal, p. 17.

residence at Rome, some of which were considered of importance in the estimation of the Roman Catholic prelacy of Ireland. And lest the public should be left in doubt or darkness concerning the nature of these transactions, you favored them with the extract of a letter from the four Catholic ArchBishops of Ireland, under date of the 4th of December, 1800, in which they «< acknowledged their grateful obligations to you, for having been, the medium of an intercourse of amity and corres«pondence between our beloved Sovereign, and « the supreme Pastor of our Church. Through your exertions our national establishments in « the capital of the Christian world, are at the « eve of being fully restored to their original des

tination, etc.>> In that same year did you print and circulate amongst your friends, that superb work of your negociations and correspondence with the Pope and Cardinals, to which I before alluded, with fac similes of the great men's letters to you. Some years after you boasted of having been* authorized to enter into clandestine engagements with the Court of Rome, to which the public faith was as irrevocably pledged, as if they were sanctioned by the most punctilious formalities of office: and as I before remarked, you had gone the length of terming the legal inhibitions of such intercourse with the Roman Pontiff, weak, mischievous, and ridiculous.

You were bigotted, agitated, and suspicious, after you had been plied and set by others, and after Mr. Butler had reminded you, that you had been pleased to make yourself one of us. Thence originated your Catholic fears; from that moment

Appendix to the substance of the speech of Sir John Cox Hippisley, p. 117.