the temperate description the writer gives of the Catholic faith. With respect to purity of religion I shall not quarrel with him. I only differ with him in point of taste; but I should be glad to know what this creature calls rational liberty. I suppose such as existed at Lacedæmon-the dominion of Spartans over Helots-the despotism of masters over slaves, that is his rational liberty. We will readily pass so much by. But attend to this :

"I will," says this moderate and temperate gentleman, “lay before the reader such specimens of the POPISH SUPERSTITION as will convince him that the treasonable combinations cemented by oaths, and the NOCTURNAL ROBBERY AND ASSASSINATION which have prevailed for many years past in Ireland, and still exist in many parts of it, are produced as a necessary consequence by its intolerant and sanguinary principles."

Let our seceders-let our gentle friends who are shocked at our intemperance, and are alive to the mild and conciliating virtues of Mr. Peel, read this passage, sanctioned I may almost say, certainly countenanced by those who do the work of governing Ireland. Would to God we had but one genuine, unsophisticated friend, one real advocate in the House of Commons! how such a man would pour down indignation on the clerks of the Castle, who pay for this base and vile defamation of our religion-of the religion of nine-tenths of the population of Ireland!

But, perhaps, I accuse falsely; perhaps the administration of Ireland are guiltless of patronizing these calumnies; look at the paper and determine; it contains nearly five columns of advertisements-only one from a private person-and even that is a notice of an anti-Popery pamphlet, by a Mr. Cousins, a curate of the Established Church. Dean Swift has somewhere observed, that the poorest of all possible rats was a curate-(much laughing); and if this rat be so, if he have as usual, a large family, a. great appetite, and little to eat, I sincerely hope that he may get what he wants-a fat living. Indeed for the sake of consistency, and to keep up the succession of bad pamphlets, he ought to get a living.

Well, what, think you, are the rest of the advertisements? First, there are three from the worthy Commissioners of Wide Streets; one dated 6th August, 1813, announcing that they would, the ensuing Wednesday, receive certain proposals. Secondly, the Barony of Middlethird is proclaimed, as of the 6th of September last, for fear the inhabitants of that barony should not as yet know they were proclaimed. Thirdly, the proclamation against the Catholic Board, dated only the 3rd day of

June last, is printed lest any person should forget the history of last year. Fourthly there is proclamation stating that gunpowder was not to be carried coastwise for six months, and this is dated the 5th of October last. But why should I detain you with the details of state proclamations, printed for no other purpose than as an excuse for putting so much of the public money into the pocket of a calumniator of the Catholics. The abstract of the rest is that there is one other proclamation, stating that Liverpool is a port fit for importation from the East Indies; another forbidding British subjects from serving in the American forces during the present, that is, the past war; and another stating, that although we had made peace with France, we are still at war with America, and that, therefore, no marine is to desert; and to finish the climax, there is a column and a half of extracts from several statutes; all this printed at the expense of government, that is at the expense of the people.

Look now at the species of services for which so enormous a sum of our money is thus wantonly lavished! It consists simply of calumnies against the Catholic religion-calumnies so virulently atrocious, as, in despite of the intention of the authors, to render themselves ridiculous. This hireling accuses our religion of being an enemy to liberty, of being an encourager of treason, of instigating to robbery, and producing a system of assassination. Here are libels for which no prosecution is instituted. Here are libels which are considered worthy of encouragement, and which are rewarded by the Irish treasury. And is it for this-is it to supply this waste, this abuse of public money—is it to pay for those false and foul calumnies, that we are in a season of universal peace, to be borne down with a war taxation ? Are we to have two or three additional millions of taxes imposed upon us in peace, in order that this intestine war of atrocious calumny may be carried on against the religion of the people of Ireland, with all the vigour of full pay, and great plunder? Let us, agitators, be now taunted by jobbers in parliament with our violence, our intemperance. Why, if we were not rendered patient by the aid of a dignified contempt, is there not matter enough to disgust, and to irritate almost beyond endurance?

Thus are we treated by our friends, and our enemies, and our seceders; the first abandon, the second oppress, the third betray as, and they all join in calumniating us ; in the last they are all combined. See how naturally they associate;-this libeller in The Dublin Journal, who calls the Catholic religion a system of

assassination, actually praises in the same paper, some individual Catholics; he praises, by name, Quarantotti, and my Lord Fingal (much laughing); and the respectable party (those are his words) who join with that noble lord.

Of Lord Fingal I shall always speak with respect, because i entertain the opinion that his motives are pure and honourable ; but can anything, or at least ought anything place his secession in so strong a point of view to the noble lord himself, as to find that he and his party are praised by the very man who, in the next breath, treats his religion as a system of assassination. Let that party have all the enjoyment which such praises can confer; but if a spark of love for their religion or their country remains with them, let them recollect that they could have earned those praises only by having, in the opinion of this writer, betrayed the one, and degraded the other.

This writer, too, attempts to traduce Lord Donoughmore. He attacks his lordship in bad English, and worse Latin, for having, as he says, cried peccavi to Popish thraldom. But the ignorant trader in virulence knew not how to spell that single Latin word, because they do not teach Latin at the charter schools.

I close with conjuring the Catholics to persevere in their pre

sent course.

Let us never tolerate the slightest inroud on the discipline of our ancient, our holy Church. Let us never consent that she should be made the hireling of the ministry. Our forefathers would have died, nay, they perished in hopeless slavery, rather than con sent to such degradation.

Let us rest upon the barrier where they expired, or go back into slavery, rather than forward into irreligion and disgrace! Let us also advocate our cause on the two great principles-first, that of an eternal separation in spirituals between our Church and the state; secondly, that of the eternal right to freedom of conscience-a right which, I repeat it with pride and pleasure, would exterminate the Inquisition in Spain, and bury in oblivion the bloody orange flag of dissension in Ireland!

Mr. O'Connell concluded by moving his resolution, calling on the several counties to petition.

With reference to the matters touched upon in the concluding part of the speech just given, we may, in passing, record that the spring and summer of 1815 witnessed many proofs that the heart of Ireland was sound; and in August of the same year the pubile mind was cheered by the following declaration of the bishops :

"At a meeting of the Roman Catholic prelates of Ireland, held in Dublin, on the 23rd and 24th of August, 1815, the following resolutions were unanimously agreed to- the Most Rev. Dr. Kelly, president

"RESOLVED-That it is our decided and conscientious conviction that any power granted to the crown of Great Britain, of interfering directly or indirectly, in the appointment of Bishops for the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, must essentially injure, and may eventually subvert, the Roman Catholic religion in this country.

“RESOLVED—That, with this conviction deeply and unalterably impressed on our minds, we should consider ourselves as betraying the dearest interests of that portion of the Church which the Holy Ghost has confided to our care, did we not declare, most unequivocally, that we will at all times, and under all circumstances, deprecate and oppose, in every canonical and constitutional way, any such interference

"RESOLVED-Though we sincerely venerate the supreme pontiff as visible head of the Church, we do not conceive that our apprehensions for the safety of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland can or ought to be removed by any determination of his Holiness, adopted, or intende to be adopted, not only without our concurrence, but in direct opposition to our repeated resolutions, and the very energetic memorial presented on our behalf, and so ably supported by our deputy, the Most Rev. Dr. Murray; who, in that quality, was more competent to inform his Holiness of the real state and interests of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, than any other with whom he is said to have con sulted.

"RESOLVED That a declaration of these our sentiments, respectful, firm, and decided, be transmitted to the Holy See, which, we trust, will engage his Holiness to feel and acknowledge the justness and propriety of this our determination.

RESOLVED That our grateful thanks are due, and hereby given, to the Most Rev. Dr. Murray, and the Right Rev. Dr. Milner, our late deputies to Rome, for their zealous and able discharge of the trust reposed in them.

This document drew from the Catholic laity the following expressions of gratitude and delight:

"CATHOLIC AGGREGATE MEETING.*

"TUESDAY, 29th August, 1815.

"RESOLVED-That we deem it our first and most pleasing duty to express, in the strongest terms which our language can afford, our perfect confidence in, and esteem and veneration for, and gratitude to the most reverend and right reverend the Catholic prelates of Ireland; and these our unanimous sentiments are deeply and everlastingly impressed on our minds, by their firm, manly, and decided condemnation of any measure, giving to the crown, or the servants of the crown, any control whatsoever over the appointment of our bishops, inasmuch as any such measure must necessarily tend to destroy our religion, and also materially injure the civil rights and liberties of the people of Ireland, of all classes and denominations.

"RESOLVED-That our chairman be requested to transmit, in terms of the most affectionate respect, our most cordial gratitude to those learned. exemplary, and pious clergymen, Archdeacon Blake, Doctors Lube and Darcy, and to the other reverend and estimable clergymen of the second order of the Irish Roman Catholic hierarchy, who have concurred with them in constant and unqualified opposition to the abhorred veto in all its shapes and forms.

"RESOLVED That we cannot omit this occasion to publish to the world the fervent tribute of our lively gratitude and most profound reverence for the officiating Catholic priests of Ireland; a class of men uniformly distinguished by the most unremitting zeal and activity, and by the most incessant charity and disinterested purity, in discharge o their sacred duties;-me whom no dangers have terrified, no persecution has ever deterred, no seduction has ever led astray, and no temptation could ever bribe, from the faithful discharge of their duties; and who have obtained, as they have well deserved, the heart-felt admiration of all the persons of their own persuasion, and the decided approbation of the liberal and enlightened of every other religion.

"RESOLVED—That the Catholics of Ireland having, on their solemn oath, declared that the Pope has not, and ought not to have, any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence, directly or indirectly, within this realm; we cannot, without exposing ourselves and our religion to just derision and reproach, and also without incurring the dreadful guilt of perjury, consent to any arrangement by which the British minister may derive from the Court of Rome any jurisdiction or power over the transactions in civil life, and conduct in temporal affairs, of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland, and that our resistance to any such arrangements, instead of operating in our disfavour in the mind of any just and rational statesman, ought, on the contrary, to convince him that we deserve liberty, as well because such conduct furnishes one more powerful instance of their conscientious

* These resolutions were drawn up by Mr. O'Connell,