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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3.

MEETING OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE, CAPEL STREET.

LAURENCE CLYNCH, Esq., in the Chair.

The Catholic rent received since last meeting was announced as £518 19s. 7d.

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Mr. O'Connell inquired if the letter of thanks to the Most Rev. Dr. Plunkett, Catho Bishop of Meath, which had been agreed to at a meeting of the Association, had been forwarded as directed.

Mr. Conway (acting secretary) said that it had.

RIGHT REV. DR. PLUNKETT.

MR. O'CONNELL said the venerable prelate was the oldest bishop in Ireland, and held his diocese longer than any other bishop in Europe. He had taken great trouble and exerted himself very effectually in establishing the Catholic rent, having written circular letters to his clergy, requesting their assistance in forwarding that measure, and therefore it was that the Association had agreed to the letter which was intended as a tribute of respect and gratitude to so old and respectable a prelate.

His lordship, said Mr. O'Connell, had transmitted his subscription as a member of the Association, and which was very precious, as demonstrating his approbation of the proceedings of the Association.

Mr. O'Connell handed in another yearly subscription from the Rev. Eugene O'Reilly, principal of that very respectable seminary, the Navan academy.

The learned gentleman also stated that the clergymen of French-street convent of Carmelites, who devote their lives to he education of the poor, had requested to be enrolled as a oody-as members of the Association-and had sent in their subscription.

Mr. O'Connell gave notice of a motion, "that as almost the whole of the Catholic peers had paid in their subscription, they should be enrolled as members of the Association."

The learned gentleman took occasion to suggest that a petition should be presented to his majesty to restore Lord Riversdale to his title; and when they considered the magnanimity an gracious generosity of his royal breast, and his having so lately so noble a feeling respecting the remains of King James, there could be little doubt but that feeling would be extended to the descendants of King James's followers.

In the present instance, the restoring Lord Riversdale to his title, would be received by the Catholics as a compliment.

A conversation ensued as to the disturbances of the late meeting by the students of Trinity College; and Mr. O'Connell announced that he hoped soon to secure for the Asso· ciation another place of meeting, where the possibility of such annoyances would be ubviated.

A letter was read from John Finlay, Esq., expressing his acknowledgments for the vote of thanks which had been communicated to him.

On the 10th November, £10 was handed in from Lord Cloncurry, with an excelle:.t letter, from which the following is an extract:

The last wish ever heard from Grattan was for the repeal of the Union. If all Ireland were polled, I do not believe that out of the seven millions, one hundred votes could be against the repeal of that finishing act of Ireland's degradation. In that repeal I place my best, my almost only hope, of her regene:ation."

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10.

BIBLE MEETING AT LOUGHREA.

Mr. O'Gorman strongly denounced the conduct of the Trench family on the above occasim.

MR. O'CONNELL never remembered any transaction so surrounded with falsehoods as the Loughrea business.

As he was on his legs now he might as well allude to a paragraph that appeared in The Courier newspaper, and which could be traced to one of the Trench family in this country. It had ppeared, however, in the usual way, as if it had been written one of the ordinary scribes of the paper.

The facts, which were much misrepresented, were these:-the meeting was an open meeting, and one to which the Catholics were invited by tickets, sent round by the Protestant Warden of Galway. Now this fact was denied; it was denied in England, and it was denied in Ireland; but he held the original invitation in the hand-writing of the Rev. J. Daly, nephew to Judge Daly, who voted for the union, and had a conscience. (Laughter.) This fact could be attested by Messrs. Guthrie, M'Nevin, and Power.

These gentlemen had been libelled in the Galway Advertiser The proprietor informed them, that these libels had been insertea without his countenance or approbation, and he authorised them to go to his printing-office and search for the manuscript. They

did not find the manuscript they wanted; but they, however, laid their hands on something much better, which was the identical paper which he held in his hand, and which he would now read :

"You are hereby invited to attend the annual meeting of the county of Galway Lranch of the Hibernian Bible Society, to be held in the court house of Loughrea, at one o'clock, on Tuesday the 19th of October. The Rev. W. B. Mathias expected from the parent society" (expected, mind, and from the parent society too-(a laugh)-"and his Grace the Archbishop of Tuam has consented to take the chair."

He would now deposit this paper with the secretary, Mr. O'Gorman.

MR. O'GORMAN.-Every thing dangerous you may leave with me. (Laughter.)

Mr. O'Connell resumed, and said, that the Trench family were always principal opponents of the Catholics; no one on their estates would get a renewal of his lease, unless his children attended the Bible Schools; he knew one man, indeed, who, having no children under the age of twenty-two or twenty-four, was not required to send them to school, to get his lease renewed.

He did not forget the time when one of that family brought the Jocelyn Horse (loud applause) to disperse a meeting of the people at Galway. The Trench family had for all this a multiplicity of good offices. There was among them an earl, an archbishop, commissioners of revenue, and he knew not what beside. (Laughter.)

He would cause a petition to be presented to parliament on the grievances which the people sustained from that family. An unfortunate Papist, between sentence and execution, had written so very eloquent a letter against the impurities of the Catholic faith, and so much in favour of the Bible Societies, that his life was saved, through the intervention of a member of the Trench family, and he was now a teacher in one of their Bible Schools.

Here Mr. O'Connell proceeded to read the article in the Courier, paragraph by para graph, and to refer to it as he went along.

The article in question was replete with gross falsehoods. It was said that he (Mr. O'C.) indulged in violent tirades against the English press. He called it, it was true, a base, an excessively base press, and he called it so still; and it was not, surely, in the eyes of the world, the less base for receiving an article ready manufactured from Ireland, and printing it as its own. The Courier affected to be our friend, by not publishing our

proceedings, as detrimental to our own interests. Did they ever publish a word for us? and if our proceedings injured ourselves, oh! how soon they would have them in at full length.

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Was not a sneaking, false insinuation of this kind worse than a courageous, open lie? It had nothing of the danger of the latter, while it had a mischief and a malevolence peculiarly its own. The Courier had asserted, that he had pointed out the Protestant places of worship as nuisances. The fact was not so. merely condemned their architectural style, or rather the want of all architecture. Could there then be a greater falsehood than this? When he (Mr. O'Connell) spoke of the population in England, and the facts respecting the births one month after marriage, he did not use his own language he merely stated the evidence on oath, sworn to distinctly and positively by a Protestant clergyman, and contained in the reports and parliamentary returns concerning the population. In alluding to this subject he had used, with a slight transposition, a quotation from Shakspeare. He said, "The marriage-baked meats did coldly furnish forth the christening feast." This, he said, on the 29th September last, yet the Courier had misrepresented it. For the Courier made him say that nineteen women out of twenty were separated from their husbands.

The Courier then alluded to what he had said respecting the Marquis of Londonderry. He did not say that that nobleman had put an end to the parliament in the manner in which he afterwards put an end to himself. What he had said was, that Castlereagh had extinguished his country. To this he pleaded guilty; and who that revered the memory of Washington, or Bolivar, or even Kosciusko, who was unsuccessful, but must detest the man that had uprooted and destroyed the independence of his country.

He (Mr. O'C.) remembered Ireland glorious and independent -but looking on what she then was and what she is now, he could not be complaisant in speaking of the man who had waded through blood and bribery to consign his native land to cold oblivion by robbing her of her independence.

Was it then too strong an expression to call on his countrymen to shun and avoid the traitor's grave? To show a just execration for the vicious was as natural and rightful as to honour the virtuous; and in pointing out to his children examples to avoid, he would pronounce the name of Castlereagh, and tell them to hand it to their children's children to shur and shudder at.

VOL. II.

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There was no generous spirit that must not apply to him that worst accasation of the old Roman

"Vendidit hic auro patriam."

The Courier had talked of the declaration he made respecting the turbulence of the peasantry. Now he repeated that he wondered the peasantry were not more turbulent, goaded as they were by the merciless oppressions practised on them; and he certainly would never retract these expressions till the causes that excited the peasantry to acts of insurrection were removed. The Courier had introduced his name coupled with that of Dr. Doyle this was a recompense for the falsehoods they had printed respecting, himself. The mere association with such a man as Dr. Doyle was honourable. He only desired his name to be coupled with that of this excellent man and Christian prelate. Doctor Doyle did not need his (Mr. O'Connell's) advocacy; he was able and willing to defend himself, and all he wanted was a clear stage and no favour; but he could not omit the opportunity of stating, that of all the intellects he had ever encountered-and the nature of his profession, while it gave him some insight into the character of the human mind, also enabled him to judge pretty correctly of the powers of individuals that of Doctor Doyle was the most mighty and stupendous that he had ever witnessed, while his manly, gentle, bland and amiable manners, formed a fine contrast to the towering strength of his intellect, and illustrated the idea of the "thunderbolt of Jove in the hands of a child," by their soft and soothing influence.

This kindliness of disposition, this amiable piety, combined with the single-heartedness of Doctor Doyle's mind, had added to the utility of his purposes, and given him a moral force with the people which was irresistible. It was quite incredible the sums of money that he lavished in charity; his benevolence and his purse seemed inexhaustible, as they were indeed most unac¡ountable. He appeared to coin his heart into relief for his famishing countrymen.

He now came to tne Cork business. This meeting was held in the court-house, and passing at the time with Mr. Sheil and Mr. Bric, and seeing the court house open, they were naturally tempted to go in ; they saw, likewise, the magistrates and the sheriffs, and ladies of all ranks and age, some of them, to be sure, whose beauty was on the wane, starch and prim-(laugh. ter-but others in the full bloom of youth, all, all, pushing the

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