these shores, there are some, who from political difference of opinion are far from liking me; there are others, who I am sure would save my life at the risk of their own. It is the effect of the good qualities of the nation, not of any remarkable services which they owe to me. One of these zealous friends of mine came to me a few days ago, to tell me that I must prepare myself to meet a fierce attack on the part of the Roman Catholics: for an emissary of a great man among them—a Mr. Butler, the nephew of the biographer of the saints-had been exceedingly active among the Spanish emigrants, speaking most violently against me, and begging to know whatever they might be disposed to tell, to strengthen the hands of his employer against me. So innocent was my excellent friend of every thing relating to you, Sir, previously to his meeting with your collector of materials for controversy, that he imagined your name had been unknown to me till he mentioned it. The result of your second-hand inquiries I do not pretend to know; but I strongly suspect that the report of my unfortunate countrymen would

H

do your Church little good. Believe me, Sir, they know her too well to love her.

My report of the state of a considerable part of the Clergy, differs no doubt from those which circulate throughout the nation; but it is in the caution with which I limit it, and the delicacy with which, from fear of betraying the confidence of friendship, I have worded it. Would you know how the popular opinion runs among a large portion of the nation? You You may have it in the words of a Spaniard, who has very recently published a novel, descriptive of the manners and state of the country. I do not quote from the novel, but the Preface; nor do I mean to countenance the report I am going to copy, as to its details. I warrant it only as to its expressing the real opinion of a great part of Spain.

"With respect (says the writer) to the conduct of that grave personage of his tale, the monk, the author can assure his reader, that it is a faithсору, taken from certain good prelates, who are now at the head of the Spanish Church.

ful

Every body in Spain, who takes the trouble of

'He

looking at things with his own eyes, sees that the generality of them are downright Atheists. believes in a God,' said a certain bishop to a friend of the author, alluding contemptuously to another clergyman, who passed for a man of talent and intrigue, 'what great things can any one expect from him?””

Your emissary may, to your satisfaction, ascertain the fact that the author of this passage is really a Spaniard.

X.

But did that emissary, having failed in collecting facts to your liking, bring some other kind of stories for the British Catholic Association-some proper ammunition for the filth-engines which the two bodies of that name, both in this country and in Ireland, never fail to place in front of their lines? You, Sir, were present at the Speech, in which Mr. Eneas M'Donnell opened that kind of fire against me; for your name as a speaker appears before that noble piece of Hiberno-Roman

* Preface to Sandoval, or the Freemason, page vii.

eloquence, and I find you afterwards calling to order a poor honest man, who ventured to describe the whole of the proceedings of the meeting "a farce." You were present, Sir, and I can

* "Mr. French said that it might be in the recollection of the meeting, that Sir Francis Burdett had expressed some years ago in Parliament his disgust and indignation at what he called the periodical return of the solemn farce. Circumstances had since occurred which induced that honourable baronet to alter his opinion: but as he (Mr. French) perfectly coincided with him then as to the solemnity of the farce, so he would state his own opinion to be unaltered from the very first exhibition of it, down to the present moment..... Yet he trusted that nothing short of general emancipation (query, what is the extent of an emancipation more general than that asked for in the "periodical farce ?") would ever be hailed by the Roman Catholics, or received by the general body of the unprotesting believers in the Church of Rome. Never let such an impious—such an unnatural triumph be paid to Cæsar! To struggle for emancipation was an idle

......

waste of time, labour, and money (no! no! no!), &c. &c. Mr. Butler rose to order, but Mr. French continued speaking. Mr. Butler at length succeeded in observing, that there was still much business before the meeting, and it was already four o'clock: he therefore trusted that the learned gentleman would speak to the question....... Mr. French, after apologizing, continued.-When the present objections are buried

not tell whether you joined in the rapturous cheers, with which the low reviling of my name and character was greeted. But whether you did or not, I must pause to consider you in your character of a member, -an active member too, of the British Roman Catholic Association. This, Sir, is the more necessary, as when I ventured to enter the lists with you, I did not know the kind of auxiliaries which were ready to support you against me. Now that the late proceedings of the Body to which you belong have opened my eyes, I must be allowed to call the attention of the public to our relative positions, and implore their sense of justice against the unfairness with which I am met in this contest. I am a private individual, without any support but what I derive from the recollection, that even in the land of my

in oblivion, others will arise, and the Catholics will never be restored to their rights (Cries of "question!"). "Bring the Catholics in close contact with Government," said Mr. Plunkett, and so says the Devil (a loud uproar), and so say even some of the Catholics themselves, for- (here we lost Mr. French's voice in the surrounding discord.) The Catholic Miscellany for February and March, 1826, pages 101, 102.