devotedly is she wedded to her established doctrine, that she never speaks of it but by way << eminence---our orthodox faith.»

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Never was it, Sir John, in my contemplation to enter the lists with you, or any person, not being a true member of the Catholic Church, who had taken in the common and hackneyed prejudices against the Jesuits. Were better reasons wanting, the common and virulent hatred of all enemies of revealed religion to the fathers of the society,. would be a powerful inducement to me, to look up to them, as a favored band of efficient workmen in the vineyard. Argument may do something against error; nothing against prejudice. One you may refute the other you never can dislodge. I have passed the 65th year of my life, and can with truth, aver, that often as I have heard the society decried, traduced, and calumniated, I never once witnessed even an attempt to bring home a crime, of which the body was accused, to a single individual. I am free to admit, that where charges are not notoriously palpable, general inculpation rather disposes me to acquit, than to criminate. But let not the state of our controversy or difference, our prepossessions, or prejudices concerning the Jesuits, be misunderstood. I controvert not your opinions; I combat not your prejudices: I canvass not your fears of them, whether Protestant or Catholic. But I stedfastly maintain, that I am correct in whatever I have said of them in my first letter to you. I stand forth openly and confidently in defence of my historical veracity, and that has been repeatedly assailed by you in open senate, on the score of what I have said (N. B. nothing have I said in my History of Ireland,) about the fathers of the society. In all I have said to you, Sir John, on dif ferent occasions, I am not conscious of having

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once expressed my disapprobation of your differences from me in any matter of policy or religion. 1 chuse not to be pinned down to the opinions of any man: and always feel disposed to give to others the liberty I myself crave. In this disposition then, I pass over unnoticed, and with apathy and indifference, the fears you expressed on the 17th of May, 1814*, of the consequences of the action of so close a system (as that of the Jesuits,) on the «fanaticism of the Irish Roman Catholics; and

that though the present Pope were a man of ex«< cellent moral character, yet he must be devoted << to his church, and it was possible, that under particular advice, and looking to the Jesuits, as the most potent instruments of Catholic influ«<ence, he might be persuaded to grant his fiat for << the restoration of the order (1). And your assurances, «< that the plans for the re-establishment «of that once formidable body were deeply laid, << and those best acquainted with Ireland, dreaded the event that all Christian countries, whether Catholic or Protestant, must feel it their interest << to discountenance such institutions (according to << the bull of Pope Ganganelli, which ordered the universal abolition of the Jesuits). That the Jesuits had always been found a powerful means of influence, a formidable band of intriguers, << and he therefore would wish to protect his country against the fiat of any Pope, for the resur<«<rection and re-organisation of such an order.>> In a word, according to your favorite newspaper, the Globe, you drew the attention of the House to the papal constitution re-establishing the order of Jesuits in the plenitude of their original institute,

* Courier newspaper for 18th of May, 1814. (1) Star newspaper for 18th of May, 1814.

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particularly in consequence of the misrepresen"tations that had gone forth on the subject. Mr. « F. Plowden, who valued himself on being considered the Historian of Ireland, but whose his«< toric pages were more known by their bulk than their accuracy, had written a very diffused eulogy of the order, in which he had been edu«cated. It was in Russia, he exclaims, that this plante si rare flourishes in all its vigour, where «< it has its General, its professed, etc.» And as « far, as I can understand the remainder of your << speech, as there reported, it goes to charge me with unfairly suppressing from the knowledge of the public, the real circumstances attendant upon the case, and also with «< industriously propagating << mistatements to mislead the lower and ill-in«formed class of the Catholics, especially in Ireland, in reference to the Jesuits.»

By no means, Sir John, do I wish to filch or force from you, the smallest particle of Protestant freedom to dissent from the opinions of the Roman Catholic Church, and to refuse submission to the decrees of its supreme Pontiff. As one of us, indeed, you could not indulge that liberty quite so largely. But we will for the present pass over the new-born zeal and obligations of the convert. Although you have been pleased to make yourself one of us upwards of three years, I will not press upon you the sublime motives, which induced the Gallican Clergy to make their famous declaration concerning ecclesiastical power in the year 1682--"Nor are there wanting some, who under color of << them (i. e. of the decrees and liberties of the Gal«lican Church), do not fear to derogate from the primacy of blessed Peter and his successors the

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* Globe newspaper for 22d November, 1814.

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<< Bishops of Rome, instituted by Christ, and from << the obedience due to them from all Christians, «< and to fritter down the majesty to be revered by « all nations of the Apostolic See, in which the faith is preached, and the unity of the church is preserved. The heretics likewise omit nothing, « by which they may represent that power, in <<< which the peace of the Church is embraced, as «< invidious and burthensome to kings and poten«<tates, and by those frauds they sever simple souls << from the communion of the mother church, and consequently from that of Christ.» This I admit to be no authority against the Protestant Recorder and Representative of Sudbury, however graciously he has condescended to declare in open senate, that the present Pope is a man of excellent moral character. We, who fully submit to his jurisdictional supremacy in spirituals, consider him to be a man of God, of exemplary, tried, and heroic virtue, especially chosen to guide the unperishable bark of Peter in the present stormy season. Leaving you then, Sir John, in the unmolested enjoyment of all your Protestant contraventions to the judgment, feelings, and measures of your old friend and correspondent Pius VII., and of your indispensable submission to the destructive bull of Pope Ganganelli, and of your counterfiats against his present Holiness', or any future Sovereign Pontiff's resuscitating and reorganizing the order of Jesuits, I humbly hope you will not object to my application to the testimony of his Holiness, merely as a credible witness to the truth and accuracy of the principal statements I have made, which you have, vainly I hope, attempted to falsify by distortion and misrepresentation. A man of excellent moral character, will be admitted as a competent witness to matter of

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fact. And you, Sir John, have informed the public in your letter to Lord Fingal* (by quotation from your correspondence with the late Warden of Galway), << that the wits of the Curia Romana << being always on the stretch, owing to the con«stant and incessant recourses to Rome from all <quarters of the world, by these means, she gains a superiority over all others in point of more « general information and instruction.» A man, therefore, of excellent moral character, having this vast mass of information at command, must unquestionably be a witness upon facts substantiated by such evidence omni exceptione major. If I declared in 1796 of that society, from which I received my education, *that I scarcely deem

* Page 36.

(1) Had not the worthy Baronet, interlarded his speech with the momentous circumstance of my having been educated under the Jesuits, I should not have thought myself warranted in bringing it under the observation of the public. It must certainly carry with it something of more consequence in the eyes of others, than I can figure to my own imagination. It has been the common point of attack, with each of the honorable triumvirate, who I before noticed had given me battle without a mask in their own names. Sir Richard Musgrave thought it not beneath his dignity to upbraid me with having been brought up at St. Omers, where I certainly did spend the 11th and 12th years of my life; but have never since passed forty hours in that town. I answered that charge very fully in my Historical Letter to that Baronet, in 1805. The Rev. Dr. Charles O'Conor, Member of the Academy of Cortona, in his Columbanus No. V. under the title of The defence of his Grandfather against the vile adulation of an avocato del diavolo, dubbing me a new Titus Oats, asks---Where I was educated? This I answered in my reply to that Gentleman in 1813. And Sir J. C. Hippisley has not thought it unbecoming the gravity of debate on the great measure, to remind Parliament that I had written a very diffused eulogy of the order, in which I had been educated. Who so competent to speak to the nature of the education given by the