countrymen. We undergo at prefent no privation, the impolicy of which he has not made glaring. Dr. Milner was furprised that Sir Richard Mufgrave received no complete anfwer from fome intelligent and pirited Irifhman; the Irish in their turn are aftonifhed that he should pullute his clean, epifcopal hand by giving this literary ruffian, fo good a literary horfe-whipping. Amongst other Irish defamers, our old friend, Dr. Patrick Duigenan is not forgotten. We would advile the Dotor of both laws to read the tour in Ireland, and repent in the common courle of nature the "unequivocal symptoms" which he fpeaks of cannot be far off, and no traveller can return to do penance.—. We are extremely forry that for want of room. we cannot extract the affect ing paffage where Dr. Milner deplores the fyftem of profelytifm, efla blished by the Irish government. We would alfo willingly give the whole letter on Sir Richard Mufgrave, but for the fame reason. There is an appendix to the tour in Ireland contained in two letters, the first of which feems to be an epitome of his book, and the fecond ferves to shew the univerfal fcience of the author, being a moft erudite leffon on antient and modern architecture. We shall prefent our readers with part of the first letter, chiefly, becaufe it contains a fubject on which we ourfelves, even before the publication of the book before us, promifed to make fome animadverfions. He writes at fea after leaving Wa terford, to a gentleman in that city. "While thus I caft a farewell look on the land of my catholic brethren, and offer up a prayer to God the Father of mercies, for their welfare, a number of affecting thoughts, relating to their fingular hiftory and fituation, prefent themselves to my mind, which % I cannot help here giving vent to, by committing them to writing. I reflect on the long, continued and uninterrupted fufferings of our coun→ trymen ; no other chriftian nation having been for fo long a time, and without remiffion, fubject to fucceffive calamities and degradations as yours has been. Other races of men have occafionally been vifited by misfortones and disgrace; my proud countrymen in particular, have twice been bowed fo low by the yoke of foreign conquest, as to be afhamed of the name of Englishmen, and to drink the very dregs of human mifery. But each of thefe difgraces was of a short duration. Canute the fon of the fanguinary tyrant Swaine, repreffed the injuftice and infolence of his Danish countrymen, and placed his English fubjects on a perfect equality with them, In like manner, Henry, the fon of the Norman conqueror, left no means ur tried to make the English forget that they were a conquered people. The fuccefs of this policy was equal to the wifdom of it; for, whereas his father had fubdued England with an army of Normans, he himself subdued Normandy with an army of Englishmen. In a word, the calamities of England both foreign and domeftic, like those of other chriftian ftates, have been of a temporary nature, whereas those of Ireland feem to have been perpetual. I look in vain for the period of her greatnefs and glory, compared with her phyfical ftrength, wealth, fituation, and other advantages; or rather to come nearer to the idea of national as well as individual hapiness, I look in vain for the period when the Irish, fitting in their native woods and and cabins, could eat the produce of their herds and gardens, and enjoy the comforts of their religion unmolefted by others, and at peace among themfelves. On the contrary, I fee no thing thing in their hiftory buta fucceffion of cival wars, foregin invafions, conquefts, oppreffions, and religious perfecution; the latter ftill multiplying and refining its modes of injuring and tormenting, down to the very commencement of his prefent Majefty's reign. What has added a fharpnefs to their fufferings on the fcore of re ligion, has been that they have had to endure them at the hands of a people who were the avowed patrons of religious as well as civil freedom, and who, in fact, left every other defcription of subjects to invent and follow new modes of religion at their plea fure; whilst they endeavoured to extort from your ancestors that original faith which the latter had received, with the very name of Chrift, 1400 years ago. Suppofing for the fake of argu ment, that all pofitive Penal laws against Catholics were actually redreffed, yet we are the best, because we are experimental judges, whether the mere exclufive laws against us, do or do not act as penalties. I fhould be glad to afk one of thefe ethical politicians, if in confequence of fome whimfical exclufive law regarding the colour of his hair, or fome other circumftance totally irrelevant to his cival and focial duties, he found himself held in contempt as a perion not to be trufted, nor placed on their level by perfons of his own rank, if Ifay in this cafe, he would not feel he was fuffering from a law both penal and unjust? In fhort, if difgrace be not a penalty, where is the fuffering of ftanding for a fhort time in the pillory? That Catholics, and particularly Irish catholics, do experience this contemptuous treatment from their fellow fubjects in confequence of the partiality of the laws, conftant experience proves. Heretofore when the latter were excluded from the benefit of the laws,and when it was held no crime to kill a mere Irishman, they were fuppofed by the vulgar to be Ouran-outangs, or brutes of fome fpecies or other, and accordingly fcores of affidavits were made by ferious religious Englishmen, from the teftimony of their own eye fight, that the Irish people were found to have tails growing from behind their bodies, a quarter of a yard long. At prefent, when the laws are more equitable, and are content with requiring that no Irish Catholic fhall be entrusted to carry a military dispatch in quality of aid-de-camp, or to fummon a' jury as under fheriff, they are barely looked upon as a race of favages by the English people. Accordingly the term Wild Irish, is as familiar in the English language as that of Wild Beafts. But the particular exclufion of Catholics from the offices of sheriff and and under fheriff, is not a mere difgrace, as you well know, for it is attended with the most ferious ill confequences, as your countrymen frequently experience. In like manner the existence of an "Incorporated Society, for promoting Proteftant fchools" is the continuation of one of the most odious and fatal kinds of perfecution devised by the religious politicians of the last century. In fact, how much more wife a thing would it be to employ fifty or fixty thousand pounds of the annual revenues of Ireland, a great part of which is raifed on the Catholics themselves, in buying up the tithes of the poor, than in purchafing their children, and educating them to hate and perfecute their fathers, mothers, and brothers. Our ftates-men complain of the vio lent lent animofity, which actuates the dif ferent religionifts in Ireland; but are not they themselves, in a great meafure the cause of it, while they lavish the public money upon fuch inftituti ons as the charter fchools? For my part, I cannot help thinking, that this is the cafe, from knowing the heartburning which these schools provoke among the Catholics, and the fpirit of contempt, hatred, and refentment, which thefe feminaries labour to infufe into their purchased victims against the Catholics. I have now lying before me what is called THE PROTESTANT CATECHISM of the INCORPORATED SOCIETY, as alfo that of the Catholic Metropolitans, called the GENERAL CATECHISM, both of them lately published. A flight comparifon between thefe clearly fhews the different fpirits by which they have been dictated. The former in duftriously inftills into its pulpils an abhorrence of the Catholics as idolaters, a hatred of them at traitors, and a dread of them as murderers! In defiance of common charity, of the repeated declarations and acts of the legislature, and of conftant actual experience; it teaches the catholic in fants, whom its patrons have purloined, that the papifts (namely "their parents as well as other Ca"tholics) hold that faith is not to be kept with heretics, and that the "Pope can abfolve fubjects from their "oath of allegiance to fovereigns." It inftructs them to believe that these their parents and other Catholics, are perfuaded that thofe "who differ from them," and of course the children themselves, are to be " root "ed out by fire and fword." To ftrengthen this belief, the mifreprefented hiftories of Queen Mary's per fecution, and of the Irish maffacre, are exhibited to the frighted imagination of these poor inlants. In the mean time the important duties of ci- children children, and inftru&t them in their own catechifm? I would fay one word more to the illuftrious perfo nages in question, if I had an opporu rity to the following effect: As far, my Lords and Gentlemen, as relates to exciting the hatred and detellation of the charter-school chilcren, and the other uninftructed Proteltants of Ireland, against its population, no doubt these public charges of perfidy, disloyalty, barburity, and idolatry, anfwer their purpote. This however, I know you confider as an evil, rather than a benefit. But with respect to the object which you earneftly with tor, namely, that all your fubjects should be of one religion, and that the region of the ftate, be affured that neither the Irish Proteftant Catechifin, nor the bishop of London's Confutation of popery, nor De Coetlogan's abominations of the Church of Rome, nor all the interpretations of the Revelations, either by learned Warburtonian lecturers, or ur learned country clergymen, ever gain one fingle profelyte from the Catholics in either fond. The fact is, Catholics of every defcription are perfectly conicious they have been taught a creed diametrically oppofite to that on which the objections of thefe adverfaries are grounded. What the arguments really are, which, from time to time, caufe certain Catholic poblemen, gentlemen, and clergymen, to aband in the religion of their ancefors, need not be pointed out to you; fine the general behaviour of thefe perfons curing their lives, and more part cularly at their death, fufficiently wanfels them. Let it fuffice to lay, that thefe are fo well understood anong Catholics, that even when the pastor of a numerous flock has conicfmed to the efstablished church, and has published writings to induce them to fill w his example, he has not fucceeded with one of them; no not even with one amongst hisown fervants. On the other hand, that thefe argu ments are not unknown to Protef tants, Dr. Duigenan is a witnefs be yond all exception." But the examination of this catechifm of the Incorporate fociety, which was fent to me by a friend a few days ago, has caufed me to difore return to the confideration of it, grefs widely from my subject; I therebut that only for a few minutes longer. It is perfectly inconceivable to my mind, that iren of fenfe and candour fhoul fo often affert, and that even in their folemn parliamentary fpeeches, that their is no positive grievance of the Catholics left unredreffed, when they cannot help knowing, from being fo often reminded of it, (I my felf have been reminding them of itin various publications during thefe twenty years) that the Catholic foldiers and failors, at the prefent time, to the number of more than 200,000 men are not yet free to practice their own religion, and are forced under the pain of military punishment, to conform to a worship repugnant to their confciences. What adds a fresh fting to this perfecution is, that it is exercised in the teeth of an act of parliament, namely, the act of 1793. This act makes it lawful to every Irish fubject, fefs and practice the catholic religion; except about forty individuals, to probut in the first place, if the foldier in obedience to orders, croffes the fea, whether to Britain, Gibralter, the West Indies, or any other British fettlement, he is immediately informed that his act of parliament is of no force there. Secondly, while even he remains in Ireland, his officer if he is an orangeman, or otherwife of an intolerant or irreligious difpofition, fails notto anfwer him, when he pleads the privilege of the act of 1793: I know nothing of your act of parliament, but I know that the first article of war re quires quires you to attend the established worthip and go to it you fhall, or to prifon or the halberts.'-1 am aftobifhed that men of reflection should not fee how unwife it is to leave fo dangerous a weapon, as that which I have been pointing out, to be taken up in a moment of danger by a Hoche or a Humbert ! ali government. This, however my dear friend and your other grievances put together, are a mere trifle, compared to the wide wafting, exterminatiug perfecuti on, with which you are threatened by a man, who from his connexions, is fuppoled to be one of the most power ul men in the empire, and who lately filled one of the firft fituations in our iland. Yes, if the legislature could be perfuaded to follow up, and the public to approve of the plans of the noble lord I allude to, Ireland would become, in the reign of George III. a fcene of more horrible carnage than it was in thofe of Elizabeth and Oli-. ver Cromwell. What he profeffedly aims at, is the new modelling of your unchangeable form of ecclefiaftical He is bent upon the annibilation of all Catholic Metropolitaus, Bilhops, and even parish Piefts; for no other reason, than because the itate has chofen to adopt this fame apoftolical formof government for the efla blished church. Following up this rule, he will equally forbid the ufe of our Millal and Breviary, becoufe the Common Prayer Book is almoit enentirely taken out of them---Again, he is refolved upon depriving the Catholic church of the effential and inalienable right of every fociety, that of excluding attrocious and refractory offenders from its communion. But to make an end of this matter; it is impoffible that the learn ed author of the prefent fyftem should be ignorant, that the innovations which he here propofcs go to far greater leng ns of fchifm than thofe contained in the famous CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY enacted by the French national assembly; the enforcing of which conftitution, caufed the murder of 24,000 clergymen, and the banishment of 64,000 others, independently of lay fufferers, without accomplishing its object; nor has this perfonage any reafon to fuppofe that the Catholic Bishops and priefls, and laety of Ireland, if called upon to fuffer the extremity of the law in defence of their religion, would fhew lefs firmness than their brethren in France have done. But while bigotry thus threatens you on one fide, irreligion, half ferious and half jocofe, affaults you on the other. Your celebrated chronologift, Archbishop Ufher, with fome of his followers, near two centuries ago, endeavoured to perfuade your fathers that your apoftle St. Patrick, and your other holy bishops, abbots, monks, and hermits, during feveral centuries, were not catholics, but proteftants. The method, however, that he adopted for this purpose, which confifted in diftorting and mifreprefenting the tenets of the ancient fathers and doctors, was, as a late writer fays, "a terrible way of defending proteftantifm." Accordingly, it is at the prefent day completely given up. But a fill more daring attempt upon your ancient faith is now made by one of your degenerate countrymen, a Dr. Ledwich, in denying the very exiftence of that apoftle to whom he himfelf, no lefs than you, is indebted for being a chriftian. What he would have you believe is, that no such man as St. Patrick ever had a being; but that, fomehow or another, the ecclefiafical writers of the ninth century, in England, Ireland, France, Gejmany, and Italy, confpired together in order to make the world believe that there had been fuch a perfonage, namely, in the fifth century, and th he |