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Leland relies on the authority of Peter Walsh, against whom the pope had denounced excommunication, as the unanswerable evidence of the atrocity of these doctrines, which were preached and disseminated by the Irish priesthood. But Mr Leland should have had the candour to acknowledge, that even the excommunicated Peter Walsh had not the hardihood to comprehend the entire of the Irish catholic clergy in his vindictive accusation, nor did he refuse putting on record, that the principal catholic seminaries of the continent, those of Paris, Rheims, Caen, Thoulouse, Poictiers, Valance, Bourdeaux, and Bruges, had on different occasions publicly condemned the pope's deposing power, as false, contrary to the word of God, seditious and detestable.

Mr Leland might have seen that even his own authority, Peter Walsh, bore testimony to the falsehood of the accusations which the fanatics of the day were in the practice of bringing against the catholic religion. Mr Leland might also have learned from Mr Carte, in his life of Ormond, a writer who was no friend to the catholic clergy, and whose means of information were better than that of any other man, either before or after his time, that" although this conspiracy was imputed to Roman catholic priests, yet not above two or three of them appeared to know any thing about it." These are Mr Carte's own words; but this candid historian goes farther; for he says, "if the Catholic clergy had all, even to a man, concurred in the insurrection, they would have been justified by the cruel

injunctions and orders issued by the lords justices. of Ireland, (Parsons and Borlase,) " to the soldiery, to show no mercy to the Catholic clergy."

Mr Carte continues, that "the English House of Commons gave them reason to apprehend every thing that is dreadful to human nature. They had caused the laws to be put in execution against re cusants all over England. Of eight Roman catholic priests who had been taken up for the sole crime of saying mass, seven were condemned and execut ed. The king struggled to defend them against the fury of the puritan parliament, but in vain. The parliament loudly remonstrated against the royal interposition, and the vengeance of fanaticism thirsted for the shedding of human blood." Mr Carte's reflections on those facts, which Mr Leland might have read, and from which a mind like his might have derived some little portion of liberality, are peculiarly worthy the serious reflection of the readers of Irish history. In a short sentence he vindicates the human heart, goaded to vengeance by the commission of barbarous cruelty; he shelters the persecuted and unprotected against the charge of sanguinary and unpitying bigotry, and wisely accounts for all that recriminatory warfare which shocks the sensibility of every reader of our miserable records. "When men," writes Mr Carte, "have every thing to dread in peace, and much to hope from a war, it is natural for them to choose the latter, and use their utmost endeavours to make it successful; nor is it any wonder that the catholic priests in such a situation of affairs, should have

recourse to arms, for the safety of their lives; and despairing of indulgence in quiet times, should seek in troublesome ones for an establishment never to be obtained but by the prevailing force of an insurrection." These are the reflections of a protestant writer, possessed of the best sources of information, living at a period when it would be supposed the understanding could have scarcely recovered its strength after the shock of conflicting sects, in which the most enlightened are apt to be borne down by the artifice of falsehood, or the exaggeration of calumny, against such an authority,

-With Mr Carte may be adduced Sir John Temple, who lived at this disastrous period of Irish suffering, and who has left to posterity the accumulated prejudices of the men with whom he acted, during the insurrection of 1641. Sir John Temple was one of the privy council with Borlase and Parsons; and naturally interested in the circulation of every slander which might justify the violence of this period in the government of the country. We therefore find him exaggerating every act of the Irish, and representing the insurrection in which they had engaged, as the offspring of the most sanguinary bigotry, unprovoked by the violence of their government, and not even to be palliated by the suspicion of danger to their religion or their liberties but as Dr Nelson, another protestant writer, in his introduction to the second volume of his historical collections, very sensibly and truly observes," it is notorious, that Sir John Temple, in writing his history of the rebellion in 1641, was

bound by confederacy to assert the proceedings of the lords justices, who were highly in reputation with the usurpers of the parliamentary faction, and by them empowered, as commissioners, to impose upon the protestant subjects of Ireland that traitorous and disloyal solemn league and covenant, which was a direct oath of confederacy, not only against, but purposely to ruin and destroy the king, the church, and the loyal party; I cannot observe the book to be printed in London, in 1646, by public allowance, (a time when no books were licensed, but such as made court to the prevailing faction of the usurpers, or which might be useful to support their calumnies against his Majesty, especially as to the Irish rebellion), without too just a suspicion of its integrity." Yet, such is the light by which Mr Hume suffered his mind to be directed, when treating of the Irish rebellion; and Mr Leland gravely quotes his authority, as unanswerable evidence of those barbarities, which Sir John Temple charges on our insulted country. To what we have already said in support of our opinion, that Sir John Temple's charges against the Irish character were undeserving the attention of any impartial mind, and that the accusations with which his book is crowded against the religion and conduct of the catholics, in 1641, are the mere effusions of a corrupt and interested calumniator, we shall add the authority and opinion of Dr Curry. Speaking of Sir John Temple, he observes, "This gentleman published his history of the Irish rebellion in the year 1646, by the direction of the parliament party, which

then prevailed; and to which, though long before in actual rebellion, he was always attached. The falsehoods it contains are so numerous and glaring, that even the government, in 1674, seem to have been offended, and himself ashamed of the republication of it. This we gather from a letter of Capel, Earl of Essex, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, to Mr Secretary Coventry, of that date, wherein we find those words, I am to acknowledge your's of the 22d of December, in which you mention a book that was newly published, concerning the cruelties committed in Ireland at the beginning of the late war. Upon further inquiry, I find, that Sir John Temple, (Master of the Rolls of Ireland,) author of that book, was sent to by several stationers of London, to have his consent to the printing thereof; but he assures me, that he utterly denied it; and whoever printed it, did it without his knowledge. Thus much I thought fit to add to what I formerly said upon this occasion, that I might do this gentleman right, in case it were suspected he had any share in publishing this new edition." We felt it a duty to our country to expose the character of that author, who is quoted by her enemies against her moral and religious principles; who has laboured to present the religion of the Catholic as the source of every crime; and the character of the native Irishman, deserving the contempt and abhorrence of every friend to humanity. The calumnies which Sir John Temple has propagated, have been echoed by the thousand sycophants and slaves of British injustice who have succeeded him; they

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