am in the habit of using? To ima- | gregate meetings, and afterwards copied into the public papers of that country, not an effort is observable to combat prejudice or subdue falsehood. And do the catholics of Ireland think that an occasional display of oratory, or the adoption of public resolutions, will add much weight in the balance against the exuberant productions of the English protestant press, to delude the people as to the real state of our question, and the grievances which bear upon their ill-fated country? If they do, most egregiously are they mistaken.-Not one reader in five-hundred in this island ever see an Irish paper, and the speeches and resolves of Irish aggregate meetings are but partially' known here, because the English journalists find it more to their advantage to forge foreign documents, for party purposes, than to inform their readers of the local situation of the catholics of Ireland. It is therefore on English ground the contest should be maintained, and in this metropolis must the battle be fought with protestant intolerance and catholic intrigue, if the Irish wish to see their cause accelerated. Here the venom is dilated with unabating industry, and here should the antidote be as copiously and actively extended Under this conviction I entered the field of literary warfare, and notwithstanding I have had to contend with difficulties which have arisen more from the prejudices of modern catholics than the threats of bigotted protestants, I am still determined to continue my course, relying on the discriminating justice of my friends for that support which is necessary to enable me to make head against our opponents, and, hoping that my efforts will be seconded by others far more competent to ensure victory. Following up my intentions I shall now proceed to the exposition of as bold a masterpiece in the science of misrepresen gine that the long-fostered prejudices of bigotted protestants against the principles and dangers of what is termed popery, will be removed by a studied silence on the part of the catholic body, is to betray a want of common sense in those who can entertain such an idea; for this line of conduct is better calculated to strengthen their terrors and rivet their erroneous impressions, than to dispel their fears, and overcome their idle credulity. No, it is THE PRESS, and principally THE PRESS, through which we must expect to disperse the accumulating calumnies and fabrications invented by selfinterest and ill-grounded religious zeal to blacken and defile our faith and morals. And, let me tell the leaders of the board, that to derive any advantage from this all-powerful instrument, they must use the language of truth and sincerity, not that of sophistry and duplicity; the former will confound and subdue our adversaries, but the latter will only afford them occaasions for confirming the credulous in their mistaken notions, as we have wofully witnessed in some late literary effusions of biblical controversy, between two celebrated lay theologues, the one a professor of law, and the other of pharmacy, in the Gentleman's Magazine. That the press is the most powerful weapon we can wield, when conducted with honest integrity, is evident from the progress which our cause has made, since we have had the privilege of using it, and I am only sorry that it has not been more generally employed, and with equal vigour to that of our enemies. This astonishing apathy and indifference is the more lamentable, because it seems to prevail as much in Ireland as it does here. With the exception of oral declamations and common-place resolutions, delivered and passed at ag | tation and slander, as ever came from a hireling press. To antipathy more than political sagacity, urged this gentleman to stand forth as the redoubted hero of biblis DOMESTIC NOMINATION, IN REPLY cal zeal, to oppose the claims of five TO J. L. FOSTFR, ESQ. millions of his countrymen. Well and truly was it observed by enter into the whole of this printed our noble champion, lord Donough. speech is more than a single number more, as I have before noted, that of my Journal will allow me, I must our petitions were "assailed with therefore confine myself chiefly to greater violence and acrimony in the insinuations advanced against the one of the houses of parliament, and influence of the clergy, and the facts defended, perhaps, with less vigour which he has perverted to establish and effect than on any former occa- his charges. Mr. Foster commences sion." Foremost in the ranks of bi- his speech by candidly admitting the gotry stands John Leslie Foster, the unanimous detestation of the cathoorgan of bible societies, who have lics of Ireland to veto regulations, accordingly published his speech, and pointedly appeals to Mr. Gratadding thereto the forged bulls of tan, who had just before made an the present pope against the aforesaid offer of securities on any terms, whesocieties, with explanatory notes. ther he did not know, from letters The title of the book is as follows: addressed to him, that such was the A Report of the Speech of John universal feeling of his constituents. "Leslie Foster, Esq. in the House He then proceeds to the offer made of Commons, on a motion made by of obtaining domestic nomination, "the Right Hon. Henry Grattan, which he considers a delusive propo"for the House to resolve itself into a sal, because to him it, appears that a "Committee on the Petition of the more complete system of domestic "Roman Catholics of Ireland, on appointment to vacant catholic bi' Friday, May 9th, 1817. London: shopricks than that which now exprinted for J. Hatchard, booksel-ists cannot be proposed "ler to the Queen, No. 190, Picca- may vary its form," he says, "dilly."-Pp. 72 From the senti- more domestic you cannot make it.” ments contained in this pamphlet, This admission of Mr. Foster must the main objections which Mr. Fos- be considered as a complete refutater appears to entertain against the tion of the senseless cry of "foreign" prayer of the petitioners are, the influence; for if the nomination is supposed intolerance of the tenets now, and long has been, completely of the catholic church, and the dan- domestic, the objection to our claims gers which may arise from the vast on the danger of a foreign ascendspiritual influence and authority ancy must have been chimerical, and which the catholic clergy exercise used merely for a cloak to cover over their flocks. To counterba- other designs, which I believe to be lance these alarming consequences, the real state of the case. the learned senator recommends the pensioning of the clergy out of the public purse, and placing them under the control of the crown, Very wise propositions from a protestant legislator! There are other minor reasons stated, but these form the principal grounds of his opposition, which clearly shew that religious I 6. You " but "The proposition, then, of domestic nomination, (says the speech) is distinctly this-that the protestants and catholics having each much to require and much to give up, the protestants are to cede every thing that remains, and the catholics are to make the single concession of remaining exactly as they are; or, in other words, that, in consideration of our former repeal of the whole penal code, and of their admission to all civil privileges, for which no one concession was obtained; and, in fur-proofs in the late revolutionary conther consideration of their being admitted test of their attachment to monarchal to a complete participation of political power, they are ready to acquiesce in this principles, and their veneration for single but important regulation of their the British constitution, by a profuse ecclesiastical discipline, that for the time to sacrifice of blood, and a joint and come their bishops shall be appointed in cheerful contribution of property in the same manner as they have been for some time past. Is such a proposal celusive, or its support, they now demand a reis it not ?" stitution of their political rights, of which their ancestors were disseized, by means, as I have before observed, which ought to make the exclusive possessors of those rights blush for the infamy and iniquity of their forefathers. This claim for a restoration of civil privileges, instead of being received with candour and justice, is met by one party with boisterous and inflammatory outcries against the dangers of popery, and by another with a proposal to the petitioners of resigning the management of their religious concerns into the hands of those who hate their doctrines, by way of security from any influence which the head of their church is supposed to possess over them to the danger of the establishments. The claimants, who were perfectly aware that the apprehension of their opponents as to papal influence was a mere bugbear, were nevertheless willing to meet their fears, as far as the safety of their religion would permit them, for it could not be supposed that they would ever consent that the In reply to this question I observe, that were the proposition as correctly stated as it is said to be distinctly so, it might be considered as a delusion; but the speech-maker unfortunately could see only one side of the question, which occasioned a little obscurity in his distinct delineation of the proposition. Now, the real state of the question is this At the commencement of the reformation so called, in consequence of the attachment of the people to the ancient faith, and the zeal and ardour of several of the catholic clergy to disseminate it, in opposition to the new-fangled doctrines then established by parliamentary enactments, several penal laws were passed against the religion of catholics, who were termed papists, and it became treason and felony to preach or practice that faith. In the course of time, sectarianism began to spread, and the sovereigns who were appointed head of the established church, preferring the services of catholics to those of the puritan dissenters from the establishment, a "No-guardians of their faith should be popery" faction was thereby created, which obtaining an ascendency in the senate, under circumstances the most disgraceful ever recorded ofany country calling itself civilized, at once deprived the catholics of their civil rights, without any substantial proof of delinquency on their side. In this state they remained until the reign of his present majesty, under whose mild and gracious sway they have been released from the most galling of the religious penalties, but are still subject to the political disabilities, Having given selected by men who annually swear it is both superstitious and idolatrous. They therefore proposed, in the event of justice being done to them in the restoration of their civil rights, that an agreement should be entered into by the head of the church and their own immediate prelates, that the former should bind himself to nominate none to vacant dioceses who had not been canomically chosen by the resident clergy, who, on their part, were to be sworn to elect no candidate but such as were of sound loyalty and unim peachable conduct. At present the pope can nominate against the will of the clergy; in the event of a concordat, he would be bound by its stipulations. The system therefore preferred would be more complete, and, of course, more domestic; how then can it be deemed a delusion, when it would secure, by a solemn treaty, that which is now acted upon by courtesy? Having thus explained Mr. Foster's distinct representation of domestic nomination, I shall now proceed to examine the dangers which he asserts it is to meet; but, first of all, it is proper to lay before the reader the speech-maker's examination of the nature of these dangers in his own words. "Let me suppose us to act (says the speech) on such an arrangement, and let us discover, if we can, in what way we shall be secured. But first, it is necessary to examine the nature of the danger which it is to meet. The protestant sees with apprchension four millions of our people still mainly dependent for their habits and opinions, and more particularly for their impressions of the religion and government of England, on a great body of ecclesiastics, whom the fatal and mistaken policy of our ancestors had treated in such a manner, that it was not in human nature to expect that those ecclesiastics should make their flocks very much attached to the government from which that treatment proceeded. The profestant sees that body of ecclesiastics, who, till lately, were under absolute proscription, still an insulated and an unacknowledged, but most formidable power within the country, totally unconnected with the state, studiously independent of it, unattached to it by any of the ordinary motives of human conduct, but acting all the while on the education, the morals, the habits, the opinions, and conduct of the greater part of our population, more extensively than the legislature and executive powers united; it is their own boast that they can do so, and I am forced to acknowledge the melan choly truth. The protestant sees further this great ecclesiastical community, so powerful in command, itself submitted with unlimited devotion to the orders of a comparatively small portion of their own body, I mean their bishops; and these again acting with an unanimity and steadiness in asserting their authority, and extending the common interest of their order, not inferior to any thing in the example of papal Rome itself. I anı far from blaming them for so doing;-in their place, I should act, no doubt, in the same manner. It is the nature of every great corporation to infuse a strong zeal into its individual members, for the advancement of its interest and power; and certainly of no other corpora tion that the world has ever seen, may thisso truly be ob-erved, as of the great ecclesiastical body of the church of Rome. In Ireland the protestant sees a number of the Roman catholic bishops meeting annually at Maynooth, primarily for the regu lation of the seminary; but he well understands that they do not separate without accomplishing the second but more important object of taking common order for the concerns of their church: due deference being paid to the recommendations of a committee so conveniently assembled. Upon more urgent occasions he sees the whole body of their bishops meeting in synods convoked by their own authority, and promulgating whatever decrees upon whatever subjects they think proper, whether it be a declaration of their own resolution to submit to martyrdom rather than comply with the enactments of a law at the time in progress through the British senate; or whether they take a wider range, and discuss the merits of the Gallican concordat, censuring its principles, but justifying their adoption as a necessary compliance with the dreadful necessity of the times. "Sir, the protestant sees in this imperium in imperio, an anomaly which Ishall presently endeavour to demonstrate is not permitted to exist in any other country, protestant or catholic. And when he looks around amongst our population for that extended charity and peace, that respect for British law, that attachment to British connection, which forty years of conciliation and concession, the repeal of the penal code, the communication of civil privilege, and the grant of pecuniary endowment for education might naturally be expected, ere this time, to have produced; he looks in vain, and sees nothing but what tends to increase his dissatisfaction and fears. "He sees our people in too many districts acting in avowed defiance of the law, subverting the very foundations of society; and he sees them, when finally overtaken by justice, heroically ready to meet their fate, firmly convinced that they are dying in a good cause; while their associates, instead of regarding their punishment as a sacrifice to the offended laws, view it rather in the light of the ordinary operations of a campaign; and while their superiors are hoping that the examples of so many executions may strike a salutary ter ror into the guilty, they are no less congratulating themselves that the cause has lost only so few of its supporters. "Let me not be misunderstood as imputing to their clergy the origin of these evils. They are the fruits of a sad course of events in Irish history, with which, through the faults of our ancestors, the Roman catholic religion has been inseparably interWoven. I wish to be understood to speak of the errors of the present race of our peasantry, as rather being a continuation of the habits of their fathers, generated by the misgovernment and calamities of the times, and tremendously enhanced by the bad qualities of the education which they receive; a supply of moral poison, for the particulars of which I need only to refer to the reports of the commissioners of education. A new system, both of books and instruction has at length been introduced, and let us hope that the Roman catholic clergy will be amongst the foremost to assist its operation. Upon the spirit which they manifest, its success must greatly depend. The protestant sees further in too many districts, an increasing proscription of himself and of his creed; he sees the protestant tradesman systematically and simultaneously deserted by his catholic customers he sees the protestant farmer menaced in his habitation, and way-laid in his journies, until he seeks his peace in emigration, or buys it by his conversion. He sees a wide spreading system of intermarriage of protestants and catholics above all things encouraged by their priesthood, ending very generally in the conversion of the husband or wife, and securing almost universally the catholicism of the children. He sees, every where, from these concur rent circumstances, the diminution of pro testant numbers, the increasing insecurity of protestant property, the steady career, the unbending intolerance of catholic aggrandizement. He looks for some practical safeguard and protection for himself, when it shall be endowed, (if it shall be endowed) with the new strength and powers which it seeks; and he is told, to be of good cheer, that this all-saving security is now provided, that the influencing and directing spirit, which he considers as propelling forward all that he apprehends, is to continue exactly as it stands, as uncon trolled, as unattached, as insulated, and as alienated as ever. "SUCH, sir, IS DOMESTIC NOMINATION :-A mere continuation of this moral and religious imperium in imperio, exactly as it stands. No, not exactly; we are to make this alteration in its relations to the state; we are to add energy and power to the mass upon which it acts, and to sharpen and strengthen the weapons which it wields. Sir, such an arrangement is not our SECURITY but our DANGER." This, reader, is Mr. Foster's deScription of domestic nomination, and the dangers which would attend the legislative adoption of it. I have given it at full length to avoid the charge of quoting unfairly, and to exhibit a complete view of the picture which the hand of intolerance has drawn, and decorated with the tints of prejudice. For who is so blind as not to perceive that all the apprehensions, all the terrors, all the jealousies of this speech-maker, is grounded on the zeal and ardour of the catholic clergy, and the consequent increase of that religion, in the event of domestic nomination being considered a sufficient security from foreign influence, and a sense of justice inducing the nation to consent to the complete toleration of its catholic subjects. And is there any one catholic, then, so lost to reason and duty, as to be willing to surrender the management of his religion into the hands of those who hold it in such dread and abhorrence? there any one so stupid, so besotted, so eager after temporal honours, as to leave the choice of his spiritual guides to men of such avowed hostility as Mr. Foster and Co. ? But let us look into the fearful dangers pourtrayed in such glowing colours, and see how far they are consonant with a faithful and candid representation of the case. The first danger described by the learned orator, is the apprehension of the protestant at seeing so large a number of the people still mainly dependent for their habits and opinions, and especially their impressions of the religion and government of England, on a body of ecclesiastics, who had been so treated by his ancestors, that it was not in human nature to expect that those ecclesiastics would make their flocks much in love with the government from which this Is 1 |