perhaps, You did not know,-that "Pope Paul V. "addressed a letter to James, in which he ex"pressed the strongest condemnation of the gun"powder conspiracy." Did not Father Persons,* who wrote at the time, apply to it the harshest terms of condemnation? Did not Dr. Challoner,† the oracle, in his time, of the English Catholics, call it a detestable conspiracy? Does not Dr. Milner tell Dr. Sturges, that it is impossible for the doctor to detest it more than he does? Whatever You knew of these facts, surely justice called on You to mention; Finally,-Did not every feeling of honour require You to mention, that a single instance cannot be produced, in which a Roman Catholic has attempted to defend it; or in which, if he has mentioned it, he has not spoken of it with execration? You yourself know that it is condemned, abominated and abhorred by Catholics as much as Protestants :-all this You know; but nothing of it You mention. No ignorant person will rise from the perusal of this part of Your work, without believing, that the principles which induced the gunpowder conspirators to engage in their diabolical designs, have been for centuries, and are at this time, the actual principles of the Catholic religion, and would lead the present Catholics, if not repressed by the hand of power, into similar enormities.

*Judgment of an Englishman, &c. &c. &c.

+ Memoirs of Missionary Priests, Vol. II. p. 446. Letters to a Prebendary, Letter IV.

Is it to be borne, that

Is this to be endured? the Roman Catholics, who possess some of the noblest blood in the country, who fill every condition of life with honour and integrity, to whose loyalty, the late and the present king, and the legislature, have paid the ampliest tribute of praise, and whose affection it is so much the interest and the wish of Government to conciliate, should be thus maligned?

XVI. 6.

Examples of similar Attempts of Protestants against Catholic Princes.

Permit me to transcribe, from Doctor Milner's seventh letter, what he says upon the subject to which I now call your attention.

"I have one more observation to make on this subject. You, no less than the writers whom "whom you quote, exhaust your eloquence in re"presenting the crime of those wretched dupes "of Cecil's villainy, a wickedness unexampled, as well as unequalled in history. It " is impossible, Sir, for you to detest it more than "I do; but when you speak of it, as a new and "unheard of species of guilt, you pay a compli"ment to the inventive genius of its contriver,

In the preceding section of this letter, I have absolutely acquitted Cecil from the charge of being the contriver of the plot, and have stated my reason for it at length.

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"† P. 81.

"whether that were Cecil or Catesby, to which "he is really not entitled. For, Sir, did you "never hear of the preceding conspiracy of the "Protestants in the Netherlands, to blow up the "Prince of Parma, governor of these countries, "with all the nobility and magistrates belonging "to them, at a solemn procession, in the city of "Antwerp? * If you have not heard of this, you cannot at least be ignorant, that a Catholic king of Scotland, the father of the very sovereign against whom the treason in question was "devised, king Henry Darnley, was actually "blown up, and destroyed, with all his servants “and attendants, by means of a mine stored "with gunpowder, as he lay sick at his house of "Kirk-a-field; and that the Protestant Earls of

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Murray, Morton, Bothwell, Lethington, Sir "Archibald Douglas, Sir James Balfour, &c. were the contrivers and perpetrators of this villainy, not without the privity and consent "Lord Burghley, the Earl of Salisbury's father, " and of Elizabeth herself. † The chief difference "between this original and too successful gun

"Michael ab Isselt. de Bell. Belg.

"Whittaker's Vindication, Vol. III. p. 255.-This author, "with his usual candour and zeal for truth, admits that the "Gunpowder Plot in England was the imitation and offspring "of that in Scotland; and he applies to them these lines of "Virgil,

"Crudelis muter magis, au puer improbus ille?

Improbus ille puer, crudelis tu quoque mater."

powder plot in Scotland, and its bungling imi"tation here in England, is, that the Protestants "who devised and executed the former, were the "heads and founders of the Reformation in that country; whereas the Catholics who were con"cerned in the latter, were the disgrace and outcast of their religion in this. Having exhibited "this enlarged and faithful view of the powder plot, I may be permitted to ask, where is the charity, nay, where is the justice, of those acri"monious sermons and services, and of those "tumultuous rejoicings, which have been annually made and directed against the Catholic body on that account for above two hundred "years?

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It is undoubtedly proper to return

*"In the first collect of the service for the 5th November, "the Almighty is thanked for the deliverance of King "James I. &c. from Popish treachery, thereby transferring "the crime of thirteen self-convicted wretches to the whole "church of which they were the disgrace. In the last prayer, "the Catholics are indiscriminately called cruel and blood"thirsty enemies. I once had occasion to hear one of these "annual phillippics against Catholics from the pulpit in "Winchester cathedral. Having afterwards complained of the "calumnies and misrepresentations contained in it, a worthy "literary character (Dr. Wharton) expressed his surprize "that I should be dissatisfied with the discourse, saying "that it was a very good fifth of November sermon. My answer was so then I find that the Catholics, like Shrove"tide poultry, are once a year fair game for every one who "chooses to pelt at; and I am left to understand, that what "is false every other day in the year, is true on the fifth of "November."

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"thanks to the Almighty for all public bless"ings; but there have been other deliverances

no less important, and still more extraordinary "than this, for which no festivals or rejoicings "have been instituted, or which after being in"stituted, have fallen into disuse and oblivion.* "The Catholics, who are so commonly charged "with uncharitableness, had no festivals abroad to

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commemorate the discovery of the conspiracies of Amboise and Meaux, nor do those at home,

meet, either at church or board, on the day "when their grand enemy, Shaftesbury, fell into "the disgrace and punishment which he had pre"pared for them. They have already forgotten, "that it was on the 9th of June, in the year 1780, "when 100,000 Protestant rioters, who were up "in arms to exterminate them, and who began "to anticipate the horrors of Jacobinism in this

country, were beyond expectation, and almost "beyond hope, suppressed, and when they themselves, and their country, were thus saved. "To speak the truth, Sir, your candour on this,

"The fifth of August was appointed a day of thanksgiving "for James's deliverance from the Gowry conspiracy; on " which occasion, if we believe the King himself, he was in "niuch greater danger of being assassinated by the Protestant "Earl of that name and his brother, and afterwards of being "blown up, with all his attendants, by another Protestant "gunpowder plot, on the part of the burghers of Perth, than ever "he was from that concerted five years afterwards by Catesby " and his associates. See Collier Ch. Hist. vol. II. pp. 663, "664."