of these gentlemen to be realized that all these clouds should lour over our coasts, and that the Pope (a most ridiculous supposition) should appear in the midst of them, and direct the storm! would any one gravely. say, that, in the impending conflict, the Catholics should be distrusted? If the Lord Chancellor should be then asked, whether the allegiance of the Catholic peers, beyond the bar of the House, should be relied on as much as the allegiance of the Protestant peers within it, would he doubt?-would he not immediately answer in the affirmative ?—If the Speaker of the House of Commons were asked, whether the allegiance of the Catholics in those ranks from which members of the House are usually chosen, should, on such an occasion, be as much depended on as the allegiance of the actual members of his House, would not he, too, answer in the affirmative? If similar questions were proposed to the grand juries, or to the magistrates of the quarter sessions, would they not return the same affirmative answer? What, then, becomes of the charge?

5. I call upon my countrymen to think of the conduct of the Catholics when the Spanish Armada threatened our coast. Every cruelty, every indignity which the most atrocious policy could invent, the Catholics had suffered from queen Elizabeth and her ministers. The Catholics knew that Pope Pius V. had excommunicated the queen-had deposed her had absolved them from their allegiance to her, and implicated them in her excommunication, if they continued true to her; that Pope Sixtus, the reigning Pope, had renewed the excommunication-had called on every Catholic prince to execute the sentence; and that Philip II. by far the most powerful monarch of the time, had undertaken ithad lined the shores of the Continent with troops ready, at a moment's notice, for the invasion of England, and

had covered the sea with an armament which was proclaimed to be invincible. In this awful moment, when England stood in need of all her strength, and the slightest diversion of any part of it might have proved fatal to her, the worth of a Catholic's loyalty was fully shown. "Some," says Hume, "equipped ships at "their own charge, and gave the command of them to "Protestants; others were active in animating their

tenants, their vassals, and their neighbours, in de"fence of their country." "Some," says the writer of an intercepted letter, printed in the second volume of the Harleian Miscellany, "by their letters to the coun"cil, signed by their own hand, offered that they would "make adventures of their own lives in defence of the "queen, whom they named their undoubted sovereign,

"

lady and queen, against all foreign foes, though they "were sent from the Pope, or at his commandment; "yea, some did offer that they would present their "bodies in the foremost ranks." Lord Montague, a zealous Catholic, and the only temporal peer who ventured to oppose the act for the queen's supremacy, in the first year of her reign, brought a band of horsemen to Tilbury, commanded by himself, his son, and his grandson, thus perilling his whole house in the expected conflict. The annals of the world do not present a more glorious or a more affecting spectacle than the zeal, the undivided allegiance, shown on this memorable occasion by the poor and persecuted, but loyal, but honourable Catholics! Nor should it be forgotten that, in this account of their loyalty, all historians are agreed. Then, is it not shameful to charge the Catholic descendants of these admirable Catholics with divided allegiance?—thus tó spurt disloyalty in their faces?

6. It is remarkable that the kingdom abounds in double allegiance, and no notice is taken of it. At this present

time, the presumptive heir of the Crown owes, as Duke of York, allegiance to King George IV. of England, and also owes, as bishop of Osnaburgh, allegiance to King George II. of Hanover.

Has there ever been a Catholic mean enough to talk of this double allegiance of his Royal Highness? Such meanness never entered into our minds."

No! THE CATHOLIC RELIGION IS THE RELIGION OF GENTLEMEN, AND OF THOSE WHO THINK LIKE GENTLEMEN. ALL THEY ASK IS, THAT THEIR ÁðVERSARIES SHOULD THINK AND ACT AS GENTLEMEN IN THEIR REGARD.- The duke of Richmond is duke d'Aubigni, and possesses fiefs in France. The duke of Marlborough is a prince of Germany, and possesses a German principality. The duke of Wellington is a grandee of the first class in Spain, and holds large territorial possessions in Valentia. All these illustrious persons owe allegiance to the sovereigns within whose territories their possessions are situate; all, too, owe allegiance to his Britannic Majesty. This double allegiance has not been, and ought not to be, reproached to them. But while the questionably double allegiances of all these distinguished personages has ever been passed over in silence, and perhaps never thought of, double allegiance has been invented for Catholics; and they have been criminated for it, and for all its possible or rather ideal consequences. Is this fair? Is it just? Is it honourable? No! Let us, then, hear no more of this charge. How can it enter into the mind of an honourable man to make it?

7. The belief of Alexander the Great in virtue, when he received the cup from his physician, who was accused of a wish to poison him, has been deservedly praised. Will Protestants, in respect to their Catholic brethren,

never aspire to the same belief in virtue? Will they always remain blind to the loyalty of the Catholics?→→→→ to their immense services in their fleets and armies? Will they never recollect, that if their ungenerous ac casations should drive the Catholics from these, frightful indeed would be their solitude? Will the Protestants always forget, that, when all her Protestant colonies rebelled against England, Catholic Canada alone was true to her allegiance? Will they but the subject is endless. If there be one thing more certain than another, it is that which we now confidently assert: THAT THE LOYALTY OF THE CATHOLICS OF THE UNITED EMPIRE IS PURE, PERFECT AND UNDIVIDED; THAT IT WILL BEAR, ANY TRIAL; THAT, IN EVERY TRIAL, IT WILL BE FOUND EMINENTLY PURE; AND THAT IT IS MOST UNGENEROUS AND MOST UNWISE TO DISTRUST IT.

Letter on the Coronation Oath, first inserted in the Old Times.

FEW Parliamentary documents possess, in any point of view, so much importance as the speech delivered on the 25th of last month, in the House of Lords, by his Royal Highness the Duke of York, on presenting the petition of the Dean and Canons of Windsor against granting any further relief to his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects.

Lamenting, as they must do, that his Royal Highness is so adverse to their petitions, still the Roman Catholics are grateful for his open avowal of his opinions, and of the reasons upon which they are grounded. It allows

them free liberty to discuss them with the respect due to his exalted rank.

Availing himself of this circumstance, an humble individual of their number trusts that he may, without offence or impropriety, submit to his Royal Highness some observations upon the following passage in his speech.

& His Royal Highness states in it, that he "wished to "ask whether their lordships had considered the situa→ “tion in which they might place the King, or whether they recollected the oath which his Majesty had taken "at the altar, to his people, upon his coronation? He begged to read the words of the oath. I will, to the "utmost of my power, maintain the law of God, the true profession of the Gospel, and the Protestant re"formed religion, established by law; and I will pre" serve unto the bishops and clergy of this realm, and "to the churches committed to their charge, all such

66%

66

66

rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain "to them, or any of them.' Their lordships, continued "his Royal Highness, must remember that ours is " a Protestant King, who knows no mental reservation, "and whose situation is different from that of any other

66

66

person in this country; that his Royal Highness, and "every other individual in this country, could be re"leased from his oath by the authority of Parliament; but the King could not. The oath, as he had always understood, is a solemn obligation, entered into by "the person who took it, from which no act of his own "could release him; but the King was the third part of "the State, without whose voluntary consent no act of the Legislature could be valid, and he could not relieve himself from the obligation of an oath."

66

With the utmost deference and respect to his Royal Highness, it is suggested to his consideration, that the