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Then shall your little bark attendant sail, Join in the triumph and partake the gale, All my interest and influence are at your command. I am, Sir,

Yours, D. M-X.

For the Orthodox Journal.

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with the Ladies, and, under their pa- | females who have fled to their native tronage, I think, you may be confident country for that protection which the of success, and defy your enemies. If convulsions and revolutions of the the former are hearty in your cause, Continent denied to them, have acif they take you in tow, tually, it seems, been obliged to lay aside those dresses which, as they were the emblems of innocence and purity, it was their happiness to wear, and which, of course, they hoped and expected never to lay aside but with their lives. They have been stripped by a single blow of those robes with which they had been invested with great reliMr. EDITOR-It was with much gious solemnity, and which were only pleasure that I noticed the insertion of to be attained by a long course of prothe Cork Catholic Petition in your last bationary piety and devotion,-without Journal; and, for three reasons, one expression of sorrow or regret,should strongly recommend it to be without one ray of consolation to south adopted by the British Catholics at the the grief occasioned by so violent a present moment. First, it would unite proceeding. The venerable religious, us in one common cause with our bre- whose age alone should entitle her to thren in Ireland; secondly, it would respectful attention, is treated by this extricate us from almost all our pre-order with as little ceremony as the sent difficulties; and, thirdly, it would youthful novice, whose course of pious greatly assist his HOLINESS in bring- exercises can scarcely be said to have ing our question to a successful issue commenced. with the British Government. On the strength of these just and solid reasons, Sir, I have no hesitation in declaring my sentiment, that the PETITION would be well received by the Catholic Clergy, Nobility, Gentry, and People of Great Britain, were it presented to them for their signatures. I have the honour to be, Mr. Editor, your obedient humble servant,

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I am well aware, Sir, that in writing on such a subject as the present, I am treading upon delicate ground: but, when I look around me, and see with what dangers the common practices of our religion are likely to be surrounded; when I observe the indifferent manner in which this important case is regarded, even by many persons who call themselves Catholics, then must I repeat in the words of the motto I have chosen, that "the faith which is attacked dreads no other scandal than that of silence." If this question was suffered to pass unnoticed and unregarded, as some well meaning persons seem to wish, then would I contend, that in a very short time the consideration for Catholics will be. not whether they shall petition the legislature for free and unrestricted emancipation, but whether or not we shall prepare ourselves to suffer in our persons and properties, for the exercise of that religion in which consists our happiness here, and our hopes for felicity hereafter, but which our legislators, even in this enlightened age,

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ment of the above object, to form themselves into a voluntary association, as individuals, for the only single and exclusive purpose of managing and conducting our Petitions to the Legislature, and the business necessarily and indispensibly connected therewith.

Resolved-That to prevent the recurrency of bad Precedents, so dangerous to liberty, and so familiar to bad times, we do recommend it to those individuals to make it a fundamental rule of their association, that any person belonging thereto, that shall act in, or assume, or pretend to any delegated or

A letter from Gravelines, dated December 15, says, . Some days ago the English nuns returned to this town, after many years absence, occasioned by the disturbances of the revolution. They took refuge in England, at Gosfield Park, where, for eighteen months, they had the happiness to share in that celebrated asylum with the King of France and his family. The good in

represented capacity whatsoever, be forth-habitants of Gravelines and its vicinity with expelled and excluded from such asso

ciation.

Resolved-That this Meeting do adjourn till the 13th of February, at 12 o'clock, in this Chapel, and that the consideration of the Resolutions proposed by Mr. Eneas M'Donnell be postponed until that day.

Resolved-That the Rev. Gentlemen of this Chapel deserve our best Thanks, for their kindness in allowing us to assemble here this day, and they be respectfully requested by the Chairman to allow the adjourned Meeting to be held in the same place. Resolved-That a Subscription be immediately called to defray the expences attendant on our Petitions, and that Nicholas Mahon, Esq. be appointed our Treasurer.

Resolved-That the Thanks of this Meet

ing be given from the Chair, to George Lid well and Charles Phillips, Esqrs. for their essential services rendered here to-day.

The thanks of the meeting were then voted to the Chairman, and the assembly separated, after having exhited the noble spectacle of preferring to continue longer in their chains, rather than gain their liberty at the expence of their religion and their ho

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manifested the greatest joy at the return of these nuns to their old convent. The authorities of the Commune, and the principal inhabitants, welcomed them, and testified their satisfaction at again having them in their town, where their convent subsisted for two hundred years."By this it would seem that the Rev. Mr. Gandolphy's assertions are beginning to be verified by facts.

If

The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and Church Union in the diocese of St. David's, has offered a premium of Ten Pounds for the best Essay on the evidence that St. PETER NEVER WAS AT ROME!!! the members of this society were to offer, instead of the above, a premium to the most skilful artist who would cut them FOR THE SIMPLES, the money would be laid out to a much better purpose.

DIED.-On the 24th of January instant, aged 68, the Rev. Thomas Rigby, D. D.This learned and eminent divine had been thirty years on the mission, and was Grand Vicar of the London district. Zealous and indefatigable in the duties of his pastoral calling; rigid in his principles, and punctual in the pulpit; and unboundedly kind and gein his engagements; eloquent and impressive nerous to the poor; he lived respected by all who had the honour of his acquaintance, and his loss will be sincerely lamented by those who have witnessed the virtuous qualities of mind, or experienced the liberal bounties of

his heart.

On the 16th of Jan. in Doneraille, univerDr. Lewis Walsh, parish priest of Donesally and deservedly regretted, the very Rev. raille, and Vicar General to the Right Rev. Dr. Coppinger, Catholic Bishop of Cloyne and Ross.

ERRATUM.-Page 23, last line but four of the letter from "An English Catholic," for "illusions" read illustrious.

Andrews, Printer, 5, Orange-street, Red Lion-square.

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GROSS PARTIALITY AND INTOLERANCE, ties with the missionaries who preached
OF THE ENGLISH PRESS.
and defended the cause of Catholicity,
HEN the meek and chaste Eli- had recourse to the strong arm of

thought proper to change power, in order to pro

the religion of her ancestors, which had been re-established by her sister Mary, for the delusive and immoral errors of the pretended Reformers, her new Ministers, who had been put in the place of the Catholic Prelates and Clergy, because the latter refused to acknowledge the supreme authority of the queen in spiritual matters, found themselves opposed by a host of learning and talents, with which they were unable to contend. For the Church, finding herself deprived of the opportunity of getting those men who felt a call to serve her ordained in these realms, and fearful that the nation would be left destitute of true pastors, established seminaries abroad for the education of English youth, in every branch of polite literature and theology, in order to be trained up for the service of their God, and to work as labourers in his vineyard. The exertions of these holy men, aided by the arm of truth, were surprisingly great, and thousands in all parts of the kingdom were reconciled to the ancient faith, while the greatest contempt was shewn towards the illiterate and ignorant persons who had supplanted the Catholic priesthood. The leaders of the Reformation, finding their temporal interest at stake, apprehensive lest they should be obliged to make restitution of the treasures which they had wrested from the church, and unable to cope in learning and abiliORTHOD JOUR. VOL. III.

gress of the old religion in these realms, which was then making the most rapid strides. Accordingly, by the 5th of Elizabeth, it was enacted that all persons appointed to take the oath of supremacy by the first of that queen's reign, as also all school-masters, tutors, lawyers, sheriffs, and officers in all courts, on refusing to take the said oath at the first tender, should incur a premunire; and upon the second tender HIGH TREASON; and by the 27th of the same queen, it was further enacted, that Jesuits, seminary priests, and other ecclesiastical persons, born in these realms, and ordained by the authority of the see of Rome, coming into or remaining in the queen's dominions, should become guilty of HIGH TREASON, and their receivers, aiders, and maintainers, guilty of felony, without benefit of clergy; that all others, not in orders, brought up in seminaries beyond the sea, should incur the guilt of HIGH TREASON; that persons giving relief to any ecclesiastic or seminary beyond the sea, should incur a premunire; and any person knowing, and not discovering a Jesuit or priest, within the queen's dominions, should be fined and imprisoned at the sovereign's pleasure. By the operation of these diabolical statutes, the cruel and sanguinary characteristic effect of which has never been witnessed in the merciless and despotic states of Barbary

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the Catholic parent was prevented | written in their defence were obliged

from exercising his natural right of giving his children that education which he judged most proper; he was forbidden to exercise the religion of his forefathers, even in his own house; and he was compelled, under the pain of heavy fines and perpetual imprisonment, to inform against those whom he considered as his best friends, and the ministers of his crucified God!!! These laws, during the reign of "the good queen Bess," were most rigourously enforced and practised upon by her bloody and persecuting Ministers, and many were the glorious martyrs who suffered under them. Yet, notwithstanding the profuse use of the halter and the gibbett-notwithstanding the means adopted to keep the people ignorant and unacquainted with the principles of the true religion, many of them still adhered to it, in preference to the new-fangled doctrines which had been introduced by the power of the sword, and the arm of sacrilegious tyranny. Thus foiled in their attempt to overthrow Popery, and stung with mortification and revenge at seeing new converts to the old faith springing up every day, the Reformers had recourse to another law, and by the 3d of Jas. I. a fine of forty shillings was imposed upon every person who should bring from beyond the seas, or should PRINT, SELL, or BUY, any Popish books; and the books were likewise ordered to be burnt. By the same law, two justices of the peace. were empowered to search the houses and lodgings of every popish recusant convict, or of every person whose wife was a popish recusant convict, for popish books, &c. which they were to burn. Having thus despoiled the Catholics of the only means of defending their opinions, by the influence of the PRESS, the most abominable and gross calumnies were propagated through the means of this instrument to blacken their characters and render them odious to the ignorant and deluded people. Whatever works were

to be printed at a foreign press, and smuggled over at the imminent hazard of those individuals who were hardy enough to undertake the task, but from the rigour with which the penal laws were enforced in those times, few were the persons who could procure the antidote to the poison so industriously disseminated to corrupt the public mind against the Catholics of this country. That the grossest absurdities should be swallowed down by the ignorant multitude of former days, when they found they were not contradicted, because the severity of the laws had put it out of the power of the accused, notwithstanding their willingness and desire so to do, is not very astonishing; but that men in this enlightened age, as it is called, who boast of possessing superior faculties both of reason and understanding, should lend their aid to renew and propagate these absurdities and falsehoods, is certainly matter of wonder, and can only shew the worse than brutal state to which the religious ideas of the English people have been brought by the operation of the sanguinary laws enacted to prevent the growth of Popery, and the utter dislike which they entertain to every thing which savours of truth. I have been led to these reflections from an instance or two which have lately occurred on this subject, and which I am of opinion clearly illustrate, that although the most sanguinary part of the penal laws against the Catholics is now happily repealed, yet the PUBLIC PRESS is still as bigotted and intolerant, as false, and as calumnious, against the professors of that faith as in former times, and that they are as much excluded from exercising the advantages to be derived from it, as if the before-mentioned book-burning act were now in force. This arises from the indifference and supineness of those Catholics who have the power and means to curb this injustice, and stem the torrent of abuse continually poured forth against their faith and

to have been made by Sir J. Hippesley on that gentleman's construction of an oath, will ever stamp its name for meanness and partiality, and prove that the Catholics are nearly in the same situation as in the reign of William and Mary, when the two factions in Parliament exerted their strength to shew which could invent the severest

morals; and the base and corrupt motives which actuate the Protestant editors, in whose hands it may be said the whole power of the public press is now held, who prefer keeping the public mind in a state of phrensied and stupid delusion, rather than to reclaim it from this debased state, because they find it the only means by which they can gratify their sordid views of self-laws against the poor Papists, in orinterest and love of lucre. Of the tricks of these hireling writers, the great Mr. Cobbett, in his Register of the 4th instant, has lodged a heavy complaint, because one of them was base enough to suppress a political article of his which had been sent for publication. How far this person has reason to complain, I shall leave my readers to judge, after referring them to my Journal for June and July last. They will there see that this writer, who wishes to pass himself off to the public as a man of candour and a lover of truth, made no scruple to suppress a document which he received from a correspondent, with whom he had engaged in a controversy, and which, had it been inserted in in his Register, would have clearly evinced to the readers of that paper, that however victorious Mr. Cobbett had hitherto appeared as a political writer, he was incompetent to the task of engaging with a Catholic on a subject in which religion was mostly concerned. In censuring Mr. Cobbett, I am far from wishing to vindicate the Editor of The Morning Chronicle; I am only shewing that those who profess to be the greatest lovers of truth and justice always fall short in the practice of these two great virtues, when a Catholic is the party who wishes them to be exercised.-That the leading paper of the Whig party is equally as corrupt and unjust as the most venal print in the pay of the Tory faction, is as notorious as the sun at noon-day; and its rejection of the letter of Mr. Francis Plowden, than whom a more sincere friend to truth does not exist, in answer to some remarks reported by that paper

der to fix the odium of the measure upon the opposite party, without any regard to the feelings of the unfortunate victims who suffered by them. Having stated the unmanly and disgraceful conduct of the Whig editor towards one respectable Catholic gentleman, I shall now relate a still more glaring instance which has recently occurred on the part of a Tory scribe towards a reverend gentleman of the most upright and amiable character.— For some time past, The Times morning paper has been displaying its prejudiced and vindictive spirit against the Catholic religion, and has been amusing its numerous readers with some of the most foul, barefaced, and atrocious calumnies, against the Pastors of it, that could be raked from the basest and grossest publications which have been circulated since the passing of the Popery-book-burning law, to besmear and libel the principles of the Catholic faith. On the 13th of January last, the editor of the paper in question laid before his readers an article from an anonymous pen, which contained an absurd and ridiculous description of some religious ceremonies which the writer said were practised in foreign countries, by the Catholic priests, in order to delude the people, and concluded with the following paragraph :—

"It is true that these extravagances are almost unknown in our own country; but a RECENT instance occurred at Cork, in Ireland, which clearly proves that the old leaven of Persecution is still treasured up in the Church of Rome. The following are the facts of this case, which was tried before the Hon. Mr. Justice Day, and

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