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REV. SIR,

NUMBER VIII.

As you have publicly professed a wish to be informed of any involuntary errors e ntained in your history, when speculative opinions supply the place of fact, and are so prevalent, hearsey evidence, whether oral, manuscript, or printed, is to be received with the greatest caution, and the great superiority of occular information. to any other, induces me, from my personal knowledge of facts, to send you, along with my own opinion, auxiliary documents that cannot fail to convince you that the introduction of my name into your history is not such as I am entitled to, and I hope your professions of liberality and candour may be realized in doing justice to my present communication.—According to the plan contained in Mr. Byrne's circular letter, two persons deputed from each catholic congregation in the county of Wexford assembled at Enniscorthy, on the 29th of July 1792, where they elected delegates to represent the county in the general committee of the catholics of Ireland. I attended this meeting as a voter from the congregation I belonged to, and had the honour of being elected one of the delegates for the county of Wexford, so that the intermediate step of baronials (which you mention in

your history) had but a speculative existence, invented I do naturally suppose for the purpose of assimilating the catholic committee with the system of united Irishmen, a circumstance totally devoid of truth, as no kind of communication existed between them. In order that the meeting of the general committee should be publicly attended, proposals were made to hire the Rotunda and other public places which could not be obtained. Such disappointment was the more conspicuous, as such refusal was not signified to many other applications of the same kind, so that no other place but the Taylor'shall, in Back-lane, could be obtained, which precluded the possibility of being able to adnit any but the delegates, as it was scarcely sufficient to contain them, and thus was the committee frustrated in having their assembly publicly attended. The first meeting of this general com>mittee took place in December 1792, for seven days only; which you mention to be many weeks; and the second and final meeting was for eight days, from the 16th of April 1793, to the 25th only, meeting on Saturday the 20th, being in the court of king's bench, where all the delegates attended to take the oaths of allegiance prescribed in the late act of parliament, and this meeting ended in dissolution. The collections made by the catholics of Ireland to defray the necessary expences attendant on the pursuit of their eman

cipation were voluntary subscriptions, not in any degree assessments, as it is evident that the entreaties of the sub-committee (by no means orders) were not attended to, as two-thirds of the counties of Ireland never produced one farthing. I paid the collection of the county of Wexford to the treasurer in 1792, and no second collection ever was made there. The statue of the king could not be erected, although voted by catholic gratitude, which along with other honourable engagements of the committee, were superseded by the illiberality of the general and calumnious outcry raised at the time against our collections. The petition of the catholics of Ireland, presented to the king on the 2d January 1795, might be supposed to escape animadversion, when his Majesty was graciously pleased to signify his strongest approbation in his recommendation to the parliament of Ireland, who in consequence repealed the greater part of the penal statutes against catholics. The late earl of Clare did assert, as you have done in your history, that the catholic petition was surprisingly fraught with misrepresentation, On this assertion being so publicly made the petition was reprinted, reciting the statutes on which the allegations were grounded, prepared by the honourable Simon Butler, whose reputation as a lawyer, the chancellor was too well aware of to

attempt to expose his error again, and gave up the point; so that I imagine this public document will be equally convincing to you, as I send it to you along with all the proceedings of the catholic committee relating to this event, for your perusal, as I should wish your avowal to proceed from the most perfect information on the subject. Although I profess the Roman catholic religion, I should not be of that communion one single hour were their tenets as they are represented, through that baneful prejudice so prevalent in Ireland, that proves such an effectual draw back to the otherwise infalliable prosperity of the country, and I cannot sufficiently lament to see so industriously circulated, as it only serves to keep alive those prejudices that all liberal men see through and reprobate as a pest to society. A sloop had been fitted out by the insurgents, but twice condemned as totally unfit for that service, was hauled on one side in the harbour, where she sunk within a foot of her deck, and remained in that situation for a month, when she was pumped out, and I was on the same day, without trial or inquiry, sent on board along with those that had been tried, and sentenced to transportation. The wet straw was left in the hold and a little dry straw shook over it, which our walking on soon made as bad as the rest, so that it was not possible to sit or lie down without

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imbibing the wet, nor could we ever have the satisfaction of resting against the sides of the ship, as the planks were water-soaked, and the effervescence of the putrid malt so strong as to turn money black in our pockets in the course of a few hours; we had also a profusion of rats that bit some of the prisoners. My health has been greatly impaired by five weeks confinement on board this sloop, and I fear it inay never be perfectly re-established! I should detain you too long was I to enumerate the various hardships I endured during a period of thirteen months that I was confined, which I was at last released from by an honourable acquittal, at the Summer assizes in Wexford 1799, independent of the amnesty bill, whereas my persecutors could be punished by the fundamental laws of the constitution had they not the indemnity bills to skreen their base and tyrannical conduct towards me. I have confined myself merely to the facts stated in your history, in which I have been an eye witness, and in some degree concerned, so that it precludes the possibility of cavilling or contradiction, and hope you may be kind enough to set them in their proper colours. I request the favour of your answer, as I am anxious to learn your determination on a subject you have hitherto been so much misinformed, as I do not mean to let such a misrepresentation pass unre

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