les Officiers Anglois," lui mandoit-il, "se montrent on ne peut pas plus sensibles à la faveur que leur a faite sa Sainteté en leur permettant le débarquement. Ils ne cessent d'en témoigner dans toutes les occasions envers elle la plus vive reconnoissance, et ils avouent que, s'ils avoient tenu la mer un mois de plus, cette cavalerie eut été entièrement perdue."

Après avoir permis à ces troupes de débarquer et de rester à Civita Vecchia, les ordres les plus pressés furent donnés aux Ministres du Saint Père pour la fourniture des fourrages nécessaires, et pour procurer dans le nombre des vivres qui sont dans le pays celles que les officiers désireroient et jugeroient plus commodes. On porta même à cet égard l'attention jusqu'à déplacer un détachement de nôtre cavalerie, afin de pouvoir céder a celle des Anglois les écuries que celle-ci occupoit. On demanda encore la permission de faire débarquer une partie du convoi, c'est-à-dire les femmes et les familles des dragons, et elle leur fût également accordée. On donna à tous un logement convenable, et Messieurs les Officiers ayant temoigné le désir de pouvoir être logés tous ensemble dans la maison appartenante au commandant de la place, elle leur fût cedée surle-champ.

On se donna toutes les sollicitudes possibles pour que les soldats et tous ceux du convoi trouvassent abondamment et à des prix modérés toutes les subsistances qu'ils pourroient désirer quand le pays pourroit les fournir; et il est de fait qu'ils les payoient à Civita Vecchia la moitié moins qu'ils ne les ont payées ailleurs.

Quatre dragons ayant déserté, on n'a rien oublié pour les retrouver, et l'on en a déjà arreté trois, qui ont été conduits à leur régiment, sous la promesse qu'ils auront la vie sauvée. Du reste, le Saint Père a fait recommander d'une manière très expresse à ses ministres de n'épargner ni honnètetés, ni prévenances, ni attentions, envers ses hôtes, et M. Hippisley aura été probablement plus particulièrement instruit de tout ce qu'on a fait pour eux par ceux des officiers qui étoient ces jours

derniers à Rome; et il pourra, par conséquent, en donner luimême au Ministère Britannique et à l'Amiral, avec bonne foi et vérité, un détail plus étendu que ne croit devoir le faire ici le Cardinal de Zelada, de peur que ce qu'il en diroit ne put paroître exagéré. Et, toujours pénétré de l'estime la plus distinguée, il se déclare, &c.

TRANSLATION.

From the Apartments of the Vatican, March 31, 1794.

It is now several months since the Cardinal de Zelada, Secretary of State, transmitted to the most respectable Mr. Hippisley a note of all the sorts of provisions, the export of which from his territories his Holiness had permitted and favoured for the supply of the AngloSpanish squadrons. The like permissions having since been granted anew, it is equally proper to apprize him of them, as he does by the annexed paper. The desire which is felt that Mr. Hippisley should be so obliging as to take upon himself the trouble to inform Admiral Hood and the British administration of the circumstance arises from two motives. The first is, that of being able to convince more and more his Britannic Majesty and that whole illustrious nation of the great cordiality with which the Holy Father complies with all the applications that are made to him for the benefit and success of the combined armies, and particularly of the English army. The second proceeds from the suspicions which have been conceived with some foundation, not of the English commissaries themselves, but of the agents employed by them; as there is reason to fear that these turn to their own profit, and drive a private trade with all the articles which are granted to them, diverting them to a different purpose from the supply of the wants of the said armies.

If Mr. Hippisley will therefore be pleased to transmit, as he is earnestly requested to do, to Admiral Hood, and to the British Ministry, this second note (as he has had the goodness to assure us he did by the first), the court of Rome will have nothing more to desire, in order to make itself perfectly easy, and to be thus protected from the frauds which might be committed, contrary to the purity and the uprightness of its intentions.

It is likewise desirable that Mr. Hippisley should communicate to the same Admiral Hood and the Ministers all that has been done in favour of a party of English Cavalry, that lately landed at Civita Vecchia.

It consisted of two hundred and forty-four persons and two hundred and forty horses. It arrived in that port with its convoy, in the worst condition, occasioned as well by what it had suffered from the fatigues of a long voyage, as from not having found elsewhere, particularly in Tuscany, the asylum and rest which it had solicited there. No sooner was his Holiness requested to permit it to land at Civita Vecchia, than he most cheerfully granted that permission; and the Holy Father had the soothing consolation to learn the good effect produced by this friendly condescension, by the letters which he received, ever since the first moment, from the Prelate who is governor of that town. "All the English officers," he wrote, "manifest the deepest sense of the favour which has been done them by his Holiness in permitting the landing. They never cease expressing, on all occasions, the warmest gratitude to him for it, and they acknowledge that, if they had been kept at sea for a month longer, this cavalry would have been utterly ruined."

After the troops had been permitted to land and to remain at Civita Vecchia, the most urgent orders were given to the ministers of the Holy Father for supplying them with the necessary forage, and with such of the provisions of the country as the officers should desire and judge most suitable. To such a length were attentions of this kind carried, as to displace a detachment of our cavalry, in order to give up to the English the stables which it had occupied. Permission was further solicited for landing part of the convoy, that is to say, the wives and families of the dragoons; and it was likewise granted. Suitable lodgings were assigned to all, and, the officers having expressed a wish to be lodged all together in the house belonging to the commandant of the place, it was immediately given up to them.

The utmost anxiety was shown that the soldiers and all belonging to the convoy should obtain abundantly, and at moderate prices, all the articles of consumption which they could desire, if the country could furnish them; and it is a fact that at Civita Vecchia they cost them less by half than they had paid for them elsewhere.

Four dragoons having deserted, no pains were spared to find them again: three are already secured and taken to their regiment upon a promise that their lives shall be safe. For the rest, the Holy Father has caused it to be recommended in a most express manner to all his ministers not to spare either civilities, or services, or attentions, towards his guests. Mr. Hippisley will probably have been more particularly informed of all that has been done for them, by such of the officers as were in these last days at Rome; and he will in consequence be able to give

the British ministry and the Admiral a faithful, true, and more detailed account than Cardinal Zelada thinks it right to do here, for fear that it might appear exaggerated. And, filled with the most cordial esteem, he declares himself, &c.

Sir J. C. Hippisley to Lord Hobart.

Curzon Street, February 10, 1799. My dear Lord-I am extremely flattered to be informed by your Lordship, that Lord Castlereagh is so much satisfied with my communications on the Catholic subject of Ireland. Though the proceedings connected with the proposed Union are, for the present, suspended, there are some measures which I think your Lordship will be of opinion are not of less urgency; indeed, their expediency is the more strongly indicated, in proportion as we consider the Catholics more exposed to seduction.

A difference of opinion on the Catholic subject is not confined to the uninformed part of the public on this side of the water. We not long since heard, at your Lordship's table, a distinguished Metropolitan Prelate assert, "That the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland possess almost unlimited influence on the minds of the people, and that the Priests themselves are in great subjection to their Prelates." We heard, also, persons who had filled the highest stations in that kingdom. express opinions of a very different tendency. Many consider the Insurrection to be wholly unconnected with religious opinions; others maintain the reverse; and, in support of the latter position, the late accounts from the County of Clare are referred to, which inform us, "that the insurgents of that County are wholly Catholics and headed by their Priests."

I state these assertions as opposed to an opinion I heard maintained also in your Lordship's presence," that the Catholic question was of so little importance, that the projected Union of the two kingdoms should be treated as wholly independent of it." To my humble apprehension, it is not possible, consistently and decorously, to discuss that question without

investigating the religious as well as political state of more than three millions, composing the great majority of the inhabitants of an independent kingdom, who are contradistinguished by laws of high disqualification, and which exclude them from the most valued franchises open to the minority of their fellow-subjects.

But it seems evident, from what has occurred in the debates of the British Parliament, that the King's Ministers themselves are fully aware of the justice and importance of gradually conceding to the Catholics such farther privileges as may not militate with the spirit of our Constitution. I have not as yet heard any adequate measures proposed of guarding against every possible inroad, and giving complete security to our Establishment in Church and State; yet I am persuaded it is not difficult for those who are acquainted with the usages of the See of Rome, and the different bearings of Catholic discipline, to devise a practicable and inoffensive system, that will effectually embrace the just object of Government.

To effect this desirable end, we must divest ourselves of many prejudices, fairly facing (as I before observed) the whole subject, and tracing the disorders and mischiefs connected with it to their true sources. That Catholic Priests, in many instances, have been the promoters of sedition, I can well imagine; but let us not infer from thence that the See of Rome is the natural fountain of rebellion. Let us, in candour, recollect that Mr. Horne Tooke is himself a Priest of the Church of England, and educated in a British university.

There are expedients, my Lord, of easy adoption, and, as I conceive, of pressing exigency, which would necessarily produce much useful information on the Catholic subject, and ought to precede the enacting of any Parliamentary regulation, whether of extension or restriction. These expedients (which I shall beg presently to suggest) will be strictly justified by an authority that the Catholics themselves cannot question, and the present state of too great a proportion of their Clergy in Ireland urges the propriety of adopting them.