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present "as Anti-christ, and as the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, covered with abominations ;"-and the suppression of that terrible tribunal tó a protestant, the inquisition. The

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soon after established, and proving themselves well disciplined and matchless soldiers in defence of the privileges of "the Beast of the Re." velations," the members of this so

him and his associates, whether adopted by the tory party of this country, or the catholic governments on the continent, notwithstanding Mr. Cobbett has asserted, in his letter to the reformers in ge-illustrious order of the jesuits being neral, published in October last, that "the blood of innocent men, (hugonot rebels I presume) shed by that family, (the Bourbon) would, if collected in a' mass, fill an ordinary river for a week." Let the re-ciety were honoured with the speformers turn to the scenes of oppres- cial hatred of the primitive reform sion committed in Ireland by their ers; and while some of these disinfanatic ancestors, and they will find terested men were employed in trathat more innocent blood has been versing the woody and mountainous shed in that unhappy country alone, wilds of Paraguay, and instructing since the period when men began to men, who before were little better reform the divine laws of their than barbarians, to cultivate religion Maker, than in all the catholic and society, and adopt a form of gocountries in the universe united to- vernment strictly republican, others gether. In this same letter, Mr were consigned to the halter, as Cobbett informs his readers, that had traitors to a civilized state, for the the petitions for reform presented in sole crime of believing and teaching the year 1793 been attended to; "if the same faith that Christ commandreform (he says) had then taken ed should be preached to all nations. place, the family of Bourbon, the Well, the reformers of every age pope, the inquisition, the jesuits, all and of every country have exerted the murderous system of despotism their powers to subdue these forwould not have been restored upon midable enemies to their visionary the continent; we should have lived schemes of reformation, yet, still at peace for the last twenty-five they are as far from accomplishing years; and we should not now have the summit of their wishes as when eleven hundred millions of debt, and they first began the crusade; but, to a standing army of a hundred and their inexpressible grief, they find fifty thousand men." It is very the pope and the inquisition, and the easy for this great politician to make jesuits, in a state of renewed vigour; the assertion here quoted; but in so and themselves, alas! in a wretched doing he only exposes his own weak-pickle.-A huge debt pressing them ness and ignorance on the most important of all subjects to mankind in general, namely, that of RELIGION, and betrays a similar degree of passion and prejudice, which he blames in the sons and daughters of corruption. If Mr. Cobbett, or his disciples and admirers, will consult the history of this country, he will find that the principal object of the first reformers was the overthrow of the pope, whom, according to his own words they made no scruple to re

to the ground, a discontented people, ruined and impoverished, and a standing army in the room of the posse comitatus, the constitutional conservators of the peace in the time of our catholic sovereigns and parliaments. But what grounds have the reformers for saying, that had their measures been adopted, the pope, and the jesuits, and the inqui sition, would not have been restored on the continent; and that we should have been at peace for the last

twenty-five years? In what period | reformers been attended to.-No

of our history, since the reformation began, have the parties existing in this distracted and blindly infatuated country, evinced a disposition for peace with their foreign neighbours, and equity with their fellow-citizens at home? The reigns of Henry and his son Edward, exhibit a continued scene of rapine and sacrilege on the part of the sovereigns and their courtiers. Mary, in attempting to restore the ancient state of things to a desolate land, found her life in danger from the rebellious disposition of the people, whose minds had been poisoned by the basest arts of the arch-reformers. She was succeeded by her sister Bess, who assumed a supremacy be fore unheard of and unknown to the constitution, governed her people by the most despotic means, robbing one part to enrich the other, and encouraged rebellion in the neighbouring states, whilst she impaled ber catholic subjects for supposed crimes invented for the purpose of convicting them, and confiscating their property, for the benefit of her parasitical favourites. To her succeeded a monarch, whose mother had been barbarously sacrificed for her religious integrity by his predecessor. James possessed high notions of the divine right of kings, but wished to govern with lenity his own subjects, and maintain peace and friendship with the neighbouring powers. During this king's reign, the longest interval of peace occurred since the conjunction of the temporal and spiritual powers in one head, and it is not a little remarkable, that the people grew discontented at that period, and clamoured for reform, because the sovereign did not go to war to overthrow the pope; whereas it is now affirmed the holy father would have been completely vanquished, and the nation blessed with peace, had the wishes of our modern

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doubt the long-wished for event would have been highly gra. ifying to all parties, who equally hate the spiritual father of christendom and his superstitious adherents; but the folly of our reforming gentlemen, in supposing that their political schemes for renovating the British constitution would have worked the subversion of an establishment which has the promise of its Founder, that it should last till the end of time, and has already braved the vicissitudes of eighteen ages, reminds me of the following anecdote related of the unfortunate Earl of Strafford, who once imbibed reforming principles, and lost his life through the malignity of his former friends, for his desertion of their cause, and an unshaken attachment to his ill-fated sovereign.

"When Lord trafford (says the author of Ireland's case briefly stated) came down into Yorkshire, dignified with the title and office of Lord President of the North, he desired his kinsman and friend, sir Walter Vavasor, to leave his catholic religion and become a protestant; for I (says he) am resolved utterly to extirpate the catholic religion out of all my government in the north; to which sir Walter replied thus:

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My lord, there has been a more experienced politician than you can pretend to be, about bringing the extirpation of catholics to pass, for now above these hundred years, but he never yet could do it; so I believe your lordship will fall short in your designs.' At this the earl seemed struck, and asked him who this politician was? To which sir Walter answered, "It is the devil.” The impotent efforts of this antipapal gentleman have been still continued with equal success, but his misguided followers expected the completion of their desires when Napoleon dethroned and persecuted the present incorruptible and illus

trious pontiff. Foiled, however, in his plans, he is now deluding a set of fanatics, by cherishing the vain hope that they shall be enabled to accomplish it by means of an indiscriminate distribution of the scriptures among the different nations of the earth; but more of this hereafter. As the oppressive administration of this bigotted nobleman was one of the leading causes of the rising of the Irish people, which has been stigmatized by the puritan faction as a bloody rebellion and cruel massacre of protestants, I shall here fulfil the promise given my readers in the last month's journal, and prove to demonstration, that the conduct of these men, who have been denominated the noble strugglers for liberty of conscience, by the clamourers against the tyranny of the pope, the intrigues of the jesuits, and the cruelty of the Bourbons, was marked by the most infamous acts of outrage, villany, and extortion, and deserving more the execration of an honest mind, than the unqualified praise of pseudo-patriots.

IRISH CONFEDERACY.-FALSEHOOD

OF HISTORIANS IN RELATING IT.

| such consequence, that all other bu-
siuess was laid aside for a time by
the Commons.-The account given
of this affair by Rapin, is as follows:
"Since the end of queen Eliza-
beth's reign, (says this hugonot wri-
ter) when Tir Oen's rebellion was
happily quelled, the Irish had lived
peaceably under the dominion of
James L. and Charles I. Not but
that the Lords Depties had always
an eye over them, considering them
as men,whose fidelity was very suspi-
cious: however, they had at least
NO OCCASION TO COM-
PLAIN, that they were WORSE
USED than in the former reigns.
As to their religion, it is easy to
imagine, that they had suffered no
new troubles under these two princes,
who thought of nothing less than of
persecuting the catholics.
Never-
theless, in March or April this year,
1641, the Irish formed the project
of casting off the English yoke, of
seizing upon all the fortified places,
and of cutting the throats of all the
English throughout the whole king-
dom. The day appointed for exe-
cuting this bloody design was the
23rd of October, on which day they
were to rise all over the island.-
This design was really executed, as
projected, and, it is said, on that and
the following days, above FORTY
THOUSAND ENGLISH PRO-
TESTANTS WERE MASSA-
CRED BY THE IRISH." MẸ.
Echard, in his history says,
"It was
a rebellion surprising and prodi-
gious, as had been scarce known in
any age, such as can hardly be pa
ralleled for the numberless acts of
perfidiousness and barbarity..a ge-

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Before I proceed to exculpate the catholics of Ireland from the charges brought against them at this period by their base enemies, it will be necessary for me to notice the manner in which the public in general have been deceived by the false representations of our historians as to the causes and extent of this eventful movement of the Irish people. The intelligence of the insurrection was received in England on the 1st of November, 1641, just as the parlia-neral insurrection of the Irish spread ment were preparing a remonstrance to the king, evidently for the purpose of keeping open the breach which Charles was desirous of seeing closed, and had for that purpose surrendered up some of his regal prerogatives, and it was considered of

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itself like a deluge over the whole country, in such an inhuman and merciless manner, that FORTY or FIFTY THOUSAND of the English protestants were massacred, without distinction of age, sex, or quality, before they suspected any

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arrived in Dublin every day, robbed and spoiled of all they had, relating how their houses were seized, how towns and villages in all parts were fired, and cruel outrages committed." Hume, in his history, fearful probably of being outdone in detail

danger, or could provide for their | defence in towns or elsewhere. In some, the cruelties and barbarities were innumerable and incredible, such as might melt down the most obdurate hearts in the world, as we fnd in sir John Temple and other writers." Mr. Echard further re-ing this affair, ranks COWS amongst marks, that, at the time of its breaking out, "there was such outward appearances of a settled tranquillity, that scarce any suspicion remained: for the ancient prejudices and animosities, which had frequently been shewn between the Irish and English, seemed now to have been buried in a conjunction of their affections and natural obligations. The two nations had now lived together forty years in peace with great security and satisfaction. which had, in a manner, consolidated them into one body, fastened with all those bonds of friendship, alliance, and consanguinity, as might have formed perpetual union between them."The continuator of Baker's Chronicle, in recording this event asserts, "The innocent protestants were upon a sudden disseized of their estutes, and the persons of above TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND | men, women, and children, murdered, within the space of one month, and many of them with exquisite and unheard of tortures.-That which increased the wonder of most men (continues the historian) was, the consideration that the ancient hatred which the Irish (a thing incident to conquered nations) had borne to the English, did now seem to be forgotten: forty years of peace had compacted these two nations into one body, and cemented them together by all conjunctures of alliance, by intermarriages and consanguinity, which was in outward appearances strengthened by frequent entertain-siderable space to this all-important ments, and all kinds of friendly neighbourhood....The poor English protestants (he further adds)

the protestant sufferers on this occasion!!! Such are the statements of the most popular and credited English historians of the effects produced by the rising of the catholics of Ireland in the year 1641, and, were these statements founded in fact, instead of being exaggerated falsehoods, I should be as ready as the most bigotted biblical enthusiast or clamourous reformer, to execrate the Irish name, and consign the natives of that abused country to the curses of insulted humanity. But the fact is, as I have undertaken to prove, the entire of the above accounts is a tissue of malignant slander, criminal misrepresentation, and hyperbolical falsehood, formed for the purpose of covering the unjust exactions and cruel deeds of protestant political reformers and scriptural visionaries, by imposing on the credulous and prejudiced reader the enormities and outrages committed on the Irish catholics by protestant oppressors as the acts of the persecuted instead of the persecutors; following the example of the tyrant Nero, who set Rome on fire, and then laid it to the charge of the christians. As no period of our history, with the exception of the present day, abounds with so much falsity and calumny as that on which I am now treating, and as the cause of catholic Ireland will soon after the publication of this number undergo frequent discussion in the imperial senate, I shall devote a con

subject, and trust it will not be found uninteresting or displeasing to the reader.-Lest the expressions,

The Irish goaded by the Cruelties of Protestants to Confederate. 127

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protestants obtained neither civil nor religious liberty by the refor mation, than unravelling the almost hidden deeds of the principal actors in the struggles occasioned by that drama, and removing the false veil drawn over them by the gross misrepresentations of prejudiced and unprincipled writers. Thus the historians, which I have quoted above have not only exaggerated the number of the slain, but have endeavour

causes which were the occasion of that lamentable circumstance. In order to blacken the character of the Irish catholics, and enhance that of the English puritans, they have asserted that the former enjoyed a state of peace for a number of years, and that the latter were innocent and ignorant of the conspiracy in agitation against their lives. In a word, that the former delighted in blood and religious rancour, while the latter, on the other hand, cultivated social order and freedom of mind. Let us now see the falsity of these assertions from the testimony of unquestionable witnessess.

however, used by me may be consi- | dered as too strong and illiberal, I beg to be understood as alluding, not to the upright and truly-consist ent protestant, who, asserting the right of freedom of conscience in himself is willing to grant it to his catholic neighbour, without depriving him of his civil immunities, but to the biblical and selfish bigot, whose present aim is, through the medium of a corrupt press, to foster the dying embers of religious preju-ed to mislead their readers, as to the dice, and under the guise of a sham liberality, disseminate the most atrocious lies against the principles of catholicity, for the purpose of sup porting a system of intolerance and proscription. For such a character the flowers of rhetoric need not be culled. To the liberal protestant I feel a sincere devotion; to many of that profession I am connected by ties of consanguinity, friendship, and business; neither to the bigot do I entertain any personal ill-will, but to his measures, which are contrary to true charity and the happiness of my country, I shall ever be a determined enemy. That bigotry and intolerance have found a greater share of supporters on the part of pro- THE IRISH GOADED AND PROVOKED testantism than on that of catholicity is clearly deducible from the an- That neither James nor Charles nals of the three kingdoms, and as thought of persecuting their catholong as the restless and relentless ad-lic subjects, as Rapin insinuates, has vocates of so abominable a system continue to exercise their envenomed quills, to send forth slanderous insinuations and groundless accusations against the intentions and principles of my catholic countrymen, in their endeavours to relieve themselves from their present unmerited and degraded state of political slavery, I shall exert my pen, while I have the power of the press in my hands, to combat their invidious designs, and advocate the cause of justice and of truth. In pursuit of this duty, nothing can contribute more to convince the reader, that

BY UNPARALLELED OUTRAGES.

been clearly proved by me, in viudicating the aspersions thrown on the character of these two monarchs, by ancient and modern reformers; but that the Irish suffered no new troubles during the reign of these sovereigns is an atrocious falsehood: because, under the rule of Charles in particular, not by order of that prince, but from the wickedness and avarice of his ministers, the catholics, of Ireland were subjected to the most galling restrictions and oppressive imposts. At the beginning of Charles's reign, it is true, the Irish experienced a degree of lenity and

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