REM MARK S

ΟΝ THE FOREGOING

LETTER AND DEFENCE.

Addressed to the CONDUCTORS of the FREE-PRESS.

GENTLEMEN,

I KNOW that it is lofs of time, and a lofs to the public,-impatient for a paper in, which they real firft difcovered the outlines of their country's rights, and from whence they daily expect new illustrations, on the most important fubjects,-to take up the Freeman's Journal with idle controversy. Were controversy alone the fubject, I fhould be the laft to enter the lift.

In your paper, which has already made its way to the continent, on account of the late exertions of the Irish, and which should contain nothing unworthy the nervous eloquence and liberal principles of your numerous and learned

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correfpondents, Mr. Wefley, in a fyllogiftical method, and the jargon of the schools, has arraigned the Catholics all over the world, with their kings and fubjects, their prelates and doctors, as liars, perjurers, patentees of guilt and perjury, authorized by their priests to violate the facred rules of order and juftice; and unworthy of being tolerated even by Turks and Pagans. Such a charge carries with it, its own confutation. But are there not prejudiced people ftill in the world? The nine fkins of parchment, filled with the names of petitioners against the English Catholics, owe the variety of their fignatures, to pulpit declamations and inflammatory pamphlets, teeming with Mr. Wefley's falfe affertions: and, to the difgrace of the peerage, in this variety of fignatures, is not the lord's hand-writing ftretched near the scratch of the cobler's awl? For the parchment would be profaned, if the man who does not know how to write, made the fign of the +.

I am a member of that communion which Mr. Wesley afperfed in fo cruel a manner. I disclaimed upon oath, in prefence of judge Henn, the creed which Mr. Wesley attributes to me. I have been the first to unravel the intricacies of that very oath of allegiance propofed

* See Mr. Wesley's letter, page 193.

proposed to the Roman Catholics: as it is worded in a manner which, at first fight, seems abftrufe. And, far from believing it lawful to "violate faith with heretics," I folemnly fwear, without equivocation, or the danger of perjury, that, in a Catholic country, where I was chaplain of war, I thought it a crime to engage the king of England's foldiers or failors into the fervice of a Catholic monarch, against their Proteftant fovereign. I refifted the folicitations, and ran the risk of incurring the displeasure of a minister of state, and lofing my penfion: and my conduct was approved by all the divines. in a monaftery to which I then belonged, who all unanimously declared, that, in confcience, I could not have behaved otherwife.

Mr. Wesley may confider me as a fictitious. character: but should he follow his precurfor, (I mean his letter, wafted to us over the British channel) and on his miflion from Dublin to Bandon, make Cork his way,-doctor Berkely, parith minifter, near Middleton,captains Stanner, French, and others, who were prifoners of war, in the fame place, and at the fame time,--can fully fatisfy him as to the reality of my exiftence, in the line already defcribed; and that in the beard which I then wore, and which, like that of fir Thomas More, never committed any treafon, I never concealed

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cealed either poifon or dagger to destroy my Proteftant neighbour; though it was long enough to fet all Scotland in a blaze, and to deprive lord G***** G ***** of his senses.

Should any of the Scotch miffionaries attend Mr. Wesley into this kingdom, and bring with them any of the ftumps of the fagots with which Henry the eighth, his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, and the learned James the first, roafted the heretics of their times in Smithfield, or fome of the fagots with which the Scotch faints, of whole proceedings Mr. Wesley is become the apologist, have burnt the houses of their inoffenfive Catholic neighbours, we will convert them to their proper use. In Ireland the revolution of the great Platonic year is almoft completed. Things are re-inftated in their primitive order. And the fagot, which, without any miflion from Chrift, preached the gospel by orders of Catholic and Proteftant kings, is confined to the kitchen. Thus, what formerly roafted the man at the stake, now helps to feed him. And nothing but the feverity of winter, and the coldness of the climate in Scotland, could juftify ing the rabble to light it. introduce it amongst us, formidable to our foes,

Mr. Wesley in urgThis is a bad time to when we begin to be and united amongst

ourfelves. And to the glory of Ireland be it