1805 brought (and Lord Ellenborough observed in his charge to the jury, very properly) in England, by the plaintiff to recover damages for an injury, which he complained he had sustained from a publication in the Anti Jacobin review, which traduced him as a disloyal person, and consequently as bringing a scandal upon the religion, of which he was not only a professor, but a guardian and church governor. A verdict was found for the plaintiff in £50. With respect to the mediocrity of damages, it is to be observed, that his counsel, Mr. Erskine, in that regard, followed his instructions, when he closed his address to the jury in these words: " Dr. Troy asks nothing of you, but "that he may be considered as a subject of this country, and that under the law of England his "character may be protected." the trial. แ Grounds of. The circumstances, out of which this action originated form a leading feature in the system, which this history professes to develope as much in detail, as evidence will support. It is matter of notoriety, that the periodical work called the Anti Jacobin Reviete was set up with (perhaps a fair and honourable) intent of writing down the pruriency of democracy, which, about the beginning of the French revolution was apprehended dangerous in its example and consequences. Some persons (all clergymen of the establishment) of respectability were known in England to contribute their talents to the work. To make head against irreligion, and the general hostility to regular government was the original and laudable in ** tent of the British writers for the undertaking. In extending the object to Ireland, where bigotry and virulence rankle with a luxuriancy unknown to England, these advocates for religion and order engaged some over-zealous disciples to write for the Western part of the British empire. These persons, amongst whom prominently ranked Sir Richard Musgrave, conceiving themselves licensed, and not unfeed purveyors of intelligence to the Protestant ascendancy, appreciated their services and hire, in proportion to their misrepresentation and calumny of their Catholic countrymen, their clergy and their religion. With a view to criminate and injure the Catholic religion through their chief spiritual superior in Dublin, these malignant scribes for the Anti Jacobin attempted to exculpate the gross improvidence of the Irish government, in July, 1803, and throw the guilt of Emmet's insurrection upon Dr. Troy's misprision of treason, on this stupid and wicked affectation of reasoning. The Catholic religion imposes the obligation of confessing every mortal offence; rebellion is such; and therefore it is confessed by every Catholic perpetrator of that siir to his priest. The arch-bishop or superior of such priest must know what is confessed to his inferior or subject, and therefore is apprized of every insurrection in the state, and consequently guilty, at least, of misprision of treason, if he reveal it not to government. The Anti Jacobin review then was, as it still continues to be countenanced and encouraged by government. Dr. Troy, therefore, had 1805. 4 1805. no other method of retrieving his own, and the character of his religion, of which he was a guardian and governor, than by instituting a suit at law against the malicious libellers of both.* He therefore brought this action. The libel of which he complained was contained in the Anti Jacobin Review for July, 1804, and is expressed in the following words : "Nothing affords such strong evidences of Popish dissimulation in Ireland as the exhortations of the Romish clergy, and the loyal addresses of their flocks. They are commonly found to be sure presages of deep-laid conspiracy against the Protestant state; and after it has exploded in rebellion, their clergy generally lament from the altar the delusions of the people, and their treasonable conduct towards the best of Sovereigns, and the only constitution, that affords any degree of rational liberty; though from the nature of their religion, they must have known, and have prevented it. The dreadful rebellion of 1798, accompanied with such instances of Popish perfidy, must convince the reader, that no reliance is to be placed on the oaths or professions of Irish Papists to a Protestant state. Dr. Troy must have known all the circumstances, which preceded the insurrection in Dublin, on the 23d of July, 1803, and yet he did not put Government on their guard. The present Administration are convinced of his treachery on that occasion, and yet, for many years past, he had been treated at the Castle with the utmost respect, and even received favours for some persons of his own family. His exhortation, then, to which Lord Fingal alJudes, must be considered as a mockery of the State, and an in'sult to the understandings of his Protestant fellow-subjects, and an unquestionable testimony of his want of candour. "By bis, orders, exhortations, composed by himself, were read in many Popish chapels in his diocese, on the morning of the 24th of July, and a few hours after the insurrection and massacre had taken place in Dublin. The reader must be convinced, by the following moral evidence, that these exhortations wele framed previous to that dreadful event; there was no allu Anti Catho lic prejudi It appeared clearly upon the trial, (the Defend- 1805. ant produced no evidence) that Dr. Troy wrote Effects of the short exhortation, which he enjoined his clergy A to read to their congregations in their respective ces. chapels, as well as the exhortation itself on the Sunday (July the 24th) after, and in conséquence of the unforeseen and unexpected explosion of the preceding night. Both were printed and distributed on the Monday morning. The injunction, to the Roman Catholic clergy of the arch-diocese of Dublin, was to read in the chapels and communicate as generally as possible, during the ensuing fortnight, the accompanying exhortation, and as much longer as they should find it expedient re sion to it in any of them; and the distance of the chapels, in which they were read, from the metropolis was so great, as to make it physically impossible, that they should have been framed and sent to them, subsequent to that catastrophe. The rebellion of 1798 broke out on the night of the 23d of May, and notice appeared early on the morning of Thursday the 24th, in the Dublin Journal, to Roman Catholics, that an address to the Lord Lieutenant, intended to be immediately presented, and containing a declaration of political principles applicable to the times, lay at certain houses for signatures, and it stated, that all signatures must be given in on or before Saturday next, viz. on the 26th of May. The names of persons were subscribed to it, who lived in various parts so remote from the metropolis, that they could not have been inform-". ed, that it was in contemplation. It was entitled, "The Address "of the Roman Catholics of Ireland," though the contents of it could not be known to any of them, except to those in Dublin and its vicinity; for they were not allowed two entire days to subscribe it. The names of twenty-eight titular or Popish Bishops were subscribed to it, though some of them lived 150 miles from the metropolis." 1905. lying upon their experienced loyalty to promote peace and good order, and to prevent any attempt to disturb either. The short address is a pointed This action would not have been noticed, but as an elucida tion of a part of the general system pervading both cabinets to decry, debase and calumniate that portion of his Majesty's subjects, who have not as yet discovered efficacious reasons for renouncing the religion of their Christian ancestors. With much less reason could the author have presumed to arrest his reader's attention to a most insignificant individual, unless the coincidence of circumstances had demonstrated, that even a King's counsel would so let himself down as to resort to the systematic license of misrepresenting, traducing and calumniating any subject of his Majesty, because he professed the Catholic faith. The more humble the object, the more important the attack, Mr. Garrow,. who, to the amaze of many, is at the head of the English bar, was of counsel for the defendant. On the day after the trial, the author read a report of it in the Morning Post, and was not Lightly surprized, at Mr. Garrow's wilful and malicious misinter pretation of a passage in his Historical Review of the State of Ireland. He then felt it a duty to the country, of which that work was an Historical Review, as well as to himself to send the following letter to the publisher of that paper, and it appeared next morning: TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING POST "Sir, "Having read in your paper of yesterday a report of the trial, Troy v. Simmons, I was surprised to find my name quoted by Mr. Garrow, for a purpose which even his ingenuity and assurance failed in connecting with the case of his client. This is one out of many attempts from apparently respectable quarters, to distort and misrepresent my Historical Review of the State of Ireland, where it cannot be refuted. Argument and inference Test upon the ingenuity of counsel, quotation upon his veracity. He alluded (says your report), to the History of Ireland by a Catholic writer, (Mr. Plowden), who had written one chapter 10 shew-Why of necessity Priests must be engaged in rebettion, who |