Little or no excuse then can be pleaded in favour of the Lord Bishop of Cloyne, when he treats the late Empress Queen with such severity:* for she was neither cruel nor perfidious. His Lordship was not a member of her Privy Council, to know the nature of her compacts with, or promises to her subjects; compacts and promises in the performance of which no Sovereign could be more honourable and punctual. She had in her dominions the descendants of those German boors who had attempted to dethrone her ancestors. Those men were under legal restraints for their fathers' guilt, in which they had no part. It was their unhappy fate, in common with many others, to be victims to human laws, which by a faint resemblance of Omnipotence, make of the folly, or madness, or weakness of one generation, a kind of original and hereditary sin, which afflicts in a long succession the innocent posterity, with this difference, that the offence against the Deity is instantly forgiven upon repentance, or the application of the remedy which mercy appoints to counteract the rigour of justice. But human legislators all over Europe, have given proofs of their omnipotence in penal codes which immortalize the punishment ages after the death of the guilt, and require a rigorous atonement from the sober and innocent decendants, for the frenzy of their forefathers. They have their patent in Scripture, wherein we read, I have said, ye are Gods and all Sons of the Most High. But Dryden's Indian Emperor was tortured for paying a greater veneration to the bright luminary of the day, than to a book bound up in sheep skin, which Pizzaro's chaplain called the Bible, and of which the unhappy prince knew nothing. To each of those legislators who punished their subjects for hereditary errors, or their forefathers' guilt, Dryden's Indian Emperor would say, If thou art that most cruel God, whose eyes Such was the state of the Hussites in the Empress Queen's dominions, and such was the case of Catholics and Dissenters under Protestant Sovereigns, when prelates of the Lord Bishop of Cloyne's philanthropy directed their councils; as the Reverend Mr. Samuel Barber of Rathfryland, has ingeni Rudeness would be an improper word when I am animadverting on the writings of a Bishop. ously and pointedly remarked to the Lord Bishop of Cloyne.* The state of the Hussites in Bohemia was not worse than the state of the Dissenters and Catholics in Ireland, even so late as the beginning of that illustrious Empress's reign. That magnanimous Heroine, surrounded by numerous and powerful foes, ready to invade her dominions, and to ornament the triumphal car with the procession of a captive Queen, worked up the softer soul to a martial firmness. Reduced to fifteen thousand men, against the numerous armies of powerful Sovereigns, she took in her arms the present Emperor, who was then in his cradle, shewed him to her subjects of every religious description, behold your prince unable to protect you; defend his rights, and when those infant hands will be able to wield the Sceptre, the grateful remembrance of your services will procure you the love, favour, and protection of your • Sovereign.' 6 It was the characteristic of the rude courtiers and stern divines of Queen Elizabeth's reign, not to pity a Queen in distress; but at the sight of Maria Teresa controuling fortune on the verge of ruin, a generous ardour glowed in every breast. Her Protestant subjects of Hungary flocked to her banners, and as the reward of their loyalty, she repealed the restrictive laws which former Sovereigns had enacted. As a proof of her fidelity to her promise, she ordered her son's picture to be hung up in their houses of worship, making it high treason to molest them in the exercise of their religion. What the mother began in her hereditary kingdom, the son completed all over his dominions. This is the historical information which the Lord Bishop of Cloyne should have given his readers. But it would not answer his ends: cruelty, perfidy, and persecution are his favourite theme; generosity, humanity, and toleration are quite shadowed in his picture. Catholic powers are embracing their subjects, without inquiring into their catechism: if an enemy of toleration were as industrious in * See Remarks on a Pamphlet, entitled "The Present State of the Church of Irefand," by Saanel Barber. translating into French or German, the Bishop of Cloyne's pamphlet, as he has been in translating Ghilini's letter, and the Bishop's consecration oath into English; violation of faith with heretics, and other charges: if in consequence of the impression his pamphlet had made on the public minds, Catholic princes, prelates, and doctors, read the clause proposing to empower the civil magistrates to pull down, level, and prostrate Roman Catholic chapels upon the deposition of one witness; if they read all the pamphlets published of late against the Catholic body, and knew the steps that are taking in order to degrade them; I appeal to his Lordship, and to the public, whether the Bishop of Cloyne's pamphlet, and the proceedings now mentioned, would tend to promote toleration? What was the Bishop of Cloyne's intention in abusing the memory of the Empress Queen? Why has not he proposed her good qualities, and the tolerating spirit of her son as models for imitation? Or does he really believe the case of a Bohemian Hussite, now restored to the privilege of the great and inalienable charter, to which a man guilty of no personal crime against the state is entitled? Does he really believe his case, and that of an Irish Catholic to be quite similar? If the Irish Catholics profess the religion of the greatest monarchs, and the creed of flourishing Universities, one would imagine that their faith should not make them objects of contempt. They introduced no new religion into the state, nor encroached upon any man's property. They had the lands of their fathers, and the religion of their education, ages before their Sovereigns thought fit to change their creeds. Their blood flows in the veins of the Protestant nobility and gentry of Ireland, whose pedigree is proclaimed the more illustrious, in proportion as they trace it back to Catholic times. Their loyalty at home, and their valour abroad, when disqualifying laws, and the thirst of glory urged them to dispute the laurel under the banners of foreign kings, cannot disgrace the kindred of affinity the Catholie noblemen and gentlemen may claim to the Protestant nobility and gentry of the land. Had the island been even subdued by the sword of the conqueror, conquest itself has its limits circumscribed by justice. Transfer of allegiance, and the tribute paid to the former Sovereign, is all that the conqueror is entitled to. Locke would grant him no more, but would secure in the unchangeable profession of their consciences and inheritance, the subjects who had changed their masters. They had the prescription of ages to plead for their religion and properties, when the wrecks of both were secured to them by the laws of nations under the walls of Limerick. This capitulation, which it was in their power to break forty-eight hours after the interchange of the articles, they adhered to inviolably. It was shamefully broken by the daughter of the very king to whom they had sworn allegiance, though from the day on which it was signed until this very hour, not a pistol was fired, or a sword drawn by a Catholic in this kingdom against the state. Such being the case, which no man can contradict, what must not be the indignation of every man of feeling, when he sees about two millions of Irish subjects treated with as little ceremony as if they were a set of negro slaves upon a West India plantation; compared to a pack of hounds impatient at the view of the game; and to a set of treacher. ous, insidious, and faithless Popish rebels, to be cut off by his Majesty's sword.* Could mortals foresee that, in the year eighty-seven, a clause would be introduced into the Irish House of Commons, for the purpose of pulling down, levelling and prostrating Roman Catholic chapels, if one witness swore before two magistrates that an unlawful oath was taken in said chapel, or in any place adjoining thereto ! It would be more honourable to banish the whole Catholic body out of the kingdom, after giving them sufficient time and notice for selling their properties, than to offer them the insult of proposing on the evidence of a single witness the destruction of their houses of worship, in the course of the same session when a member of Parliament talked of heads of a bill to prevent the stealing of dogs. We read of two philosophers in antiquity, the one continually laughing, and the other continually crying at the scenes of human life. This contrast would unite them both. Christian houses of worship to be demolished, and the ken nels of dogs to be protected by the law. * See Theophilus, called by the Bishop of Cloyne an able writer against whom it is hard to prove a negative, and (Proh Deum et hominum fides!) by Counsellor Dominick Trant, a well meaning writer. P P After what I have related in the course of my narrative, and in the vindication of my writings, I cannot see how the Irish Catholics deserved such severe and disgraceful usage, as to have their houses of worship treated with the same indignity as if they were houses of prostitution, or cabinets of leagues and confederacies against the crown and dignity of our most gracious Sovereign. If they were either the one or the other, they would not be destroyed upon the evidence of one witness, at a time when twenty witnesses would take a hundred false oaths for the twentieth part of the materials (which were proposed as a reward) for the demolishers of chapels much less would a temple of Venus be demolished, because a thousand unlawful oaths would be taken in places adjining it. The only fault with which the Catholic body can be upbraided, is their misfortune originating from their attachment to their religion, without any disloyalty to their Kings; but unfortunate people ought not to be insulted. The most flourishing empires, as well as individuals, are not proof against the revolutions of time, and the vicissitudes of fortune. you Marius, the great conqueror of the Cimbri, was seen in a reclining posture, and forlorn and half famished on the ruins of Carthage, formerly the rival of Rome. The sight of such a change disarmed the officer who was sent to behead him, when the other cried out, go and tell the governor that have seen Marius hungry on the ruins of Carthage. Travellers pay a certain respect to the ruins of old temples and other buildings stripped of their former decorations; and it would be matter of surprise, if in the very blaze of toleration, the legislature of Ireland would pay such little regard to the descendants of the people, who in former times opened their houses and seminaries for the reception of all the natives of Europe, who flocked to them for improvement, and erected magnificent structures in honour of the Deity, as to force them to pray in the open air. The dissolution of morals amongst the lower orders, deprived of a place of worship, and the scandal of Europe would be the con sequence of such a rigorous law. The Irish senate foresaw it, and to their honour rejected the clause. The Catholics of Ireland should be very thankful to the |