der their decifion, folemnly and deliberately made, and your Lord fhip's Dame is made ufe of to cover the attempt. What does fuch a requifition go to? It requires no great acuteness to difcover-it leads to the divifion of our countrymen, a miferable exhibition of public folly, and of natioDal weakness. Give not your counBenance, my Lord, to fuch an attempt-ftoop not from that proud elevation on which our countrymen placed you in 18 5, and which as yet you have preferved with honourdo not act over again thofe difgu ting fcenes which blot, our history from 1793 to 1805. I would not attempt to unfettle the folemn, and, I dare fay, the well confidered determination of the Catholic bishops-firstbecaufe, I would got weaken my coun try by infu ting them-fecondly, be caufe I think te propofition a fpe, cies of joke put upon our worthy Countryman by an artful courtierthirdly, becaufe feel that fuch a propofition implies a doubt of that integrity which has been proved,and a fufpicion of that loyalty which

fhould not be queftioned. Let Mr. Grattan go back to the imperial parliament-Europe will afford him fome good reafons why Ireland fhould be emancipated-and let us hear of no more conventions, either with Castle. ragh or Wellesley-let the caufe of the Catholic be pleaded in the fpirit of ou la mented Fox, on the broad and univerfal principal of liberty, and we shall have no more huxtering and trafficking the who e pi&ure will. be laid before the empire, and not one or two little buffing and quibbling politicians, who have they tell us with good intention) brought forward a lubject only calculated to remove from the obfervation of minifters the tremendous caules which now loudly call for an immediate emancipation of the Catholics of Ireland- Thefe, my Lord, are my fentiments, and I believe,the fentiments of every thinking and honeft Irishman. I give them with freedom and with fincerity -go among your countrymen, and afk them do they feel like the author of this letter.

A CATHOLIC CITIZEN.

MY LORD,

As you have condescended to ho Dour my publications in the Herald with some attention, I fhall avail myfelf of the right of observing upon yours with the greatest deference, but at the same time, with the most unreferved frankness.

I have now before me two letters bearing your fignature, one of which is addreffed to the Editor, of the Herald, and the other to a Mr. Coyne, of Capel-street, who has at your Lordship's requeft, caufed it to be inferted is the fame independent Print. In the former (remarking on my letters to Doctor O'Reilly, rela

tive to the fo much talked of propo fal of fubjecting the nomination of our ihops to the controul of the Crown, on condition of our receiving emancipation in return) you are pleased to fay that" perhaps the ftatements of Messrs. Grattan and Ponfonby on that fubject, as affecting your conduct on the occafion, have been contradicted, and that in Print ;" referring at the fame time to your many works in proof of your orthodoxy; and you conclude by expreffing a with, that I could be induced to think with you, that the best way in this cafe, is to rely on the piety, zeal and abilities of the Bishops, whofe

peculiar province it is to decide on this question.

In the latter, however, you are more explicit, and indeed you write evidently under the influence of irrisated feelings arifing, I fhould hope, from a confcious innocence of the charge. Your words to Mr. Coyne, are as follows:-"You will have seen fome cruel attacks on me in the Newspapers, and by gentlemen from whom I expected the greatest fupport. I wish you, on every occafion, and in the most public manner you can, to affure Catholics of every defcription, that I would fooner lofe the last drop of my blood, than be inftrumental to an Acatholic King's obtaining any power or influence over any part of the Catholic church, and much, more to obtain fupremacy in it." and after enumerating your various and truly learned works, which I have often read with reve rential refpect, you thus proceedThefe works ought to convince every man of common fenfe and common candour, that I cannot be an abettor of the fyltem which is imputed to me. But I find the cry of church in danger is capable of extin guishing both fenfe and candour a mongst Catholics as well as Proteftant,"

Vielding to no man living in the mait profound refpect for every indidual of thofe exalted characters, who grace the Episcopal Bench, fo long they confine themselves to matters purely fpiritual, and do not, (as would be the cafe in the prefent inflance, should they give their fuppor: to this odious menfure-a circumftance not at all to be apprehended with the duties of their facred office blend Politics, in the dif cuffion of which, all men, whether Layar Clergy, are on the most perfect footing of equality, as well by reafon, as by the spirit of the Bri ithonstitution, I beg leare, my

Lord, before I prefs this fubject further to affure you, and that most unfeignedly, that few entertain a higher opinion than I do of your zeal, your virtues and your extraordinary abilities, which you have fo long and fo ufefully employed to the edification of the faithful, and which bid defiance even to "the foul tongue of flander." Your invaluable productions, not inferior to and of the age, I have often fought after with avidity, and feafted on with rapturous delight, as on the manna of Heaven wherewith to refresh me in this wilderness; and as far as my humble voice could ferve, never has it been wanting, in the circle of my acquaintance blow the trumpet of your fair fame

to

impelled thereto by a principle of pure gratitude to the man, who, amongst all the clergymen of his own country, ftood alone, the gratuitous champion of calumniated Ireland.

Yes, my Lord, previous to Mr. Ponfonby's reported affertions, you had with you the grateful admiration of every Irish Catholic, and it was for that very reafon, he felt the unexpected fhock fo feverely. For, faid he, with the Pfalmift, "it was not an enemy that reproached me, then I could have borne it; neither was it he that hated me, that` did magnify himself against me, then I would have hid myfelf from him. But it was thou a man, mine equal. my guide, and my acquaintance." You will, my Lord, I am convinced, eafily pardon the warmth of my former expreffions, when you recollec your own affecting and beautifulll drawn picture of Irish feelings, in defcribing the ever to be lamented fate of our Irish Demofthenes. Alas! that once great man-nature's most favoured fon-unhappy pilot! who, after having fteered through the boister us ocean of life with fuccefs apparently more than human-and

when on the very eve of conducting into harbour, the triumphant veffel of his patriotifm, then failing down the friendly ftream with iwelling canvass, on which were fixed the eyes of an admiring world-unfortunately for the honor ofhis country, and of human nature, liftened to the Syren voice of accurfed English Courtiers, and was proh dolor! dafhed to pieces against the rocks of delufion, where he remains a fad warning to all present and future poJitical mariners, and an object of the deepest humiliation and grief to all that is virtuous on earth!

When you faw him thus proftrate, but ftill much and justly pitied by all on account of numerous past ferviees; without however a human voice to cheer him when traducing his countrymen, fave what iffued from the foul lips of the whippers in of 98. "This," cried out your Lordfhip, alluding to his infurrection and Arms A&s, this is the blow that reached the heart of every Irish Catholic whom I conversed with"when he heard that even Grattan had confented to disturb his midnight's reft, and that of his family, and to make his houfe a prifon to him during fixteen of the twenty-four hours in winter he indignantly exclaimed, Et tu, Brute?

And when your great character was coupled with the bafe propofal in question, without having publicly contradicted it for two whole months, fa thing we daily expected with the greatest anxiety, and to which we sonceived we had a just right) when you, my Lord, our darling favou rite, whofe name I had fondly hoped to fee handed down to pofterity, almoft identified with that of Irishman; when you, whom the nation To far idolized, that not even a child could be found in it to lisp the name of Milner, without the greatest veneration ; when you, I fay, were quoted by Mr. Penfonby as his an

thority for afferting, that we would allow the King a veto, and thus make him * .. virtually" the Head of our Church-ah! Milner, Milner, was the univerfal cry throughout the land, have you alfo been induced to join the Minifter and his "Irish Junto' of Ufurpers, in thus virtually robbing us of our Hierarchy, and eventually of our Religion? You, whofe kind offices had made us, for a moment, forget all the infults and injuries we fuffered, at the hands of your coun trymen, for feven hundred years! Have you, by this heart-rending propofal, obliged us to measure back our iteps, and believe, that no fincere love, for Irish honor could 'nd refidence in an English breast? Such, my Lord, was the cruelty I conceived to have been inflicted on the Re igious feelings of every Irish Ca tholic of "common fenfe and common candour," who faw the honor of his "Church in danger," from the infidious attacks of " a leading Junta," who had formerly fo far imposed on one exemplary Bishop, as to induce him to tell his flock, in a Paftoral Letter an affertion flatly contradicted by the very words of our late Petition,) that "Irishmen are no longer ftrangers in their native land;"-and, in another document. of the fame kind, to call on his coun→ trymen, in the true fpirit of active loyalty, to turn informers against each other, and thus restore national tranquillity!

This, my Lord, although, perbaps, unknown to you, is notorious in Ireland and it is equally notori ous that another Prelate, no lefs dif. tinguifhed for the purek virtue, be loved by all who knew him, but by none more than his own Clergy (the very best criterion whereby to judge of the Chriftian humility, brotherly love, and real worth requifite in the character of an Ecclefiaftical Supe

Mr. Poufonby's very words in the reported speech.