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180 . SO aU
“From the Dublin nm Weekly Register.)
MR. O*CONNELL. (AND THE FRENCH
1
. 0 Connell te rsa the ‘fllowing letter
Pos
to. the editor of the.
‘ Merion aun ‘bth Oct. 1829.
“My itl without surprise, but with
some small indigoation, in anonymous letter whieh!
* yoi'published in your paper of the 3rd inst. 1 ima;
» gine I detect the writer in n the style of his thi inking, |
“and especially” in the dishonesty, which I believe to
e one of his political’characteri istics. iftb
: he did well to conceal his na or it is one ont
known ‘indeed in Catholic affai nits, and orale little,
less of good, could with tru th be pred
‘Pp m the 1 ‘o the matter-I hastily
take it his three charges against me, and will
basil dismiss ther
' hree charses are thos
First-- -That Lam a liberal ‘and a Catholic.
Second-:-Tat I have inflicted a deep | injury on
the Catholic ..cause ‘in Ireland!!! in two
the one, that when I was touched I roared aloud,
and visited with indignant reproace Ministers and]
’ the e Legislaturo- oa,
and. last-- “That T hoisted the standard of ra-
disarm
With *véapect to the first charge. the one- -half is
true, and Iam happy, at it.” I certainly am 1 Catho-
lic in the | most thorough conviction “of the sole truth
. or mordlity of Catholicity ; a conviction
which, whilst it proclaims itself, thus with alacrity,
does not interfere ‘with the opinions or religion of
any one’ who differs from me -on that subject, leav-
ing every man to his own individual and awful res-
ponsibility, as [stand upon n a most
sincere and nee frend at “sist liberty i in every
n
e
clime and ‘counts , and for every sect, caste and co-
Jour---but' it is false, utterly false, that Tama
liberal.”
The Liberals are a party in France—a_party !
which’ once ‘called:themselves Jacobins, and have
now (for times are changed,) softened their deno-
mination into the more seducing cognomen of Li-
berals.. | I know that party well---they are not friends
to liberty-. «they have crouched already beneath the
iron - pe yof of military despotism hey are
quite ready to crouch again “before the throne of the
first gilded military adventurer, who will join with
he in their one red of
Christianity. "1 kno i
do not desire any oer Hiberty save that of crushin
religion, and once
the blood of the Clergy
‘These are serious charges, but they are borne out
d 5
means; ‘this realy imnortal painting
parti teular pietu e,) is of living through all
ages of m and of. sur reibing Christianity itself t
Yes, ‘these. are. the genuine sentiments of the
‘French Liberals.—' Pheir attacks on the Catholi¢
Clergy of France. a i i
one hundred o
detected and exposed.—-What of that ; The Laber-| ¥
. al Journal never. retracts.
His only apology is a
fresh lie--a new calumny.
gain embruing their hands it bu
. foots single ‘ball-rush.
NITED SI
mies of civil liberty-=+1 pass over, the story of blood,
anarchy, and militery despotism, called ‘the Fri enc
Revolution. Look ve e Spanish Cortes, and re
truly. will there find. that ‘he
2 ottreedom 5 was “blasted in Spain by the
h Piberals, won f forsooth, took religion into
their keeping, and c b subversion of a:
the Catholie Ch arch. 80 it in Portugal the Liberals
est the support of the ‘People, and deserved to lose] p
t, because they too assailed the rock of :ages, and
sought te legislate for, or rather against, the faith o
the Por
The People ‘of Span and Portugal were too sim
ple to understand how that co uld be lib berty which |
a awed ithem of the ‘right of following the faith of|
their fathers, as. those. fathers had iechieved. The
original »Cortes at Cadiz, thre urths of whom
were Priests,, abolished the Sachition The
*/ Pope successfully interfered to prevent Ferdinand
from restoring that abominable tribunal. The peo
ple joyfully nequieseed i im that change, but they re-
volted against “the ctive projects of the new
"| i berals, and fled to the ‘erael
spiritual deep Spo!
tthe liberals of France, for example, were|®
honestly ‘tispo osed to human n freedom, would they not
admit this truth, that a man has as good a right to
be a Jesuit as a Deist---that he has ds good aright
to be a Capuchin as an Atheist---thatin short puma
lavs s hould not interfere with opinions, but w
one---that crimes, not creeds, should be the subjects
of buna ar tribunals.
‘It would be idle too, to allow men to believe
what they’ pleased if they were to be prevented or
obstructed in the exe’ of those ubservances and
religious: ceremonies whieh whilst they were com-
nded or sanctioned b religious tenets, did not in-
terfere with others, or impede others, in either a
similar mary or in any _of the transactions of busi-
nes: ! Ths Brench Nberals are ready to al-
ow ‘Atheism ‘and Deism,
whether ending in ism or “other
down with blood-hound cry, all the practices of pie-
ty---all the decencies and solemnities ‘of worship, and
all the ine and doctrines of revealed religion.
Ima, to yourself the lying Mail, the atrocious
Warder, thie foul-mouthed runswick; with
however considerably more of talent, and what those
Papers are never enlightened by---some traits of ge-
magine all that, and you will have some no-
tion “ofthe hboral p press of Fran
J a liberal !—No. despise “the French liberals
—I consider them the enemies, not only of religion,
of liberty ;- and, 1 am thoroughly convinced
that. religion is the only basis oe umao free-
dom, as gion pare & unaerated b
ture of party zeal and personal interests, ig the first,
the most powerful, the "aca noble,. and ‘the most re-
our for the melioration of
n of human rights---the es-
3)
e
xtensi
mpartia al.
roperty, life, and individua
The second charge alludes ‘to my * roaring,” as
the writer facetiously calls.it, when a gross act of in-
justice was perpetrated, itnviolation. of law, asl shall
prove next session to the House of Commous. I]
ot value the caluin niators ne on this eub-
I did utas any m
ought when in his person injustice is 5 committe de
as it to be expected that £ should re set the
example of acquiescing in, wrong. © If I inight be
His only contrition an
infidel sneer.
Resallect that he precursors of the Liberals, the
facebins i rated as_ many Catho!
riests and Bishors as ‘they oul lay hold off ; and
on the-ever memorable 2 3d of
1792. they broke into ‘ne prisons. and massacred in
cold . blood eight or twelve Bishops and upwards of
three. hundred Priests. ta_-Souls so tthe martyred Cler-
gy of France !. it is not profane to ewes in-your
names, eternal. opposition, - hatred, and contemp
towards those, false friends: of liberty. hoses they
éall themselves Liberals or Jacobins, who, claim for
themselves the license of.-infidelity and immorality,
whilst they at the point of the bayonet, and with the
vege af 8 dagger, refuse .their fellow men the privi-
&'
lege , of'believing in divine revelation eping
the commandments of God, ‘and the observances of] t
his Church.
only as an humble, thouge sincere advo-
. cate ofdivine truth, but ag a devoted and enthusias«
tic admirer of civil liberty, that I war with’ “ the li-
Septe embe ery]. mi
I
permitted, without intending to suggest any compa-
ris ighty dead and the ile vig
IT should, point to ‘the case of Hampde
¢| submitted to the wrong of paying three shillings and
four pence without roaring,” the -consequence
ig’ at this moment there will be as fiule
‘of civil iiberty i in. Englan si
Prussia or Protestant Denmark, and yaur pen would
be probably guided by the uncouth hand ofa licen:
sing censor of the Pre
But I scorn to de fond myself against the charge,
by a man who does not feel .how important it
was that [ should rouse Clare, and through Clare,
all Ireland, to prevent. the Constituency of Trelan:
from lapsing into the. hands of the Oligarehy, as it
was intended that they should do—in that I hay
a 8
2
resource of temporal
tyranny to avoid the more ‘odious oppressions of| _*
sy Ta
burns: as it ‘does e
bh
justice, and tho security of
} liberty.
- VOL. IX.
|sirable anend, and that i in utter contempt’ ‘of your
{skulking correspondent.
Tie third
|Radicalisin— t is insinuated that
dical .out. of revenge for
seat Such insinuation is totally false—I was always.
navowed, perhaps an os tensibly a Radical.
Tex xpressed my radicalism in in, the
passing of the bill, and that avowal was circulated
in the English newspapers.
Yes, it is quite i inevitable that I should hoist the
st tandard of Radicalism, because I a.
and upon rnc, of the political sect oft “Ben-
tt amite: xim, our tto, and our.object.
is—the greatest good of the greatest possible num-
“SS
being our sole object, we must and do de-’
is
re a radical reform of all political abuses, until the
1) people are fully and freely represented in the Com-
mons House of ee the” la w is made
clear, distinct, peedy—until the over-
grown wealth Sethe Fetablished Church is-reasona-,
By inished, and rationally and justly distributed
proper and effectual checks a e i
zainst undee public expenditure— n fin
rational system o f public liberty shal make
tion impossible, whilst it renders individual life more
secure, and individual property more stable and
more v: valent
a Radical--and if my love for irela nd
burn with
eart of hearts, there also glows
berty which would fain warm the inhabitants of every
clime and country, in the habitable globe. Yes, this
is one of my day dreams which cheers and comforts
me in my labours, and makes me look down with
derision on the puny assaults of interested, or snista-
ken, or malignant calumniators.. Let them work i
their vocation, I we our in mine.
ne ;—as we. Speechi-
deserve it. You have cens
of France who are e every: thing but what you. con-
ceive them to be. I wish you knew that clergy as I
a now thesn. Ifyou did you wo
steeming and in loving them, though li ike me you
would not give e them unmixe d praise. They are not,
Town, friends of civil liberty. simply because. they
have heard and daily hear revolution Jauded, ‘They
om they love and would die for, lest the wolves
of ine and blood should aga in devastate their
They feel the assassin’s dagger at their
throats, as they are daily assailed wilh the lying as-
sassin’s Pen Itis too o believe, that the
=
e
cusations. would 0 again massacre their person
ifthey had itin their power? No! The Cat
clergy of France,: affrighted by Liberalism, cannot
see the
This is the only fault, or rather their, great misfor-
"Bat they are meek and pious, and humble, and in~
defatigable, and si and -
ment and conduct. "They, instruct, they preach,
the cy conor they pray with fervour devotion
n_human wealth, a Parish ‘Priest has 601. ue
2. an Archbishop 12001.
means—yes, Sir, they have calumniators and ene-
ies, ve friehds d, e,
that the uproar of Jiberalism, whilst it r i
and may reckon for its enemies, a powerful mass of
real chris stians,
But
men of humanity a and religion
palsy Polignacs, and thedoubly hardened, treacher-
= De Bourmonts, e Liberals in France,
ve, for this alone, the detestatin of the friends
no huinan teedom, and of human happiness--that
y are ‘drivi ving the soundest part. 0 French
f tle
s th
succee ded. “The 10L- frecholders” are, and w
prove selves mora serviceable to democratic
liberty he n th friends of popular: rights could have
possibly, anticipated.. Yes, if the thing were to be
dune again, 1 would ote not only.as I
“ roared’’ already to achieve this object, but! would
" sberals.”---Alas; they have een the mast bitter ene-
roar “like any sucking nighingi to attain so de-
’
the arms of despotism, jus wea-
ried and tortified mariners, when the overw -whelming
waves are destroying their ves-el, rush with delight .
upon the most dreary and inhospitable shore.
I deemed it-right to throw if jihene thoughts has-
tily and with a running p as. joined in
charge i is, that I hoisted the standard of
be
being excluded’ from my :
m deliberately, —
One wo! d Ihave do:
fiers Say—-you have ‘raised the literals who do no jot
ured the Catholic Clergy
uld join with me in-
tremble pet, for themselves alone, but for the flocks: -
uch ti
urder their characters daily by false ac- -
‘beauties or the merits of genuine liberty.—_
saintly in their deport- .
the same censure with you, T should be deemed to,