thou hast suffered, all thou hast felt, on the part of thy own brethren, of those who ought to have afforded thee thy greatest consolation in calamity, without recollecting that there are saints in the Calendar who are not in heaven, and saints in heaven who are not in the Calendar. I quarrel not with Westminster Abbey, but with the Irish writers!-Archdal and Harris are almost silent; and poor expatriated Carve is the only of our writers who seems to have felt what Ireland owes to the memory of Ulick de Burgh.† Conclusion of Part II. 177. Such was the fatal issue of a war, which, in the course of eleven years, cost Ireland sir hundred and eighty-nine thousand persons! ‡ a * Archdal's Irish Peerage, v. 1, p. 136, Harris's Writers. "Ab ineunte ætate maximus Catholica Religionis cultor, "suo Regi fidissimus, Rerum Divinarum humanarumque "scientia præditus, nec non sermone facundus, cujus denique "existiinatio nominis apud Hibernos et Anglos celebris habe"batur." He mistakes however in stating his death," Londini "6to Id. Maii, 1658," Lyra, p. 422. Petty's Anatomy. war fomented by foreign intriguers, who availed themselves of the haughty pride and the ambitious views of Prelates, to cast off their sworn allegiance, to violate repeatedly the public faith, and to bring an indelible reproach upon their Country. Having now given, from genuine documents, a faithful account of the leading events of those times, I leave it to my Countrymen to judge, what credit is due to the statements of those foreign-influenced writers, who, copying servilely the declamatory calumnies of French of Ferns's Unkind Deserter, and other such effusions of malevolence, confounding chronology, suppressing some leading facts, and palliating and misrepresenting others, inform us that Ormond approved and advised the King's declaration at Dunfermline,* that the Jamestown censures originated in his Presbyterianism, and that he and Clanricard betrayed the Irish nation! Having demonstrated that the same doc * Curry's Civil Wars, v. 2, 2d ed. p. 31, b. 8, c. xi. was trines, by which a Catholic Lord Lieutenant overwhelmed with calumny and censures, in 1651, 1652, 1666, &c. are avowed by Bishop Burke of Ossory, in 1772, and by the Castabalas, and by the Synods of Tullow and Dublin, in 1809, 1810, and 1811, I now humbly move, on the part of all sincere Catholics, that the Grenvilles and the Greys, the Grattans and the Sheridans, the Whitbreads, the Ponsonbys, &c. &c. may hold up in our behalf, the strong Ægis of Constitutional Law, founded on those Laws of the four first General Councils, which have been, in the 1st of Elizabeth, recognised by the English Church. I humbly propose to the Catholics of Ireland, 1. That, on condition of unqualified Civil Emancipation, they may put a final end, as the Supreme Council of Kilkenny meant to do, to all foreign nominations to Irish Sees.* 2. That the Chapter of each vacant Diocese may, as formerly, elect three candidates, one of * See above, p. 131, &c. and Columbanus No. ii. whom is to be confirmed in a Provincial Synod, convened by the Metropolitan, or senior Bishop, who is to preside. 3. That the chief Governor shall have a negative, such as was granted to the D. of Ormond by the Pope's Nuncio De Vecchiis, at Somerset House, in 1664. 4. That no Bishop shall gratify his pride or his malice, or forward any private designs by censuring, deposing, or suspending any Clergyman without a canonical trial in a Synod, or legal tribunal, the Acts of which may, if that Clergyman chooses, be made public. 5. That any Bishop who shall, in any sermon or writing, stigmatize another as a heretic or schismatic, until these imputations are publicly proved, in a Synod, or legal tribunal, shall, as ordained by the Canons, be himself deposed. 6. That there shall be no longer Vicars Apostolic, but only Bishops, in the British Islands. 7. That Parochial Schools be established for the Irish poor. 8. That the dues and stipends of the Irish Clergy be regulated by law. I now declare that I have in this, and my former works, most religiously adhered to truth! May that day be my last, when I will dare to injure any man's character by calumny, or to publish a falsehood, either to gratify the feelings of friendship, which I hope are deeply laid in my nature, or to indulge in malignity or revenge. I have been occasionally harsh to the V. A. of Castabala, but the pen of inspiration says "Responde stulto juxta stultitiam suam," and they who are convicted of the grossest calumnies, must not be treated with indiscriminate respect. The questions discussed by Columbanus turn not upon genuine episcopal power, but upon atrocious worldly abuses of that power, which no writer ought to countenance, and no Clergyman ought to overlook; especially as they have been the polluted source of an Iliad of calamities to our native Country, as I have abundantly shewn in these sheets; and they may become so again, on a future occasion, unless they are utterly eradicated, by a legal establishment of those canonical liberties, commonly called Gallican, which the Bishops |