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indeed, himself represents as standing alone,”—in a land, he might have added, where sober judgment and sound reason, will never want advocates, or countenance.

Whether the Friar Hayes, himself, has been exercising his talents in the adjustment of the new materials, supplied by his associates in Rome; or, whether this scandalous libel be wholly of Roman growth, it is not very important to ascertain.-That such libellers," brevibus Gyaris et carcere digni,"

-have been found, and may still be found in Rome, is but too apparent,—and it is anxiously to be hoped, that their early detection will be marked by a severity of expiation, more adequate to the turpitude of their conduct, than the recent censure and deportation of this audacious Friar.

As a principal object, of the writer of the letter adverted to, is evidently to inculcate opinions unfavourable to the destination of the national Secular Colleges, in which, it is well known, he is not without his supporters in Rome-and Sir J. H.'s name being connected also, by the writer, with that destination, Sir J. H. thinks it incumbent on him, to say, that he shall never shrink from avowing the motives of his conduct, as connected with those national establishments.

The national Catholic clergy, during a period of more than twenty years, anterior to the last residence

of Sir J. H. in Rome*, had endeavoured to procure a reform in favour of national Secular Superiours, and, in this object, they have been, at least, indirectly sanctioned with the approval of the British Government. While seminaries, expressly appropriated to the education of British subjects, existed at Rome, the system and tendency of that education could not, in a national view, be of indifferent consideration. Sir J. H. thought it his duty, by availing himself of a fortunate concurrence of circumstances, to aid the applications, which, till then, had been unsuccessful, and he had the gratification to see the reform recognised by an explicit order of the late Sovereign Pontiff, and practically confirmed by his no less revered successor.

The principle on which Sir J. H. thought himself justified to urge the reform, was this:-He conceived, that though the See of Rome had a just claim to be assured that the youth, so educated, were brought up in the strictest devotion to the dogma, and essential discipline of her own Church ; -yet, the British Government had a no less imperious interest in securing their early attachment to the civil constitution of the State, in which they were destined to exercise their spiritual functions.-As British subjects, these young persons had great duties to acquit, which required a clear discernment

[From the year 1792 to 1795 inclusive; the motives above stated, were also stated, by Sir J. H., in Parliament.]

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of their extent and obligation.-To ensure these advantages to the national Secular Colleges, no means could be devised more effective, than to commit the superintendance of instruction to national Superiours of the Secular clergy, selected (as in the instances of the Abbés Macpherson and Gradwell, the Rectors of the Scotch and English Colleges) by the national Catholic Prelates, who, having themselves taken the oaths of civil allegiance to the Crown, might be answerable, that the Superiours of the seminaries should, previous to their appointment, afford the same constitutional test. An education, conducted on any other principles, must necessarily be foreign to the manners, the habits, and the interests of their native country, and to the claims of its established government.

In urging this reform, Sir J. H. had the gratification to find himself early supported by their Eminences the Cardinal Dean Albani, and the Cardinal Datary Companelli, then, severally, in the Protectorates of the Scotch and English Colleges, and, also, of the Cardinals Antonelli and Gerdil, successively in the Prefecture of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide. The original correspondence of all these eminent persons with Sir J. H. is now in his possession in Rome. His Holiness will readily recollect

[The distinction of Secular, is here opposed to that of Regular, which is limited to the Monastic or Conventual clergy.]

the part taken by Sir J. H. in relation to these colleges, during his own Pontificate, as well as his own gracious acceptance and approval of the suggestions, which Sir J. H. considered himself bound to offer, in the course of these transactions.

It would be an act of great injustice to the memory of another eminent and illustrious personage, were Sir J. H. to omit recording the zealous efforts of the late Cardinal of York, as directed towards the national institutions. "I approve," says His Eminence, in writing to Sir J. H. “ your intention of addressing "His Holiness, with regard to the affair of the

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colleges, concerning which, any application for my good offices, is quite superfluous, since both con"science and inclination, honour and obligation, "require all my possible endeavours, where there is a question of my nation and country*."

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With regard to the reform of the National Colleges, Sir J. H. during his former residence in Rome-acted unbidden, and unaccredited by any Minister of the Crown-but, in the month of January 1800subsequent to the decease of the late Sovereign Pontiff, and previous to the elevation of His present Holiness-Sir J. H. was authorised, by the King's Government, to transmit a Memoir to Sir Arthur Paget, then accredited to the Court of Naplest,

* [ Dated, Frascati, 17th Oct. 1800.]

+ [The Roman State was at that time in the possession of the Neapolitan Army.]

stating the measures pursued by Sir J. H. in relation to those National Institutions, at Rome, to the purport of obtaining the restoration of the property originally belonging to them, and which had been confiscated. To what extent, the intercourse which Sir J. H. had, at a former period, entertained with the Pontifical Government, had been sanctioned by his own-will best appear by the existing Documents;-that, of a more recent date, connected with other Continental Governments, with relation to the Parliamentary Report-bear the authority of the Ministers of the Crown, superscribed on the face of the Report itself.

The various official communications of Sir J. H. with the Government of the late Sovereign Pontiff, are generally recognised in the annexed Letters of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, of the 7th of February, 1795-and of the Congregation of State, of the 27th May, in the same year. After nearly two centuries and a half, during which, no political or ecclesiastical intercourse, between the two Courts, was permitted, or at least, avowed-with an exception to a few letters, which had passed between the Cardinals De la Lanze and Buoncompagni, and the late Mr. Dutens, at that time appointed Secretary of Embassy to the Court of Spain-Sir J. H. had the gratification of finding that, through his own instrumentality, this state of estrangement was interrupted, and an intercourse revived, calculated to guarantee great national interests to either country. He had also the gratification of having his conduct,