land, of Belgium, and that still more recent of Spain and Prussia; but on such examples it is unnecessary to insist any further. If this general will, which animates the enthusiasm of liberty, produces heroes, and preserves the political Citizens ought to be deeply impressed with these truths; if they are indifferent to the violation of these precious guarantees, they are lost. Public opinion will remain mute. The agents of arbitrary power would take advantage of its silence, and liberty, that is, happi-independence of states, it is liberty ness, would fly far from them, and alone, such as we have defined it, despotism or anarchy would imme- which confers happiness. Ought a diately succeed. people to exert less energy to be hapPublic opinion, properly express-py than to be independent? Haped, has always been the first cause of all political independence. Xerxes advances against the Greeks at the head of a million slaves. A few thousand free Greeks face the myriads, who fight for the caprices ofa espot, and totally disperses them Hannibal, the vanquisher of Rome, marches towards the capitol. The Romans are not frightened. The women, children, and old men fly to arms; and, notwithstanding several succeeding disasters, two fresh armies are set on foot. One sets out by the part of Spain, and the other defends the last ramparts of the country, at the same time, the field occupied by Hannibal's army is publicly sold. This army stops at the aspect of a people which prefers death to slavery. All Europe enters into a coalition against France, a prey to anarchy, but the general will is concentrated to repel a foreign invasion. The love of liberty which ferments in the hearts of soldiers, and the efforts of despotism, soon break against the opinion of a people, whose motto was to live free, or die. A fresh coalition is formed against France, but despotism alone presides over its destinies, and France is invaded. The English colonies rise against their mother country, the general wish is declared with energy, and immediately the independence of a people, qui e ignorant, as it is, of the art of war, is proclaimed. We might also cite the example of Hol piness is the reward of patriotism; and if a people is not happy, that is, if it does not enjoy the plenitude of its rights, it ought to strain every nerve to recover them. Become independent, the United States established their liberty on solid foundations, and knew how to maintain it, while public prosperity daily increased. After the expulsion of the Stuarts, England had not much to attend to but the maintenance of its political rights; and to the unshaken will of the nation may be attributed the prodigious increase of its industry and commerce. If, in these two countries, the people, satisfied with a new order of things, had intrusted the palladium of public liberty in unfaithful hands; if they had not spontaneously formed. themselves around the holy ark, on the least attempt of arbitrary power, would the vessel of the state, exposed on a stormy sea, without a rudder, have arrived at the haven in safety? A retrospective view of ourselves will answer this question. Such are the consequences of indifference to the public interests; they present a perspective of disasters, slavery, and ruin, or, at least, the stagnation of industry and commerce. The will of an individual is trifling, no doubt, but a union of all wills overcomes every obstacle, by turns calls to mind and preserves independence and national happiness: this we must perpetually repeat and inculcate to our children. Let us also observe, that governments are not powerful but in proportion to the liberty they enjoy; and that in political conjunctures, as well as on ordinary occasions, there are more resources and more secu rity among a free people, who are consequently rich and industrious, or, at least, content with their condition, than amongst a nation of slaves; in such a state, soldiers and taxes seem to rise out of the earth, where each one can form an opinion against a foreign invasion, of what ever nature it may be. What do slaves care about a change of masters? But, as we have shewn above, a free people cannot be attacked with impunity, because its liberty constitutes its happiness; and how jealous is each one of his happiness? We have said that constitutional liberty was the foundation of peace and equity; that it was, in the hands of subjects, an inexhaustible source of prosperity, and, in the hands of governors, a powerful stimulus, capable of exciting a whole nation, when their political independence and prosperity is concerned. We will conclude this article with an observation by no means unimpor tant: Constitutional liberty cannot be modified without danger. Modifications are all in favour of arbitrary power, and this, once tolerated, progressively gains strength. Its agents profit by the advantages you give them, and, in their infatuation, they turn these arms against themselves and against the people.In France, the suppression of the liberty of the press in 1814 was the signal of the downfall of the Bourbons; and amongst us, the violation of the fourth article of the fundamental law soon introduced the special court; hence inquietude and general discontent, which may degenerate into animosity. To the Reader. As I anticipated, the verdict which I pronounced in my last, on the controversy respecting the lately published History of England, has not given satisfaction to all parties; but I certainly did not expect so angry a communica. tion upon the subject as the reader will see below. CANDIDUS, I am sorry to say, resembles, by the intemperance of his language, the hardened and impenitent sinner, determined to persevere the clearest testimony, in his offences; in his evils ways, though detected, by and he attempts to implicate me in the same transgressions, as if the criminating another person would restore his own innocence. Homo extra est corpus suum cum irascitur.› If_there be any thing really censurable in the stanzas inserted in the last number, to ease the party, I here retract and revoke it. It is, however, somewhat strange that The Dublin Weekly Register, the only catholic paper in that city, was so far ignorant of the irreligious tendency of them, that they were not only copied into its columns, but the reader's attention was directed to them in another part of the paper. The editor of that print, no doubt, like myself, imagined they were intended to ridicule the advo cates for bible-distribution, and not the bible; and this would probably have been the opinion of CANDIDUS, if I had decided in favour of his friends, though it must have been against the clearest evidence. As my correspondent seems determined to have the last word, I shall let him have his way, as I would the angry female disputant, who suffers her loquacity to get the better of her reason, and is resolved not to not like to be defeated. In giving adgive up her cause, because she does mission, therefore, to the last ravings of CANDIDUS, I leave it to the unbiassed reader to decide, whether they display the character of a man influenced by the spirit of charity and sweetness of temper, or that of A DEFEATED AND GALLED PARTISAN. Ohe! Jam satis. fastidious mind of CANDIDUS and his. WM. EUSEBIUS ANDREWS. MR. EDITOR,-It must be evident to the impartial readers of your Journal, that, throughout the whole of the controversy to which the strictures of J. M. on Mr. Lingard's History of Eng. forward as my accuser, whose truly in- : land originally gave rise, I have uniformly had to contend with the low arts of misrepresentation and sophistry ;and as experience of the past forbids me to expect in future a more honourable opposition, I deem it advisable to withdraw from a contest which holds out no prospect of a satisfactory result. In reply, however, to your observation, that scandal has already been given by it, I have only to say, let them look to that in whom the scandal originated.I, for my part, feel no remorse whatsoever upon the subject. Why, in reality, should I? Surely it cannot be a matter of self reproach to have defended the interests of justice and of charity against the unwarrantable attacks of your correspondent J. M. Conscience tells me that I have done my duty; and I disclaim indignantly the slightest tincture of that personal malignity which you, sir, have so illiberally im puted to me. As to the style in which my remarks have been written, which you, on your part, have thought proper to censure, I consider it to have been such as the occasion called for, and as the disingenuous opposition of my ad. versaries required. Nor have I used a single expression which, after a deliberate review of the whole of the controversy, I feel in any degree disposed to retract. But permit me, sir, on the other hand, to ask you, how it has hap pened, that whilst you have animadverted so intemperately on what you are pleased to call the petulance of my language, you have omitted to notice the scurrility and abuse in which your correspondent J. M has so freely indulged? Is this that impartiality and To the Editor of the Orthodox Journal, freedom of discussion of which you profess yourself the unbiassed advo SIR, An address of condolence and cate? With respect to the charges of congratulation with his majesty having insolence and irreligion, which you been recently adopted at a board meethave had the presumption to prefering in Stone buildings, and the concur against me, my reply shall be, that if it be insolence in Candidus to remonstrate with a man who reviles indiscriminately the characters of the living and the memory of the dead, then is Can didus the most insolent of men; and that if it be irreligion in Candidus to vindicate both from his unjust aspersions, then is Candidus the most irreligious of men. But, allowing the charges to be as just and well-founded as they are unjust and groundless, yet it would ill become you, sir, to stand rence in the sentiments therein expressed, as well as a procuration of "a sanction from the principal members of our body," having been applied for by the secretary, in a printed circular to certain individuals, I beg you will allow your widely dispersed Journal, (now me to declare, through the medium of the only catholic publication) my dis approbation-not of the address itself, the intrinsic merits of which it is not my present intention to discuss-but of the hasty, nay, almost indecent, manner in jure these persons, however, to step which the address appears to me to Mockbeggar's Farm, Feb. 23, 1820.. Epitome of Intelligence. ON the 29th of January last, departed cured in the public exercise of their religion, and for which they will always retain the deepest sentiments of grateful respect to his memory. surely such an opportunity ought not to be engrossed, and certainly ought this life, in the 82d year of his not to be suffered to be appropriated, by age, and the 60th of his reign, his most a limited, a very limited, number of gracious majesty GEORGE THE THIRD, gentlemen, however much these gen- king of Great Britain and Ireland. The tlemen may be exalted by birth, how- most splendid circumstance in this moever respectable in their individual and narch's reign is, the partial repeal of private capacities. A GENERAL MEET- the penal code which affected his cathoING of the catholics of this island, public subjects, by which they were selicly and with due notice convened, is, in my humble opinion, the only proper source whence an address to his majesty, in the name of British catholics, ought to emanate on the present occa sion. Why should the aristocracy attempt to monopolize the attribute of loyalty? Loyalty is not an exclusive privilege is not confined to the coronet and mantle--is not the positive appendage of heraldic achievements and high sounding titles. In the humbler walks of life it exists as true and genuine.Its vivid blaze casts a radiance around the dwelling of the uneducated inhabitant of the country not less frequently than it gilds the purlieus of palaces. Possibly, too, his majesty, in his gracious condescension, may not be less willing to turn a paternal and attentive ear to the rude but honest language of the lower orders, than to the more classical effusions, the fuller and more rounded periods of the exclusionists. What I am anxious for, sir, is to see some of the worthy representatives of our ancient families stand forward to patronize a general meeting of British catholics. Were my sphere of life more elevated, were the circle in which I move less restricted, I might dare to challenge forth certain honourable characters, who, too nearly resembling Nicodemus, hesitate to avow their opinions in the face of day. Let me con. The next day, his royal highness the prince of Wales, who had performed all the functions of the crown for the last ten years, as prince regent, in consequence of a mental malady which af flicted his royal father, and rendered him incapable of governing, ascended the throne of these realms, and was publicly proclaimed on the 31st by the title of GEORGE THE FOURTH. On the 15th instant, a meeting of the self named board of British catholics was held in the cellar at Stone-buildings, for the purpose of voting an address of condolence and congratulation to his present majesty, on the death of his venerable and royal father, and his own accession to the throne. Notwithstanding the managers of this petty club pompously advertised the time and place of its meeting, we are given to understand there was a very thin at tendance. Neither the Arundels, nor the Stourtons, nor the Petres, we believe, listened to the summons of the busy leaders, from which we augur their influence is on the decline, and that our hereditary nobility and gentry begin at length to see the necessity of emancipating themselves from the dic tates of a little junto, before they again ,| ask for a restitution of their civil rights from parliament. When the friends to unrestricted emancipation met last year at the Crown and Anchor tavern, an article appeared in Dr. Slop's paper, evidently written by a hired partisan of the Stone-buildings club, attempting to throw ridicule on this meeting, and representing it as consisting only of forty-five individuals. But what will the catholic public think of the weight and influence of the would-be leaders, when they are told, that the number of persons who attended the meeting on the 15th was under twenty! His grace the duke of Norfolk was in the chair. On such an occasion, it would have been more respectful to his majesty, had a public meeting been held at the Crown and Anchor, or Freemason's tavern, and, we have no doubt, had such a measure been adopted, his grace would have been met by a numerous body of his fellow-sufferers, all anxious to testify their attachment and loyalty to the house of Brunswick, and express their hopes that his majesty would take their case into his royal consideration, and recommend to parliament that his subjects of all denominations should enjoy the blessings of a free constitution, and should be bound to each other by mutual interest and mutual affection. Such a meeting would have conferred honour on the English catholic body; and we sincerely regret his grace of Norfolk, who is stated to have said, at the late Fox dinner at Norwich, that our ancestors stood forth boldly as the asserters of some of our early liberies, and he trusted their descendants would not prove degenerate, but strain every nerve to preserve to the people the rights and privileges which they then acquired," did not act upon these patriotic sentiments, and refuse to preside at any meeting which was not an open and general one, at which the people could attend, and be headed, as they ought to be, by the ancient hereditary nobility of their communion. CIRCULAR OF THE BOARD. (Printed for private use.) British Catholic Board, SIR, I have the honour to inform you, that at the board held yesterday, the 15th instant, his grace the duke of NORFOLK, earl-mashal, in the chair, The following address of condolence and congratulation, Moved by the earl of SHREWSBURY, Seconded by sir HENRY ENGLE FIELD, bart. was unanimously adopted : "We, your majesty's faithful subjects, "Roman catholics of Great Britain, most "humbly approach your royal presence: "We most respectfully and sincerely con"dole with your majesty on the severe "and afflicting loss which your majesty "and your people have sustained by the “death of your majesty's most excellent "and venerated father: "We shall ever remember with affec"tionate gratitude the high and multiplied "obligations we owe to our late sove"reign: "After two centuries of ever increasing "severities, his gracious ear first listened "to our humble petition for relief: "If our existence as a body is now ac "knowledged by the state; if we are 66 now, by law, permitted to offer at the "foot of the throne this tribute of our af"fection and loyalty; if even the most 66 private exercise of our religious duties no longer subjects us to sanguinary pu "nishments; if our children are no longer encouraged by law in the violation of "the nearest and dearest ties of society; countrymen as a proscribed and degraded "if we are no longer regarded by our 66 65 race; to the unceasing and paternal be "nevolence of his late majesty we owe "these inestimable benefits: We trust that "we have proved ourselves not totally un"worthy of them; by sea and by land we "have bled among the foremost defenders "of our country, and our conduct at home "has uniformly evinced our love of peace, "order, and loyalty: "That allegiance which we swore to * our late sovereign we, in all humility, "offer to your majesty and we indulge the animating hope, that we shall still continue to find in the throne a friend " and protector: "Accept, sire, our sincere and fervent "wish, that the reign of your majesty 66 may be long, prosperous, and happy; "and that for ages yet unnumbered the il"lustrious house of Brunswick may con"tinue to reign over the persons and hearts "of a loyal and grateful people." I have to request an early authority from you, to affix your name to the above address, and that you will procure a similar sanction from the PRINCIPAL members of our body in your immediate neighbourlrood. I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant, (Signed) EDWARD JERNINGHAM. W. E. Andrews, Printer, 8, Drake-Street, Red Lion Square. |