interests are never once thought of, we ought to consider, that the disapproving of the selfishness of one set of men is a very different matter from our congratulating His Majesty on the choice he has made of another. Had our worthy Corporation met to congratulate each other on this change of the depositaries of Power, there would have been something very pleasant, and very nataral in it. But when the respectable inhabitants of this considerable Town give their sanction and name to an act of the Corporation, an address so conjointly voted, carries with it an imposing importance, influential upon other places, liable to be converted, as it will be, into an instrument of ministerial support, and which misleading his Majesty as to the opinions which is people have actually formed of his recent measures, cannot but tend to derange his government.

Thinking then as independent men must think, of many of the measures of the late ministry, we may be assured, when we have read their names, that the present will not be more pure, more disinterested, or more patriotic; and looking with a natural anxiety on the prospects of the empire; on the energies which menace, and on those which are to defend us, we can see nothing in the present juncture, on which we can congratulate his Majesty or the Country.I am aware, it will be observed, that I do no good in finding fault; that I object to the two actual Contractors and Bidders for the loan of power and office; but do not point out a third, who will offer better terms for the Public. But fellow citizens what would be the epithets we should deserve for the presumption of attempting to point out an administration! All we can do, and what we have a right to do, is to refuse the sauction of our concurrence to a measure, which we may think does not deserve it.—I conclude in the words of a great foreign philosopher "Il est beau d'ecrire ce qu'on pense, c'est le privilege de l'homme." -J. C. WOR

pleasure that I observe with what ardour the Protestants of this country (with the exception of a very few, whose motives and interests we may not be able to probe, and of whom we ought to be extremely wary, circumspect, and jealous) step forward to support the conscientious and paternal care of the Sovereign from preventing that ruin to our religious establishment, as well as that imminent peril in which the constitution would be placed, by allowing to Catholics the liberty of legislating, a measure which would by necessary consequence lead to the introduction of all the errors, all the absurdities, and intolerant principles of Catholicism, with its farcical, but dangerous and crafty attendants transubstantiation, auricular confession, and the infallibility of the successors of Saint Peter; priests who have excited every rational man's indignation for their wantonness of conduct while filling the papal chair in the plenitude of their power, and when in their decline, for the slavish subserviency which they have manifested in becoming the mere spiritual aid-de-camps of an usurper, travelling at his command o'er Alpine snows to fill the despicable characters of a religious mountebank, whenever the crafty policy of the tyrant has deemed it necessary to beguile an enslaved people with some pompous procession. With respect, Sir, to the religion itself, can there be any thing more revolting to the understanding, than the assertion that a class of men are peculiarly under the guidance of our Saviour, are blessed with the inspiration of that grace which renders them infallible, when we observe them at one period of history adopting a line of conduct more consonant with the inveterate sinner than the Christian; and at another, stooping to a voluntary debasement of soul which would meet with scorn and indignation from an English shopkeeper Sir, your correspondent Simplicius, has my thanks for a very excellent and instructive letter, in which he has unfolded some of the principle tenets of the Catholic faith, and though he has roused the virulence of the orthodox Catholic of Hampstead, who requests Simplicius to shake off the dust of Aberdeen, that he may acquire (I presume) the Catholic polish, I trust that Simplicias possesses more nerve than to be intimidated with the irony or overweening impertitience of any Catholic writer, and that undismayed he will continue to point out the fallacies of the Romish religion, by which will be dis-. cerned how inimical its principles are to any rational civil government, and still more to a limited monarchy like our own; a task which Simplicius seems so well able to perform. A. B. who has analized the letter of

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Simplicius, and reiterated such parts of it as he found most convenient to combat, omitted however to repeat the oath which Simplicius informed us is taken by a Catholic bishop at his consecration; and which, as it seems to me so unequivocally to describe the gloomy, the insidious, the persecuting cruelty of the Catholic professors of the gospel, I must request your indulgence to state it again; the bishop swears in the most solemn manner possible, that he will from "that hour forward be faithful and obe"dient to Saint Peter and to the Holy Church of Rome, and to his Lord the Pope, and his successors canonically entering: that the papacy of Rome, the rules of the holy fathers, and the regalities "of Saint Peter, he will keep, maintain, and defend against all men: that the rights, privileges, and authorities of the "Roman church, and of the Pope, and of bis successors, he will cause to be con

served, defended, augmented, and pro"moted, and that heretics, schismaties, and rebels to the Holy Father, and his successors he will resist, and to his power PER"SECUTE." Sir, A. B. informs us that he has not inquired into the correctness of the statement of the oath, and begs from his silence it may not be concluded to be authentic; but can it be for a moment credited, that A. B. who has laboured with such assiduity to combat all the other parts of Simplicius's statement, should not have ascertained whether so momentous a passage as that which contains the oath in question, was or was not accurately given; but, when we look back to the former letters of A. B., and perceive him so initiated into the very minutiae of the Romish Arcana, that it raises more than a doubt, whether he be not himself a functionary of the Catholic church; we cannot so far indulge him, as to give the least credence to his pretended want of information; and Simplicius's statement of the oath must be taken at present as irrefragably true: but I cannot pass over without a few words the mode in which A. B. attempts to parry the blow which Simplicius has given with this oath to the Catholic claims, and which to the merit of the charitable and humane, most, I imagine, effect their quietus. He says, he intends to compare the oath as stated by Simplicius, with that required from graduates in the English Universities, and which A. B. states will be found equally pregnant with the utmost possible liberality, absurdity, and cruelty." (and here, by the bye, let me ask, whether it has the least shade of probability, that A. B. who avows himself a Catholic, should be better acquainted with the oath required from a graduate in an English. University,

than that required from a bishop in his own church, I notice this to give a slight idea of Catholic professions, protestations, and as. surances. But, what if the English gra duate's oath should be illiberal, absurd, and cruel; is that an argument that we should add to it, more illiberality, more absurdity, and more cruelty: it might be a very fair, argument to shew that there ought to be some reformation in a graduates oath, but that such a reformation can be brought about by adding error to error, and absurdity to absurdity; will require more than Catholic ingenuity to establish. Now, Sir, let me ask whether in the face of such an oath as Simplicius has stated, we can listen without indignation at Catholic professions; at assurances that they have renounced the doctrine of paramount power in the Pope, and the persecution of heretics; could we permit ourselves, credulous as we are even to a proverb, to be imposed upon with such assurances (under like circumstances) from. any men, inore peculiarly from those who have the advantage of indulgence for dissimulation; and when those professions not only contradict their oaths, but the concur rent practice and habits of the Catholies for ages. Sir, as a right understanding of every subject is essentially necessary to the fair discussion of it; and as the Catholic question is of all others the most important for an Englishman's consideration, and therefore, the more necessary to be well understood; and as it is not improbable that when the subject is considered in its true light, there will be found no disinterested Protestant proclaiming himself its supporter, it will be requisite clearly to comprehend the object of the Catholics. Sir, the Catholics have brought forward their claims under most artful disguises; sometimes they are debated under the head of Catholic Toleration; sometimes, as A. B. has spoken of them in his last letter, under the appellation of Libe ral Toleration of the Catholics; and at other times we have our attention called to the propriety of Catholie Emancipation; now, Sir, these various titles and appellations, are all artificial disguises adopted to mislead the Protestant into a belief, that what the Catho-, lics desire it is next to inhumanity to refuse but they do not in truth convey to the understanding the smallest idea of what the Catholics really aim at; as we shall immediately perceive, when we consider the nature of the Catholic claims as they must be understood from the different appellations that have been given them. To tolerate the Catholic religion, can be in fair constric tion, nothing more than to permit the exer cise of it; and a liberal toleratio, if it mean any thing, cau negu no more than

VOL. XI. No. 20.]

857]

"

[PRICE ICD.

TO THE

RT. HON. SPENCER PERCEVAL.

LETTER I.

Upon the "Appeal to the Feople," the obligations under which the Crown is held," and upon the " Danger to the

Church."

SIR,- -As the series of letters, of which this is the first, may, probably, extend to a considerable length, I think it right to say, by way of preface, a few words, as to the light, in which I view the person, to whom they are, or will be, addressed.- -As far as relates to private character, which always ought to be duly considered when we are estimating the worth of public men, I can, of course, possess no other knowledge of you than that which has reached me froni mere report; but, it is generally believed, that, as to all the concerns and relationships of private life, it would be difficult to find a better man than yourself; and, in this belief, I sincerely join. As to public concerns, as there requires but very little more, in a minister, (for you are now the minister) of this country, than strict honesty, a clear under. standing, common powers of convincing others, industry such as is necessary in common life, love of country, and resolution to do that which the constitution demands, I should have no doubt of your being fit for the situation, were I not afraid, that the lures of ambition and your want of intrinsic political weight, may possibly drag you along, step by step, in the paths wherein your predecessors, for twenty three years past, have invariably trodden.. That you would not voluntarily join in those deeds of corruption, which are such a disgrace to the government and the country, and which have, at last, brought the latter to the brink of ruin, political as well as pecuniary, I be lieve; but, when a man has once staked his fortune upon the maintenance of any princicle or any party, and particularly if he has persuaded himself that to maintain the same is for the public good, he is very apt to yield to the solicitations of those by whom he is surrounded, and, when the necessity occurs, to regard the end as sanctifying the meats.

[858

I do not believe, that, for the love of the thing, you would wish to see your country bent down under an inexorable tyranny; but, I may think, and I do think, that you are too much of the opinion, that fear, and not love, is the principle by which we are to be governed, and, of course, that your reliance, for the maintenance of the governing powers, is much more upon coercive than persuasive means. I believe, that (self-interest out of the question), you are extremely anxious for the preservation of the independence of your country; but I may fear, and I do fear, that, in the struggle for preserving your power, the means of effecting this greatest of all public objects will be frequently overlooked, or neglected. Having thus, Sir, frankly stated my sincere opinion of you, give me leave to add, that, as to myself, however erroneous any of my notions may be, there is not, in the whole kingdom, a man who would go farther than I would go to aid in the pieservation of the throne, as established by the constitution of our country; that I wish for Do innovation, and that I hold in abhorrence every species of popular outrage; but that, at the same time, it is with a heart-burning hardly to be described, that I see myself, or any of my countrymen, deprived, no matter how, of any of those liberties, which our forefathers enjoyed. To me it appears evident, that a dreadful storm is gathering over our country. The elements, which have been for years collecing, seem now to be upon the eve of producing their combined effect. Of precisely what nature this effect may be, no man can tell; who amongst us may survive it, it would be presumptuous even to guess; and, therefore, I am anxious, that, when the war of faction shall have been drowned in the terrific contests of which it is the mere forerunner, it shall, by some one or other, be said of me, that if my voice had been heard in time, the calamities of England would have been prevented.

With this motive, principally, it is, that I now address you upon too or three impor tant subjects connected with the dissolution of parliament; and first upon the "appeal," which is said to have now been made to the