The Pennsylvania packet, or, The general advertiser — Lancaster, Pa.;Philadelphia, Pa., 1779-01-28 00:00:00, page 1

To the PRINTE R.
SIR,
The following will serve to shew in what an ab;e& Rate of
servitude the Roman Catholics live under the British go
vernment: it may likewise open the eyes of such of the
Roman Catholics of this country as are so deluded as to
retain any attachment to that Government which has
for so long a time pursued their Brethren with such un
relenting severity. You will therefore, by giving it a
place in your ufeful paper, oblige your friend,
A ROMAN CATHOLIC.
From the Royal Danish American Gazette, printed at St.
Croix, i<th November, 1778.
The Humble ADDRESS and PETITION of the
ROMAN CATHOLICS of IRELAND,
which was presented to His Excellency the Earl of
Buckinghamfhire, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, by the
Earl of Fingal, the Honorable James Prefion, and
Anthony Dermot, Esquire.
WE your Majesty's Most dutiful and faithful fubjeHs,
the Roman Catholics of your kingdom of Ireland,
with hearts full of loyalty but overwhelmed with affliction,
and depressed by our calamitous and ruined circumfiances,
beg leave to lay at your Majesty's feet some small part of
those numerous and insupportable grievances under which
we have long groaned, not only without any aft of diso
bedience, but without murmur or complaint, in hopes that
our inviolable submission and unaltered patience under
those severe pressures, would fully confute the accusation
of seditious principles, with which we have been unfortu
nately and unjustly charged.
We are deeply sensible of your Majesty's clemency in
moderating the rigorous execution of some of the laws
against us, but we humbly beg leave to represent, that se
veral, and those the most severe and distressing, of those
laws execute themselves with the most fatal certainty, and
that your Majesty's clemency cannot in the smallest degree
interpose for their mitigation, otherwile your Roman Ca
tholic fubjehs would most chearfully acquiesce in that re
source, and rest with an absolute and unbounded assurance
on your Majesty's princely generosity and your pious re
gard to the rights of private conscience.
We are, may it please your Majesty, a numerous and
very industrious part of your Majesty's fubjeHs, and yet
by no industry, by no honest endeavour on our part, is it
in our power to acquire or to hold almost any fecGre or
permanent property whatsoever. We are not only dif
qualified to purchase, but are disabled to occupy any land
even in farm, except on a tenure extremely scanted, both
in profit anil in time ; f and if we should venture to ex
pend any thing on the melioration of land thus held, by
building, by inclofure, by draining, or by any other spe
cies of improvement so very necessary in this country ; so
far would our services be from bettering our fortunes, that
these are precisely the very circumstances which, as the
law now stands, must necessarily difqualify us from con
tinuing those farms for any time in our possession.
While ti?e endeavors of our industry are thus discourag
ed, no less, we apprehend, t® the detriment of the natio
nal prosperity and the diminution of your Majesty's reve
nue, than to our particular ruin, there are a set of men,
who, instead of exercising any honest occupation in the
commonwealth, make it their employment to pry into our
miserable property, to drag hs into the Courts, and to
compel us to confefs on our own oaths and under the pe
nalties of perjury, whether we have in any instance acqui
red a property in the smallest degree exceeding what the
rigor of the law has admitted ; and in such case the infor
mers, without any other merit than that of discovery, are
invested (to the daily ruin of several innocent, industrious
families) not only with that surplus, in which the law was
exceeded, but with the whole body of the estate and in
terest so discovered: and 'tis our grief that this evil is
likely to continue and encreafe, as informers have in this
country almost worn off the infamy which in all ages and
in all other countries has attended their character, and
have grown into some repute by the frequency and success
of their practices.
And this, most gracious Sovereign, tho' extremely griev
ous, is far from being the only or most oppressive parti
cular in which our distress is connected with the breach of
therules of honor and morality. By the laws now in force
in this kingdom, a son, however undutiful or profligate,
shall, merely by the merit of conforming to the established
religion, deprive the Roman Catholic father of that free
and full possession of his estate, that power to mortgage or
otherwise dispose of it as the exigence of his affairs may re
quire ; but shall himfelf have full liberty immediately to
mortgage or otherwise alienate the reversion of the estate
from his family forever; a regulation by which a father,
contrary to the order of nature, is put under the power of
his son, and through which an early dissoluteness is not
only fuffered but encouraged, by giving a pernicious pri
t A Roman Catholic cannot bold a farm for any term
exceeding thirty-one years, and if in that time, by his own
industry or by the rife of lands, it should yield him a third
fart profit, it then becomes fubjeEl to the discovery lav^^
THURSDAY,
O R
GENERAL
[Price Fifteen Pence single, One Shilling by the quantity. Published every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.!
vilege, the frequent use of which has broken the hearts of
many deserving parents, and entailed poverty and despair
on some of the most ancient and opulent families of this
kingdom.
Even when the parent has the good fortune to escape
this calamity in his life-time, yet he has at his death the
melancholy and almost certain profpea of leaving neither
peace nor fortune to his children; for by that law which
bestows the whole fortune upon the firft conformift, or on
non-conformity disperses it amongst the children, incura
ble jealousies and animpfities have arisen, and a total ex
tin&ion of principle and natural benevolence has ensued.
While we are obliged to consider cur own offspring and
the brothers of our own blood, asour most dangerous ene
mies, the blessings of Providence on our families in a nu
merous issue, is converted into the most certain means of
their ruin and deprivation: We are, most gracious Sove
reign, neither permitted to enjoy the few broken remains
of our patrimonial inheritance, nor by our industry to ac
quire any secure eftablifliment to our families.
In this deplorable situation, let it not be considered, we
earnestly beseech your Majesty, as an instance of pre
emption or difcoutent, that we thus adventure to lay open
to your Majesty's mercy a very small part of our uncom
mon fufferings; what we have concealed under a refped
ful silence, would form a far longer, and full as melan
choly a recital; we speak with rdußance though we feel
with anguith; we refpeH from the bottom of our hearts
that legislation under which we fuffer; but we humbly
conceive it is impossible to procure redress without com
plaint, or to make a complaint, that by some conftruftion
might not appear to convey blame: And nothing, we as
sure your Majesty, should have extorted from us even
these complaints, but the strong necessity wefind ourselves
under, of employing every lawful and humble endeavor,
lead the whole purpose of our lives and labors, should
prove only the means of confirming to ourselves and en
tailing upon our poflerity inevitable beggary, and the
most abjed servitude; a servitude the more intolerable as
it is fuffered amidst that liberty, that peace, and that se
curity which, under your Majesty's benign influence, is
spread all around us, and which we alone of all your Ma
jesty's EbjeHs are rendered incapable of partaking.
In all humility we implore that our principles may not
be estimated by the inflamed charge of controversial wri
ters, nor our practices measured by the events of those
troubled periods, when parties ran high, (though these
have often been misrepresented, and always cruelly ex
aggerated to our prejudice) but that we may be judged
by our own actions, and in our own times; and we hum
bly offer it to your most generous and princely consider
ation, that we do not rest the proof of our Sincerity upon
words but upon thing,; on our dutiful, peaceable, and
submissive behaviour for more than fourfcore years : And
though it will be too severe to form any opinion of great
bodies by the practice of individuals, yet if in all that
time, amongst all our people, and in the daily increase of
severe laws against us, one treasonable infurreHion or one
treasonable conspiracy can be proved ; if amongst our
Clergy one seditious sermon can be shewn to have been
preached, we will readily admit there is good reason to
continue the present laws in all their force against us: But
if on the contrary (we speak in full confidence) it can be
shewn that our Clergy have ever exerted their utmost en
deavors to enforce submission to your Majesty's govern
ment, and obedience to your laws; if it can be shewn
that these endeavors have always been most strenuous, in
times of public danger, or when any accident tended to
create a ferment among the people; if our laity have fre
quently offered (what we are always ready to fulfil) to
hazard our lives and fortunes in your Majesty's service ;
if we have willingly bound up the fruits of our discou
raged industry, with the fortune of your Majesty's go
vernment in the public loans ; then we humbly hope, we
may be admitted to a small portion of mercy, and that
that behaviour your Majesty's benignity and condefeenfion
will esteem a merit in our circumstances, may entitle us
not to reward, but to such toleration as may enable us to
become ufeful citizens to our country, and fubjeds as pro
fitable as we are loyal to your Majesty.
Permit us, most gracious Sovereign, upon this occasi
on, to reiterate the assurances of our unshaken loyal
ty, which all our fufferings have not been able to abate;
of our sincere zeal for your Majesty's service ; of our at
tachment to the constitution of our country; and of our
warmest gratitude for your Majesty's continual indulgence,
and for the late instance of favor we have experienced
from Parliament, in enabling us, confident with our re
ligious tenets, to give a legal proof of our sentiments up
on these points: And we humbly hope that the alacrity
and eagerness with which we have seized this firft, though
long wished opportunity of testifying in the most public
and solemn mariner, our inviolable fidelity to your Ma
jesty, our real principles, and our good will and affections
towards our fellow-fubjeHs, will extinguish all jealousies,
and remove those imputations, which alone have hitherto
held us up in the light of enemies to your Majesty and
the State: And if any thing further ear .be suggested or
devised, whereby we can by our adions more fully evince
b T H B
JANUARY 28, 1779.
THE
ADVERTISER
our sincerity, we Eall confider such an opportunity of
demonflrating cur loyalty, as high saver, and shall be
deficient in no aft whatsoever, which does not amount to
a renunciation of that religious profeffion which we value
more than our lives, and which it cannot be fufpe&ed we
hold from obstinacy, or a contempt of the laws.
We derive no small consolation, most gracious Sove
reign, from considering that the most severe and rigorous
of the laws against us, had been enabled before the accef
hon of your Majesty's illustrious house to the throne of
these kingdoms: We therefore indulge more sanguine
hopes, that the mitigation of them, and the eftablifliment
of peace, industry, and universal happiness, amongst all
your fubjeds, may be one of the blessings of your Majes
ty s rei?n, and though we might plead in favor of such
relaxation, the express words of a solemn treaty t entered
us . b y y° ur Majesty's royal predecessor King
William (which has been forfeited by no disobedience on
bur part) yet we neither with nor desire to receive any
'^'"^ b ut as a mere a& of your Majesty's bounty, and
of tne indulgence and equity of your Parliament.
this aft of tru| y r °y a] commigration, beneficence
XT • n ,° e ' ma X ' e added to the other instances of your
S ? e /^ c virtues, and that the deliverenae of a
faithful and distressed people, may be one of those diftin
guilhing blessings of your reign which shall tranfmjt it's
memory to the love, gratitude, and veneration of our
latent posterity, is th@ humble prayer of, &c &c &c
FINGAL,
GORMANSTON,
DILLON,
KINMARE,
CAHIER,
TREMBLESTON,
And above 300 other refpeflable perfons^
1 Treaty of Limerick. , :
++H+4*+Mti+++H4§Q
TO BE SOL D,
For Continental Money, in the country,
A LIKELY healthy Negro Man, has had the
fmall.pox and measles, aged twenty.one years
^"^ M% AEL Clark's, at the sig n of the Blue
Ball in Chefnut-ftreet, or at the Work-house in Phila
delphia.
TO B E
AL^^L^^N? PART of tbe ILLINOIS
PURCHASE. Enquire of Mr. Edward Fox
at the Treasury Office in Third-street.
THE Citizens es Philadelphia who wish to
become fubferibers for the New-Jersey Gazette,
may enter their names with Moses Bartram, Apo
thecary, in Second-street, a tew doors above Arch
ftreet > or with Robert Aitken, Printer and Book
seller, in Front-street, nearly opposite the Coffee-houfe,
at One Dollar and an Half per quarter, the money to
be paid at the time of entrance.'
fro be fold by way of public vendue, on feconTday
the 28th of February next, by the fubfer ber, living
near Downing's Town, in East Caln township, Cheftcr
county, the following articles, viz. Two copper stills,
one containing 118 gallons, the other 38, and hog
sheads, cdk, &c. with all distilling utensils. Ile has also
for sale one tor of country manufactured steel, a valua
ble mare and colt, swine, and many other things too
tedious to mention, for cash only. The vendue to be
gin at twelve 0 clock on said day, when due attendance
willbegiven by EPHRAIM JONES.
T 0 s'Oh D,
gEVERAL Houses and Lots of Ground in and
about the city, Plantations in the country, rf and about
fix thousand acres of unimproved Land, lying in diffe
rent tra&s or parcels of about three hundred acres each,
in Northumberland County. For terms of file apply
to Assheton Humphreys, Conveyancer and Attor
ney at Law, at his office in Second-street, between
Spruce and Union.ftreets.
Philadelphia, Jan. ig.
HE fubferiber has for sale, at his house
I in Front-street, opposite Mr. Thomas Penrofe's
Ship-yard, in Southwark, a quantity of good Weft-
India and French RU M, in hogsheads and tierces,
which will be fold at the lowest prices for circulating
, JOHN TURNER."
N. Likewise a few tons of HAY to be fold for
the em ffions called in by Congress.
— .—L.. j
THE highest wages will be
given to a compleat HOUSE-MAID. En
quire of the Printer.