The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-06-11 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

MEMOIRS OF CAPTAIN ROCK.
THE tEL EBRATED IRISH t 111E1 'VAIN I WITH SOHE
AtCOENT OE 1115 ANCESTORS.
NIIITTIOI RV lIIMSKLF.

(Continued from the British Press of May MI
The historian that takes facts for his guide is not easily
beat out of his argument. 'lle ROCK family have been
]ashes) into rebellion by the double scourge of civil and
religious persecution. The Captain has not now quite so
much upon his hands as formerly, though still bending
under a weight of oppression, the particulars of which he
has classed and catalogued With the accuracy, as well as
the indignation, of a personal sufferer. He has travelled
through the record of six centuries, which brings him, at,
last, .to what he calls " His own 7 inn's ;" that is, to the
accession of his late Majesty: all the preceding peeled',
was, as we have seen, a perital, with little intermission, rill
remorseless oppression and rancour towards the Catholics,
with occasional bursts, on their part, of dire revenge end I
dreadful retaliation. Within time of memory, matters'
have mended no doubt ; the sword has not Hashed so often,
nor so publicly, in face of the Rocks, as it did in the more
unsettled state of the English Government; steed iwflarnee
has, by degrees, been substituted for outward farce. A
monopoly of the means of wealth—a barring-nut of the
Catholics. from all the roads to rank and station—an inex-
orable exclusion of them from all places of trust and profit;
—these stand in the place of civil war, and are substitutes
in part—not wholly—for the more visible weapons of ex-
termination, which had been, for so many agcs, employed
against them. The laws made for their debasement, and
fitted to it, bull existed ; and the insurrections to which,
from time to time, they gave rise, were quelled by military
force. This system—though mitigated in its fierceness and
ire effect--survives still; and we still go on, as usual,
punishing rebellion when it arrives, instead of minoring
tle griewetweea which gave rise to it.
It wan ostaral, while those who were lamenting this
state of this* were looking out for some relief to it, that
the necessity of a more general etfueotion should present it-
self. 'the roan of every people, however rough-cast their
character tray be, KM sueceptible of gratitude when kindly
treated ; treat their prejudices with indulgence, and behave
tettrards they; with but even that friendly courtesy which
coifs nothing, and you have the master-key to all their
hest fitlinge, and (rota their worst von will have nothing
to fear. But to act towards them in the spirit of oppression,
and yet hope to educate them into the endurance of it ;
truly this in It most preposterous speculation ! Buewe will
tern to the management of this new prejett, as detailed in
thee.: MemOirs:—
The prlndpalmediums of education through which the Boyers.
merit had to set upon the people, were the Charter Schools and
S hods of Royal foundation.
With respect to the former of these institution", it might have
b—o possible, perhaps, to manufacture the same number of rebels
a-d bigots at a somewhat less repose, but the perfection of their
machinery for the purpose is now, 1 believe, acknowledged on all
tidos.
Three Charter schools, under the general name owl of the Incor-
porated Society, were founded under °come 11., in the year 1733,
for the professed abject of " teaching the children of the Popish
amt other natives:"—and had they suffered us youth of the Roman
froih.-toeleink at the earns spring of instruction with our little
Protestant fellow-countrymen, without insulting or interfering
with the religion we brought from home with us, there is no saying
to ,chat ern whienting degree of amity the two religions might have
been brought in thee. Nay, there was even an opportunity fee
erring, the eirperimest, whether a Catholic could be turned into a,
Yousitant gunboat tit. einploment -.factual force.
stpir Ifidi rulers hove always proceeded ii. proselytism, on the
/Ref le Of a tre4e with its wrong side foremost. It was soon
mod by the CatWie parents, who had entrusted their children to
there Protetall hletituuton, hat hatred to sheer religion was the
(Fief oetteallog motive of its directors: and that, like Vathek,
w!-en hcitedweed the fitly Rule ones to the bnnk of the chasm he
ladle to host them toss a satrilite to the Macon, the IneorporUnd
Tiodetrbse leek posersi.ien °reuse children for the purpose of
r)owtdeft the* headlong into Protestantism—a creed, unknown to
teens busby the spirit of persecution that dwelt in it, and by the
Tomtit/ Corntels violins with which that spirit, like the thsour,
had alsereeriad out from the chasm, " More, more !"
fr rosy easily be imagined with what horror this design was re-
genial by s people who looked upon their faith as the only tree.
owe and owsolatlon left them, and whose tenacity in that faith
had been tried by Ilford, famine, and fire for centuries. Too in.
digsot, howerw, to procure instruction in any other way, and the
laws forbidding persons of their own permission to teach, saute
wretched parrots, anxious at all risks to educate their children,
conthrned to ifs them drink at this daimae—iis source—with the
same tretnb iegoopp chensions, with which the people of the East
,kit thasafowlltdna supposed to be the haunt and ambush of
bandit:4 and on some of which are inscribed the warning words-
- Drink and away !"
Fite management of these charitable Seminaries exhibits
a specimen of moral superintendence quite in keeping with
the rest of the system :
The Schools of Royal foundation are so far more innocent then
"NM .. Ch,irterrd liberates," that, instead of ,nult•avouring to
eoevert the Catholics. the reverend Honour-alike and Baronets who
bald the mastership% of them, were chiefly eniployed in converting
eau fonds allowed for the schools, into convenient and profitable si-
reenter !'or themselves. Some of these cases of atiberalement were
rammed to thelloventratot in the year 17116: but the only erect of
the Memory was, to put a stop to an Act Shea in tragreas the the
improvement of the system of public education ;—the persona de-
/rood is this anaapprupeiation of the public funds, being of that
prisilegol clam, into whose pockets, however filled, it his been at
all %inns profer.stion to pry. Under the administration, however,
of ti:: Duke of Bedford (who was not equally inediLed to subscribe
to that first of the thirty-nine arucles of Irish Protestantism—Job.
bine), the inquiry was resumed, and a Commission established,
witch hashed this singuler felicity of being in smite degree useful.
Sexes Royal FICC.IKII4.IOI/1 are, it scents, endowed with matt. to
' t -e'r.sterf of 13147 acres t and, so well had the llooourable and
Reverend Masters succeeded in appeopriativ.g the chief benefit of
the fund to themselves, that, according to the House of Commons'
Report, in Dna. out of the small number of children educated in
these schools altogether, there were nut above thirty who did not
pay as much for their education, as if the 13,027 acres were wholly
oat or the question.
from the Report of last year upon the state of these Schools,
they
.appear to be at present rather schools of litigation than of
learning--as their returns !elate almost wholly to the progress of
ti....e law-suits with their tenants, which seem as numerous and as
st..xessful as those of Sir timely Rack-rent, who " lost every one of
Ids got;:s but seventeen." The Conmissioner%' however, tell
. neeoltugly, "we look forward to the period when this Hoard
5.1.01 he enabled to give its undivided attention to the system of
edoestiou, without being embarrassed with subjects of 'finance."
:Übe writer, its a note, pays a just compliment to the
kaFteitut4 Report of the Commissioners, which he cha-
reeterises as being full of good-sense and lib, rality, and be'
&degas to the letter of Mr. Leslie Foster as entitled to the'
sada,' very rare character. Ile next proceeds to remark se
tha4hare which the Church has taken in the instruction of '
the people:—
Fr hatever motives the Government may have had for exhibiting
ads finer always in the shape of either a bug-bear or ft job, ti
• tri ..t hare been supposed that the Clergy, at lewd. would wish to
owl hemanmed population around them: and that those Free
Sciteels—one of which every Diocese is, by an Act of Elizabeth,
booed to moiatain at its own expense—would have been cherished
vetch a care and liberality of contributive, NCO beyond what the pia
visions of the statute enjoin.
Din unluckily, Rom some omit cause (foe the Commissioners
' sey•it atast wet be attributed to " the barkwardrew or inattention
• ut the Bishop or Clergy,") the contributions of the Church to this
truly enema purpose have been almost r.othing. Indeed, such is
the mysterious iecapacity of enntiibution under which they labour,
aid which might tempt malicious preemie in suppose that the
•••• Kole of an Irish Rshop is recurred for occasions of ch•wity
'dole, that, at the time when the Report which • I have just Cite!!
was made, the whole number of effective schools in all the Dioceses
teoetiwr was only 13.—Ands lest even this should prove too heavy
''•a me open the ciagy," the Bovernment has, pursuance of
tee recommendation of these awe Remain«, caused, in several
iastarcee, two or more Dioceses to be formed lore ore district, and
• appointed but erne echoed to be maintained by the entire Clergy of
tile I):oceses so united.
- TOns„—bus in the instances of Replier, Nilsson., and (*Mier,
Cecil are, by the new regulatioo, comoliuleted into one distnet—
three Bishops to i...e School lot:eolith:red not more than a fair and
orther!ox allowance z sod (thaegh enowehat resembling, in its
dirsion of labour, that azinke (sf O'Keefe's. whine " four French
peter. nest earre;ng whandAssisr) is heltkeo be an abundantly
adeloate return from the Chute to the Won't, for the two mil-
lions of acres, nod the semis pert of the gibluee of all else other
arms ichivh it dere.. Ls from t cal, , •• •

BILD 07 /I ()NOV R.—Alter
.baule of Villa Nieioca,
vbialt was gains:! by the supvitior generalabip of. Duke
of Vendome, Philip the Mh lutviug no bed, the 'Duke
',aid to him, " I shall prniare 1-0:- you the rieliest..lteil that
a monarch ever rposcdrlin ;!'.upon which hr haden ova em
the
u:acted of ail the standards and tamps, tak fviit

•
enitov. IE
I I. RTI r. s AIM): D.-"A Mall' of mean appear-
:lto:a last wtt made CV pUTC141444 in a shop in Bath, ha
1::r amount of 113. awl 6(1., inHaywent.„of which be ten-
"au( a lovvreir• Thu allp4roiwt,. «itb• a conceited
qatircwir, liis custofpart,.mi4l—" II sec youve got a
.tt wow. ""licti;* replitll tnait (aollv peeketing
coitt'antl 114:11erately walking out of the shop. Icaviog
the goods that hail ire,' cot for liitt,)--`` I,:r•re q• •
part, we will be hrilcr arywi;P:!id.-

THE LAND EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH
POLE

The final orders from the Lords of the Admiralty for the
sailing of the expedition to co-operate with Cart. Parry, in
the event of being able to meet in the Arctic Regions, were
received on Wednesday evening ; and the Griper, which is
to take out the expedition and proceed with it, was itnme-
diately swung upon the buoy in the tier in nattiness for de-
parture in the morning. Captain Lyon came on board at
ten o'clock on W(dnestlay night, and was accompanied by
the whole of his officers. The crew were on board the'
transports, and on shore, and were, by permission,
to remain with their friends, to enjoy the festivities of
Greenwich Fair, and were not mustered until half•past
nine o'clock yesterday morning ; they were inspected
by Captain Lyon and his officers. The men appeared in
excellent health and spirits. At In o'clock the Costanatider,
from the quarter-deck, gave the signal for sailing, and the
" Blue Peter" was run up. The ennui steam-yacht was
then towed alongside, and moored fast to the driper.
Notwithstanding the incessant rain, which at this moment
came down in torrents, the shores and dock-yards were
lined with spectators, who seemed to take a great interest
in the departure of the hardy adventurers. A few mi-
nutes after ten o'clock., the title serving, the Comet
proceeded to " cleave the liquid way," with the Griper
in company. The crews of the dilferent ships in the
river gave three cheers as the Griper passed down,
which were answered by her crew. 'l'be departure of the
vessel produced a very great excitation of sympathy among,
the spectators. The Griper is in fine sailing trim, and her
tonnage does not now exceed 350 tons, having unshipped
a great part of her stores into the Snap transport, which
accompanies her to Davies Straits. The crew of the
Griper is composed of only 33 men, who are commanded
by eight officers, not including the gentlemen who accom-
pany the expedition for scientific purposes. The vessel
I went as far as Northfieet yesterday, where the remainder
of the stores were to be taken on hoard, sad the arms and
ammunition Shipped. All the instruments of science have
been on board some days. Upwards of 6,000 persons
' I visited the Grirr within the last few weeks.