The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1825-01-04 00:00:00

CATHOLIC .4.S.S'OCIATION, DVBLIN.

Tilts body met at their Booms on Thursday last, Dr. Massie in
the Chair.
The amount of the Catholic Rent, and subscriptions received for
the week ending on the 30th December last, was reported to be '
19Ai. piss Ca I.
The Assistant Secretary then read several letters from indivi.
duals, incloaing their contributions to the Bent. The following
passages lathe letter front the Committee at Thurles, excited great
attention. Ti. mode by which Poston:li% Prophecies are stated
to be distributed, occasioned considerable mirth There have
been emissaries within tao miles of this town, trying to stir up the
lower classes, and distribute I'astorini's Prophecies, as they are
called. A well-dressed faloW, in a gig, was seen driving uy a
Smith's forge, near this town, and after he had passed, three vo.
lumes of this work were found. Some of the peasantry have in.
formed us, that he scattered them out whenever lie came to such
places ; and the Clergyman of the parish (which is adjoining this)
in which they were distlibuted, is making every exertion to get
them up, and burn them : he yesterday informed me they were
said to amount to the number of forty volumes. Our Committee
are endeavouring to make discoveries ; and in order to mark our
disapprobation and abhorrence et these preceetlings,and also of every.
thing tending to riot, or breach of the peace, the Rev. Dr. O'Con-
nor proposed, at our last meeting, that the colleetomt be directed
not to receive Catholic Rent front any persons who may be suspect-
ed of belonging to any illegal association, or remarkable for riotous
or disotderly eondutt whtch was passed with acclamation."
PLOTS.
Mr. O'CoNNELL rose to give notice of a motion, relative to a
renewal of one of the old expedients of the enemies of the Catholics
—namely, the getting tip of fabricated plots. Attempts had been
made in different parts of the country to create disturbances ; but
all accounts concurred in stating the determination of the peope not
to be seduced from their duty and their allegiance. Alluding to a
late attempt at Bandon, the Learned Gentleman observed that it
had failed, and that an Investigation had taken place, but no very
active desire was apparent on the part of the ftlagistrates to prose-
cute the frames. He would strongly recommend to the Associ-
ation, to take up the case, and see justice administered. The pro-
secution of one plot-maker would do much to secure the tranquil.
lity of the coilntry. It would open the eyes of the people to the
arts of those who woukl lead them astray, and would be the best
sort of protection the Association could extend to them Another
most remarkable case had Just occUrred at Itoscrea. A pensioner
of the name of Reynolds had actually made affidavit that he had
seen sixteen hundred men assembled at night in the neighbour.
hood !—(he counted them all, it seemed !)—and a paragraph, stat-
ing the fact, lin duly inserted in certain newspapers, and was now
going its rounds through England, frightening the old ladies there.
An inquiry *as held—else ground was exantined—and, as might be
anticipated, the whole turned out to be a gross fabrication. Rey-
nolds absconded, and the Magistrates passed resolutions refuting
the story, and addtessed the Lord-Lieutenant to deprive Reynolds
of his pension. But this was not enough ; lie should he prose-
cuted for perjury. Mr. O'Connell said he had a communication
from ',metres, describing an effort t. ade to create disturbance
there. Letters written in blood bad been circulated, but fortunately
two of the distributors had been detected. They had plenty of po-
lice at Loughrea, but it so happened that the incendiaries were
taken up by simple Catholics. The manner in which Pastoeini
was circulated, was described in the letter just rool. Ile bad
seen a placard of a penny publication, called, " The Book of
Erin."
Mr. KIII'VAN said, lie had chanced to see a copy of The
Book of Erin" at a public office in town, and that it was of a
perfectly peaceable tendency. It was signed "Joseph," and dated
" Annandale Cottage."
Mr. O'CoNNEL t. said, that would be for the Committee to con-
sider, and concluded with touring, that the letter front Thurles,
and the ewes lie had mentioned, be referred to a Collllllittee
Agreed to.
MISSION TO ENGLAND.

Mr. O'Costwctc read the following letter. Ile might be ar.
eused of vanity for so doing ; but he admitted he was vain of the
friendship of the noble and excellent person who wrote it ; besides,
it showed that some beneficial results might attend lite mission to
England, which, though put off for a time, would not, behoved, be
delayed eery long--(Hear. hear., hear.)
:
•• Torquay, Devon, 24th December. 11324.
"My Dear O'Connell,-1 have received a letter from London,
to say that some friends of Ireland, of high rank, wish to meet you
in London ; and they pay me the compliment of asking mew be
of the party. Tell me when nu arc likely to be in that city,
and nothing shall prevent my meeting you. Perhaps you will
visit Devon.
The CliFords, Currys, &c. of this country are amongst the
oldest and most respectable Catholic families cf England, and
have tail. Irish feelings.
" Ever most truly yours,
" C'LONCLIRRY,
" To Dah:el O'Conr.ell, Esq. 3lerrion.square South,
Dublin."
31r. SItEIL said, the deputation to England would not, he
thought, have hem, without avail. The English arc a wise, a
generous, and a lofty-minded people, and we should have appealed
to their wisdom, to their justice, and to their humanity. We should
have disabused them of many great mistakes—we should have
demoastrated to them that we are not unworthy of being incorpo.
rated in the great community of llrl'tish citizenship—that our pun-
licit ethics are much better than they have been taught to think
—that there is no dogma in our religion which renders us unfit for
'the enjoyment of civil freedom—that our creed was the faith of
their great progenitors (cheers)--and that in casting contumely upon
our opinion., they stamp damnation upon their fathers' graves.
(Cheers.) We should hare told them mat the Barons of Runny.
niede sere as good Citilellll as the Lords of Chancery-lane, and that
the awned with which Magna Chars was won might be weighed
against Lord Eltlon's mace. (Cheers.) Vie should have told them
that the part which they have acted towards our country reflect.; no
credit upon them in the eyes of mankind—that having the excel.
IL nee of gigantic strength, they should net use it in the spirit of a
gigantic d ~,,, ination—that liberty is like light, and is not impaired
its participation—that the disfranchisement of seven millions of
Bitish subjects cannot fad to be productive of great calamities;
that we are placed in an unnatural, and, thereene, an injurious re-
lation towards the empir: ; and that it befits their dignity to inter-
pose between the contending factious by which the country is torn
asunder--that they had too long turned our furious contentions into
sport; and that it is unworthy of them to sit, like the spec store of
a litanan ecere, at a gladiatorial exhibition of their slaves, and
make a pastiale of the ferocious passions which are arrayed against
each other in all the insolence of inglorious triumph, and all the
wildness of infuriated despair. (Loud cries of hear, hear.) We
should have told them that by a single act of magnanimous justice,
they might put an end to the animosities which have cost so much
English and so much Irish blood. That our emancipation would
be an act of thrift, as well as of humanity, and that it became their
prudence as well as the grandeur of their national character, and
was a matter of economy as well as of honour, to make us free.
" Reconcile us," we should have exclaimed, "as you are wise—
as you are just, redress us—and in the name of mercy rescue us
from our own paseions, and save us front the consequences to
which your system of 'Mime and of penalty must inevitably
Icati"--and what are those consequences? If they were no
other than an increase of those heart-buroings and animosities,
that toast either rapidily augment or be instantaneously re-
medied by a great and sanative act of legislative wisdom, their
anticipation (and it requires but little of the spirit of political
soothsaying to foretel results so manifest) should excite the virtue,
if it does not awaken the alarm of every holiest and enlightened
man, and enlist the good sense and the good feeling of the whole
British community in cur behalf. (Cheers.) Things cannot stand
as they are. Either a great national reconciliation must be efinted,
or hostilities must be deepened—reciprocal antipathies must be
strengthened—new force and activity must be communicated to the
popular passion's—and if the fountain of bitterness is not sealed, it
must be supplied. Are we to continue for ever in this frightful
state? Arc we to be everlastingly arrayed and marshalled against
each other by the infuriating peovocations of the law ? Are we to
be bet with a rabitl and canine fury upon each other? (Loud
cheers.) Are our detestations to be endowed with a disastrous im.
mortality, is our hatred to be eternal, mid is the corroding senti-
ment which consumes the bosom, and preys upon the vitals of our
country, to be like " the fire that is not quenched, and the worm
that dieth not ?" (Loud cheers.) Are we to be doomed to an
everlasting execration of each other; and when the present genera-
tion shall have past away, are our children to rise out of their
cradles with the same tkelings with which their fathers descended
into their graves? If there were no other calamity to be appre.
honied, this evil should be regarded as a dreadful one. But there
are other results, which every wise man can foresee, and at which
every good man must tremble. May God fauteuil that we should
be instrumental iu bringing events about, the thought of which
bends back the blood into the heart ? But is it because
thorn events are t'rrible, that we should clasp our bandit to
our eyes, and hide them front ourselves ? Is it because the
shadows which coming events " have cast before them" are
black and sinister, that we should fear to trace their dark and som-
bre outline ? For ourselves we may be able to answer ; we may
vouch fur our continued endurance of infliction ; but can we give
pledges for the prostration of those who are to come after us, and
that our descendents will be the heirs to our patience, as well as
the inheritor of (Rif wrongs ! (Loud cheers.) We cannot enter
into any such recognisance (cheers), but this we can do ; we can
protest that we shall omit no endeavour to prevent the feeling of
anguish from being turned into a pameysin of wild and frantic
rage, and try to keep back those ebulliticias of national emotion,
which it is not less our interest than it is our bounden duty to re-
strain, and which, for a considerable period, are not likely to burst
out. NVe have been accessed (it is right I should speak the unvar-
nished truth) of etwertairting designs of a revolutionary tendency.
The men who have adduced this charge pros etl it to be untrue, but
there are many who may be misguided by their calumnies,. and as
we are the martyrs of intolerance, there are others who, in forming
an estimate of our intentions, may be the victims of mistake.
There are three tests, by which our desibns may be reasonably
tried--our, larguage, our conduet, and our personal interests ; and
to aty one of these grounds of presumption we may fearlessly ap-
peaL Our language lies been unifomtly modetate, conciliatory,
a id pacific, in all the public documents which have issued from our
body. The measures which we have adopted have been in accord-
ance with the views of the local Government. sod we have omitted
no means to inculcate the propriety of subordination to the law and
the cuncitutional authorities of the country ; witness the resolu-
tions passed at the late Aggregate Meeting, and the address
of Mr. O'Connell to the people of Ireland. But there is a further
sal a far more accurate touchstone of the %natives of men to be
found in their obvious interest ; and I will venture to aasert, that
he amongst us who could deliberately premeditate a political con.
vulsiJn, urust be utterly insane. I II) cut hesitate to tleclare, that