The Sun.
London, England, 1837-01-05 00:00:00

IRELAND.

DUBLIN, JAN. 2.

THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE.—In the Pilot of the above
date is published the following letter from Mr. O'Connell,
in reply to Mr. Wentworth Beaumont's :
Darrynane Abbey, Dec. 30, 1836.
.... _ .

Sir—l hasten to reply to the letter which you have done
me the honour to address to me through the public papers.
As a gentleman you are entitled to the most perfect cour-
tesy ; as a member of the British Legislature you are en-
titled to the most candid and explicit reply to your questions
In the spirit, then, of respectful courtesy and thorough
candour I reply to your inquiries ; suffer me only to adopt
my own order in answering them.
You ask—first—" If I believe that Ireland ever will be,"
or " ought to be tranquil, until the religion of the majority
is placed on an equal footing, in every respect, with that of
the minority ?"
My answer is ready : Ireland cannot possibly be—she, in
my opinion, ought not to be tranquil—until the religion of
the majority is placed on an equal footing, in every respect,
with that of the minority.
I add, that until then she will not be ; and whilst I live,
she certainly shall not be free from salutary, but peaceful
and energetic agitation—that is, until perfect religious equa-
lity, without one particle of political, civil, or temporal as-
cendancy at either or any side—is firmly established.
You next put the question in other words—secondly, you
ask—" Is it not a point of honour, a consideration familiar
with every Irishman, that the Catholics should be reli-
giously and politically upon an equal level, without reserve,
with the Protestants ? "

By point of honour I understand you to mean, motive
of action on which the feelings and passions of men are
equally, if not more engaged, than even their judgment and
reason. I tell you then, that the reason, the judgment,
the best feelings, and the most ennobling passions of the
people of Ireland, are now deeply, resolutely, and irrevoca-
bly engaged in the familiar conviction of every man, that
the Catholics should be religiously and politically upon an
equal level, without reserve, with the Protestants.
One word with respect to the nature of such equality :
It is necessary that I should be distinctly understood—
there are three modes of producing such equality.
The first would be by leaving the present establishment
of temporalities to the Protestants, and procuring from
Parliament equivalent temporalities for the Catholics.
The second would be to divide in portions, equal or un-
equal, the present ecclesiastical temporalities between the
Protestants and Catholics.

The third would be that the State should appropriate to
education, and other works of charity and benevolence, the
present ecclesiastical temporalities, leaving the Protestants
to support and maintain their religious hierarchy and wor-
ship precisely as the Catholics maintain theirs, and, of
course, leaving the Catholics precisely as they are at
present.

Now, the first method of equalization, we, the Catholics
of Ireland, deem too borthensome to the British nation to
be practical, and, even if practical, we deem it unjust to the
Dissenters. We, therefore, reject it altogether.
The second method—the dividing the present tempora-
" . .

lities between the Catholics and Protestants—we deem
equally unjust to the Dissenters. We repudiate it alto-
gether, and most unequivocally, because it would create a
criminal and disastrous connection between the Catholic
Church and the State—a connexion injurious to the best
interests of truth and religion, taking away from argument
its force and efficacy, and from piety its only but tran-
scendently great reward. A connection which has cer-
tainly injured Protestantism in Ireland, and could only tar-
nish and defile what I deem—l say it in no discourtesy—
the superior sanctity of Catholic doctrines and Catholic
institutions.
I would rather die ten thousand deaths than consent to
degrade and vitally injure the Catholic religion in Ire-
land by a connection with the state.
I am convinced that the peace, tranquillity, and pros-
perity- of Ireland require the establishment amongst us of
the voluntary principle of maintaining religion ; and that
as long as any pecuniary ascendancy—as long as any
power remains to a Protestant minister to put his hands
into the pockets of the Catholics, so long dissension, dissa-
tisfaction, and turmoil will reign paramount in Ireland.
There remains another question of your's unreplied to.
Let me call it—though earlier in your letter—the third.
It is this—" You desire to be publicly informed by me if
_

. .
I coincide with you in the opinion that the sole cause of the
unnatural state of Ireland lies in this—that religion is made a
point of honour between the Catholics and the Protestants."
By point of honour I again understand a motive to
irritated feeling and exasperated passion, arising from the
painful sense of unjust inferiority on the one hand, and
the contemptuous pride resulting from unjust superiority
on the other. _ _ _

My answer, then, is, that I entirely concur with you in
that opinion. You have discovered the true, the great, the
gigantic, the all-pervading cause of the unnatural state of
Ireland. It is, indeed, the sole cause—for it so exasperates
and envenoms every other portion of misgovernment, that
although without it our evils would be curable—they are
rendered deadly only by the admixture of this fatal ingre-
dient of ever-recurring religious rancour.

I beg leave to add, that in the other just and generous
sentiments of your letter I entirely concur. I myself
should despise the English people if they consented to pay
tribute to a church from the tenets of which they consci-
entiously dissented. Why should the best feelings of man
be outraged by calling upon him to support doctrines which
he believes to be erroneous, and clergymen whom he is con-
vinced are the propagators of error?
Yes, the English would deserve to be despised—and I for
one should hold them in contempt—if they submitted to
maintain in England a gorgeous establishment for the Eng-
lish Catholics. The Catholics of England bear at present
about the same proportion to the Protestants of the esta-
blishment in England, as the Protestants of that creed bear
in Ireland to the Catholics. The cases are parallel. You
indignantly disclaim, under such circumstances, the sup-
porting a Catholic hierachy in England. You speak in the
tone and temper becoming a high-minded English Protes-
tant gentleman. I, an Irishman and a Catholic, at an hum-
ble distance, reciprocate your high-toned sentiments, and
scorn with as ineffable a scorn the compulsory support of a
Church in which I have no faith.

The people of Ireland join me in this contemptuous dis-
claimer of longer supporting out of our means that Church.
We may, in our virtuous struggle to shake off the incubus
of tithes, be hated or feared, or both ; but we will not con-
sent to be despised. The fell apostate Lyndhurst may in-
sult us, and the fallen aristocracy of England may re-echo
the insult, but we never, never will be parties to our own
degradation by acquiescing for one hour in the superiority of
a Church to which we do not belong.—l have the honour
to be, Sir, your very obedient servant,
DANIEL O'CONNELL.

Mr. O'Connell is expected in town by the Bth. His son
Maurice is convalescent. At a meeting of the electors of
the county of Roscommon last week, it was resolved to in-
vite the Learned Gentleman to a public dinner.
LONGFORD.—The victory in Longford is not to be esti-
mated merely by the majority of 92, which has borne the
popular candidate triumphantly into Parliament. No doubt
so great a majority is in itself a vivid demonstration of the
energy and enthusiasm of the public feeling ; but to esti-
mate aright the whole amount of the victory we have ob-
tained, the circumstances of the last general election ought
to be recollected ; we ought to see by what majority the
late Member, Lord Forbes, defeated upon that occasion the
same gentleman who has now been elected. The bribery
and intimidation resorted to upon this occasion by the Tories
transcends any former example upon record of the employ-
ment of the corrupt influences. They attempted not
merely the virtue of the peasant, but they assailed the poli-
tical integrity of men of the highest station in society.
They not only tampered with Peter Prunty, but they en-
deavoured to terrify Captain Aehmuty. —Freeman.
The Mail is compelled to admit that a victory has been
obtained, and that it is mortified as well as disappointed.
In the teeth, however, of this admission, our Contempo-
rary, in order to keep up the drooping spirits of the
fallen faction, consistently contends that the Longford

victory is no victory at all, and that the Government has
no great reason to rejoice ! This is amusing as broad
farce ; but, in the faculty of invention, the following an-
nouncement enjoys a proud pre-eminence :—" We have to
state (proclaims the organ of Orangeism)—and the evi-
dence will be produced on the petition—that if intimida-
tion the most unheard of had not been used—if the well-
disposed tenantry had not been threatened with assassina-
tion by midnight ruffians, and exposed to the denuncia-
tions of eternal damnation by their Priests, Mr. Fox would
have carried his election by a large majority ; and this, too,
in spite of the scandalous interference of the Government,
including in its extended sphere of influence the guardians of
minors and the receivers of rents under the controul of the
Court of Chancery."
After the farce enacted in the columns of the Mail, re-
versing the usual order of things, the entertainment got up
for the Tories concludes with something very like a pros-
pective tragedy in real life. Not only are electors to be
robbed of their franchise, but depopulation and extermina-
tion are to be carried to the homes and hearths of all those
who presumed to vote according to their honest and con-
scientious convictions. Such revolting tyranny, however,
if any should be found wicked and hardy enough to exer-
cise it, will only stimulate the country to a more determined
resistance of Tory thraldom and Orange oppression. We
give the passage containing the heartless and abominable
menace without further comment :—" Mr. Lovell Edge-
worth, the proposer of Mr. Fox, as amiable a man and as
benevolent a landlord as lives, has had the moral
courage openly, and at the hustings, to announce his
determination f not, in future, granting leases to his
Roman Catholic tenants. This is wise and just. It is
also merciful. The landlords of Longford and other
counties must follow his example. They have a stern and
a painful duty to perform ; but for their country's sake
they must perform it. Mercy is not itself that oft seems
so'---and such vigorous measures of disfranchisement as
may break the power of the demagogue and the priest, and
vindicate the legitimate authority of the landlord, will, in
the end, prove the most merciful course towards the de-
luded peasantry themselves. The high-minded gentry of
Ireland will despise, as they deserve, the outrageous cla-
mour and the crocodile tears of the miscreants, who, to
carry on their own designs, and effect their own purposes,
have severed the most sacred ties of civil society, and, un-
der the blasphemous pretext of religion, precipitated their
misguided votaries upon forewarned and inevitable ruin."