The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-11 00:00:00

the simple reading of the Bible in f, he privacy of
their own humble abode. For tha• t offence the
husband has paid the penalty of his 1 ife. He paid
it cheerfully. He never murmured n•.or repined at
his cruel doom. That Divine Power which endowed
him with strength to renounce the c )rrors of Ro-
manism, enabled him, with a calmness ; and resigna-
tion which have never been surpassed,., to suffer and
,to die for his principles. The vent;eance of his
priestly persecutors followed him to his dungeon,
and clamoured loudly until it got his life ; but in the
midst of all his sufferings, and in the h our of disso-
lution, he was happy—happier far tha 11 the Ducal
Prince, or any of his Ministers, at whose instance
the sentence was passed.
It may not be known to all our read erg, that the
Madiai were imprisoned in a loathso me dungeon
ten 'months before the sentence was pa: ;sed on them,
and that during all that time, as well :as in the in-
tervening months, they never were pel !mated. to see
each other. To show the spirit in which these
poor pious people met the fate to whic h the relent-
less spirit of the Church of Rome sub jetted them,
we reprint the following letter, writ ten by Rosa
Madiai to her husband, on the 7th of rune, the day
before the sentence of 46 months' imp] risonment, in
a dark and dismal dungeon, with hard . labour, was
passed on her, and 54 months' imprisonment in a
similar dungeon, with hard labour, p; issed on her
husband:—
"My dear Madiai,—You know that 3 have always
loved you, but how much more ought Itc love you now
that we have been together in the batth of the Great
King—that we have been beaten, but m )t vanquished.
I hope that, through the merits of Jesus ( ;hrist, God our
Father will have accepted our testimony, and will give
us grace to drink, to the last drop, the r 'ortion of that
bitter cup which is prepared for us, with returning of
thanks. My good Madiai, life is only a iy, and a day
of grief. Yesterday we were young, to-da fwe are old !
Nevertheless, we can say, with old Simeon , 'Lord, now
lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes
have seen thy salvation.'
"Courage, my dear, since we know by 0 ie Holy Spirit
that this Christ, loaded with opprobrium, • trodden down
and calumniated, is our Saviour ; and we , by His holy
light and power, are called to defend th e Holy Cross,
and Christ who died for us, receiving H: is reproaches,
that we may afterwards participate in Hi s glory. Do
not fear if the punishment be hard. God, who made the
chains fall from Peter, and opened the'doors of his prison,
will never forget us. Keep in good spirits ; let us trust
entirely in God. Let me see you cheerful, as I trust, by
' the same grace, you will see me cheerfu 1. I embrace
you with my whole heart.
"Your affectionate wife, " Ron A MADIAI."
To make any observations on such a letter would
only weaken its force. Who can rea dit without
emotion—more especially now that In ) to whom it
is addressed is no more, while she by • whom it was
penned is still in chains in the loathso me dungeon
from which it was written ?
The blood of the martyrs, we are told 1, is the seed
of the Church. The Papal power will, w e doubt not,
soon be furnished with a striking proof .of this. The
blood of the Madiai has been shed, un.ider circum-
stances of cruelty of which a demon rai ight well be
ashamed. Not only was no crime of any k ind—always
excepting the crime of reading the Bi ble—proved
against the Madiai, but they were not e yen charged
with any act of criminality. Two more inoffensive,
harmless, amiable persons were not to be found in
the Grand Duke's dominions. But this at mattered
not to the Romish Church. They did not belong
to her, and that was enough. They : might have
committed every other crime under h Leaven—the
greatest atrocities of which we have al iy record in
history,--and these would all have be ,en forgiven
by the Church of Rome ; but to renouni ce the errors
of Popery, and betake themselves to th e reading of
the Scriptures, were crimes too great to be forgiven
by the Romish Church in this life, and, if she
could help it, they would never be fort given in the
life that is to come. Not satisfied wi th exacting
the earthly life of one of the Madiai, th to Church of
Rome rejoices with fiendish joy in the id ea, ground-
less though it be, that her imprecations : will follow
him into the world to which she has ser it him.
Bnt the malignant spirit of the Ron fish Church
has carried matters somewhat too far .. • She has
overdone the thing. The blood of tl ie innocent
man whom she has deliberately murdered, will
cry aloud throughout the whole Protestant world
, against the demoniacal spirit by which the Church
is actuated. Those who have till now entertained
the opinion—which we for a long time v sere anxious
to entertain—that the progress of civi lisation had
considerably modified the persecuting g• spirit of
Popery, will now be convinced of their error. The
conviction will be forced upon them, ' that their
charity was at variance with the fact. • They can no
longer resist the force of evidence in su• pport of the
position that the Church of Rome is ju st as deeply
imbued with the spirit of persecution a: ever.
The great cause of the error which prevails so
largely in this country with regard to Popery is,
that we do not see it in its true light. ' The Church
of Rome is on her good behaviour in Gr eat Britain.
She is not herself. She is not allowed t. o show her-
self in her true colours. Here she is kept in due
subjection. What she is, therefore, v. 'ith us, is a
very different thing from what she wou Id be, were
she mistress of her own actions. Wh ty does not
Popery act in London as it does in Fh )rence ? Is
it because the difference in the latitude of the two
places makes a difference in the chara. )ter of the
system ? Assuredly not. The reason v, 'hy our pri-
sons are not full to repletion with pers. ms charged
with the crime of reading the Scriptur: is is simply
this,—that the Church of Rome is in it in the as-
cendant here. Give her the same pOwei 7in London
as she possesses in Florence, and we shall have
Protestants dying m their dungeons in the metro-
polis, because they have been found wi th a copy of
the Bible in their possession, just as w. 3 have seen
the poor Madiai expiring, under the efl7ects of con-
finement and hard labour, in one of the cells of
Florence. It will be a great point g wined when
this view of the real character of Poper y shall have
made its way to the minds of those w ho were not
prepared for its reception. In this w; ay the mar-
tyrdom of Francesco Madiai will be of • unspeakable
service to Evangelical truth.
The death of Francesco Madiai, brought about
by the slow lingering process of close < :onfinement
in an unhealthy dungeon, and incessa; It hard la-
bour— of all deaths the most appalling.; to contem-
plate—will create a feeling of inte mse horror
throughout the civilised world. Marty rdom at the
stake or on the scaffold, as in days of yore, when
Popery, being in the ascendant in our a wn country,
kept Smithfield in a perpetual blaze, is; not nearly
so formidable as the daily death for more than six
months to which the poor Madiai were. subjected.
So that, in reality, the Church of Rom. instead of
becoming less cruel, has of late refined in her
cruelty. Yet this poor pious man ne rver for one
moment wavered in his resolution. He shrunk not
from the certain death which stared him in the face.
He met his doom with the courage o f a martyr,
blended with the meekness of a confessor. The
future was not only disarmed of all terrors to
his mind, but was arrayed in the in ost radiant
hues. This was the fruit of his faith . So far as
nature was concerned, his position and i 'he prospect
of dissolution, must necessarily have bee n appalling.
Viewed through the usual medium, th. lirefore, the
fate of Francesco Madiai must every' /ere excite
emotions of mingled indignation and Ibr. wror. Even
some of the Roman Catholics themselv -es must, we
are sure, shudder at what their Churcl i has in this
case done. It will inflict a heavy blow on Popery.
It is a momentous fact—one pregnant with mean-
ing. It will do more, and go farther, to open the
eyes of the public to the real char titter of the
Romish Church in the second half of th e nineteenth
century than years of discussion on t lie theology
of Romanism, or of thousands of volumes written
on the Protestant side of the controversy. And
never let the great fact be forgotten.,that what
Popery has just proved itself to be . . Florence, it
is everywhere. And if the fruits or me uufestations
of the system are not of the same kid id, the mo-
dification is to be solely ascribed to the restraints
which the civil institutions of the con uitry impose
upon it.

CAPTURE or A GANG a OF BURGLARS.— .Through the
instrumentality of Mr. Little, special high constable of
the Hyde division, one of the most formed able gangs of
burglars that ever infested this part of tilt I country has
been broken up; and various members committed to
Chester Castle for trial. The parties were 'brought up at
the Hyde Sessions, when several cases of hi )usebreaking,
&c., were proved against them. Their names are—
Wm. Partington, John Smith, and Wm. Shuttleworth ;
but in addition, three confederates, nam ed Elizabeth
Nicholson, A. Moores, and Jane Shaw, females residing
in Salford, who, it appears, were left to pledge the pro-
perty for them after it had been stolen, were also brought
up and committed along with them. The following were
the burglaries proved against them :—Ort the 30th of
November last, at the house of Mr. Benjamin Milling-
ton, engineer and surveyor, of Newton Moor. The
next case was the house of Mr. George Dean, of Brom-
law, on the 11th December. A rag warehouse in Duken-
field, on the 19th December, belonging to Alwm Smith.
Many other cases might have been adduced against the
prisoners, but it was thought to be unneoessary. Great
satisfaction is expressed that these daring depredators
have at length been caught • and from their now well-
known character, it is not likely that this part of the
country will be troubled with them again for some time
to 0004—Mandator Courier.

THE CONVICT KIRWAN.-THE NEW CHARGE.

DUBLIN, MONDAY.—The Daily Express contains the
following extraordinary disclosures :

During the past week the greatest curiosity has been
excited in the metropolis, in consequence of various
rumours that gained circulation, to the effect that Kir-
wan, whose sentence has been commuted to transporta-
tion, would be again indicted for having committed addi-
tional terrible crimes. Many of these reports were com-
pletely groundless, and even the statements made con-
cerning the new charge actually preferred against this
now notorious criminal weregrossly inaccurate. The police
authorities have now numerous documents in their pos-
session, having taken several depositions, and are yet
engaged in making the most active inquiries into the par-
ticulars of the crime, or series of crimes which have been
preferred against Kirwan ; and, when some further
necessary legal steps have been taken, the entire
facts of the case will be laid before the public. At
the present time, however, the ends of justice might be
marred by a premature revelation of all the circum-
stances connected with this extraordinary case ; but we
are yet enabled to give our readers several remarkable
passages in the career of the convict during the last
seventeen years, which will enable them to understand
the grounds on which the present indictment is being
prepared.

The new informations have been taken in the case of
Mrs. Downes Boyer against William Bourke Kirwan
and others, for conspiring to rob and murder William
Downes oyer, a minature painter.
It appears that in the commencement of the year 1836
Mr. William Downes Boyer resided with his wife in the
house No. 4, Middle Mountjoy-street, and that up to
that period, having been married upwards of 20 years,
they lived on terms of the most mutual affection. Mr.
Boyer was a minature painter, and had a collection of
valuable pictures and other works of art. He became
acquainted, with Kirwan in the month of May, 1836, and
frequently invited him to his house ; and at this period
Kirwan resided in Parnell-place, and also occupied two
top rooms in the house of Mr. Walsh, the dyer in South
King-street, where he carried on the profession of ana-
tomical draughtsman, but was principally occupied in
colouring the Ordnance survey maps for the Dublin
Government agents. About October, 1836, he induced
Mr. Boyer to pay a visit to his house, and his father
and himself, together with two sisters, one of whom has
since died, it is alleged entered into a conspiracy to destroy
the life of the old artist, who was then upwards of sixty
years of age, and to get possession of his property which
was considerable. When Mr. Boyer had been about three
weeks residing with Kirwan (who during this period en-
deavoured, with too much success, by every means to
alieniate him from his wife, by concocting unjust and un-
founded accusations against her), the letter persuaded
the old man to consent to hand all his property, includ-
ing his bank book, containing receipts for lodgments
to the amount of 2,5001., over to him ; and these were
transferred to Kirwan's house in Parnell-place, from
whence they were subsequently removed to Fleet-street,
and from thence to D'Olier-street. The manner in
which the pictures, furniture, and other property were
removed from Mountjoy-street, where Mr. Bowyer's wife
resided, is not the least remarkable feature in the case.
Kirwan and seven or eight of his companions proceeded,
between the hours of one and two o'clock in the morn-
ing, to the residence of Mrs. Bowyer, to which they
gained admission on the plea that they had been sent by
her husband ; the lady and her servant girl were locked
up by them in one of the apartments, and the house was
completely gutted of every article of value. For this
burglarious offence Kirwan was prosecuted and tried be-
' fore the Recorder, and was acquitted on a technical
point of law. At this time Kirwan had in his employ.
ment several young men, some of whom he took out of
the Royal Dublin Society's schools, and engaged at
mere trifling salaries to colour maps, and it is well
known that, when unable or unwilling to liquidate the
lawful demands that these assistants made against him
for payment, he used to plead his poverty, and state that
he wished to act honourably, but that his means did not
permit him. In the year 1837, fresh proceedings were
threatened by the friends of Mrs. Bowyer, which, how-
ever, were compromised, a deed of separation executed,
and an annuity settled upon her, which has been regu-
larly paid by Mr. Vincent, the solicitor ; but from this
period, and, in fact, for several months antecedent to it,
Mrs. Boyer had never been able to see her husband, or
to hear where he was residing. The amount yearly re-
ceived by the lady was 401. About this time, it is also
asserted, that he seduced the servant girl who attended
him in Walsh's house.

In the same year (1837) Kirwan seduced a female
connected with a highly respectable family, a Miss
Jones, and after living with her for some short period
he abandoned her, and left her in a very destitute con-
-*ion in Holyhead. This girl was since in Dublin, and

died in a wretched condition a short time since. Imme
diately on Kirwan's departure this unfortunate young
woman became ill, and was confined to her bed for a
period of seven months ; and, it was generally believed
that her ill health was occasioned by recourse having
been had to unfair means. On Kirwan's return to
Dublin, Mr. Jones, a brother to the female in question,
waited on him, and demanded an explanation of his con-
duct, with which demand Kirwan refused to comply,
neither would he consent to a hostile meeting. Mr.
Jones, finding that he could obtain satisfaction in no
other manner, had a large number of placards printed
and posted through Dublin, in which he gave a con-
densed sketch of Kirwin's life, and denounced him as a
coward, a poltroon, and a hypocrite, and made use of
other language of a violent nature. Kirwan employed
several parties, his father and sisters amongst the
number, to tear down these offensive publications,
thinking by this simple means to destroy the evidence
of his former conduct. Mr. Jones, however, was not
contented with thus publishing an account of his wrongs,
but watched Kirwan, and severely horsewhipped him.
For this offence Kirwan prosecuted his assailant to con-
viction, but such was the impression on the Court, that
it considered the law was fully satisfied by the verdict,
and merely sentenced the defendant to be imprisoned
until the rising of the court. It is as well to remark
that the sessions were adjourned before half an hour had
expired.
About this time Mrs. Boyer made frequent applica-
tions at Kirwan's residence for information about her
husband, but was told on each occasion by the convict
that he did not know where Boyer was residing. In
the commencement of 1839 she became more solicitous
about him, and insisted upon ascertaining where he was
living, or if he had left the country, and she was charged
for annoyance by Kirwan's father ; and when the case
came before the magistrates, and the peculiar nature of
the transaction was explained, the charge was dismissed.
This occurred on several occasions, and the cases were
heard by different magistrates ; but when they ascer-.
tained that the annoyance arose from the natural fact of
a wife making inquiries concerning her husband the
complaints were dismissed.
In the year 1840 Mrs. Boyer obtained an interview
with the Rev. Mr. Nixon, and that gentleman called
upon Kirwan, but he refused to give any explanation,
and denied that Mr. Boyer had ever resided with him,
and all knowledge of' him, although previous to that
date and ever since the annuity has been regularly paid
to Mrs. Boyer by, Mc. Vincent, who has never yet
asserted that Mr. D. Boyer was dead.
During this year (1839) Kirwan's sister (who has
since died) appeared much confused when asked about
Mr: Boyer, and stated, after some searching questions
had been put to her, that she had never seen him or known
anything about him. When further questioned, how-
ever, she said she remembered Mr. Boyer, her father,
and her brother, leaving the house on one evening
together, that the convict and her father returned alone,
and that she had never seen Mr. Boyer since. The girl,
however, has since died, but it is believed that her sister,
who is fully cognizant of all the particulars of this ex-
traordinary case, is still living in Dublin, and it is to be
presumed she will be brought forward.

In this brief sketch of his life, from 1837, of the con-
vict, no allusion has been made to his connexion and
marriage with the unfortunate lady whose remains were
found on Ireland's Eye, or the still more unfortunate
but criminal connexion between the wretched man and
Miss Kenny, as the particulars of these cases were fully
entered into at the recent trial at Green-street. We
may mention that the houses in Parnell-place, Fleet-
street, and D'Olier-street, have been carefully examined
by the officers of the G division ; and it is generally
believed that the kitchens and garden of the former place
will be dug up on this day, as a strong suspicion prevails
that Boyer has met with an untimely end, and that his
remains are buried in some portion of the premises.
Mr. John A. Dennis, the foreman of the jury who re-
turned a verdict of guilty against William Burke Kir-
wan, for the murder of his wife, has, on behalf of himself
and ten other jurors, published a long statement in
Saunders's News Letter, justifying the jury for the ver-
thteesEtizineocun
dict they delivered, and replying to various imputations
against them. He says :—" That verdict was kung
yfreotmheusexbpyreirrsseessishtiisblgre aantdinacalmtioonst
that
irrhaest
Government have been pleased to spare the lif
convict." e of the

DISCOVERY or OLD COINS.—An old cottage on a farm
at Tenter-hill, in Whittingham, a portion of the glebe
of Woodplumpton Church, and as such the property of
the Rev. Isaac Mossop, incumbent of Woodplumpton,
having lately been undergoing some repairs, the work-
people in removing the thatch, came to a piece of old
woollen cloth, containing • large number of silver coins,
which appeared to have been concealed therein. The
coins are 301 in number, and comprise crowns, half-
crown s, shillings, and sixpences, of the reigns of Philip
and Mary, Elizabeth, James I. and Charles 1., sove-
reigns of England, and some Spanish coins of the reign
of Philip IV. When found they were almost black
from soot, having been concealed in the roof, just overto
the soot loft. Those that have been cleaned appear
of
be in excellent preservation. From the circumstanceheregn.
none of the coins-being of later date than
hoard lead
.i , been
Charles 1., it is conjectured that the
tthe
ad D
concealed by some careful housewife dutnhnegfirlist
times that marked the later years of the
than
5 lbs., azx
The total weight of the "find" is morei
though' to h
much more.
will be wort
numis-
matists, of course, the coins
its intrinsic value will be about 20 ~
Charles.tm ub troubled