The Sun.
London, England, 1825-01-05 00:00:00

them destitute of common Sense. The Bottle
Treason made him an object of peculiar hatred
to the Orangemen. To shew this consistency, he
seems to have thought it necessary to be as un-
just towards the Catholics as towards the Orange-
men. But the feelings of the Orangemen were
even revolted at the spectacle of a kindred in-
justice to that of which they were themselves
about to be the victims, and thus he is now de-
tested equally by Orangemen and Catholics.—
We could say more, but we are unwilling to
trample on the fallen.

[MORNING POST.]
The abstract which we gave yesterday of the
last proceedings of the Catholic Association, con-
veyed a just idea of the liberal spirit which ani-
mates that Body, and of its affection for the
freedom of the press. Castigat auditque, too,
seems to be its motto; for while an " investiga-
tion" of the charges against Maynooth College is
professed to be the object, the Committee in its
report, signed by Mr. O'Connell, denounces
the imagined writer of the paragraph as " a
base and cowardly assassin, willing to do mis-
chief, but desirous to avoid responsibility." The
Association besides is only anxious for a victim,
and in its tender mercies blunderingly resolves,
" that the prosecution, if possible, shall be
against the Author of the publication, and not
against any one connected with the public Press."
Now if any one who, by writing in a News-
paper, is willing to mischief, but desirous to
avoid responsibility, must of necessity be " a
base and cowardly assassin," pray what were
the anonymous libellers who published their
rebellious effusions a few years ago in the
Dublin Chronicle .2 Mr. O'Connell perhaps, or
Mr. Scully, the author of the Penal Laws, can
answer this question. But, in the name of com-
mon sense, what has the individual thus com-
plimented to do with the merits of the case ? or
what use in the idle bravadoing about allowing
the truth to be pleAed in bar of the action ?
Every one of the charges against Maynooth
may be true, and yet not capable of proof
in a Court of Justice. No man assuredly
doubts the real objects of the Association
itself, but still it might be (under a free
Constitution like ours) a task of labour to
convict it of overt acts of treason punishable by
law. All tirades discharged by the Papists
against Orangemen and Orange Societies have
no other basis but moral evidence. Are not
other persons then to exercise their faculties
as as well as Catholics ? or because a set of
cunning knaves, schooled in casuistry and
versed in the practical dissimulation of Je-
suits, do not openly betray themselves, shall
we be brow-beaten into an absurd confession
of their immaculate loyalty and virtue ? If the
purpose therefore of the Association be to thrust
a vindication of Maynooth College down our
throats, the menaced prosecution is useless. A
legal verdict in favour of that seminary would
do nothing to establish its character. The Papists
themselves would consider it a mere ruse,
and every one else would afterwards entertain
the same opinion as at present. In point of fact,
however, the zealous defence of Maynooth, under-
taken by the Catholic Association, and the pane-
gyric of the Priests educated there, lugged into
the Report of the Committee, further corroborate
the intimate union between the Popish Clergy and
Laity, in the existing enterprise against the inte-
grity of the empire. We have always expressed
our horror of this coalition. The Association
can move the people only by means of their
Priests, and the Priests will move them only
through their bigoted zealotry for Popery--and
with the view of exalting the Romish Religion
upon the ruins of Protestantism, and sacrificing the
interests of their country to the aggrandizement
of their Church. We find too, that in aid of
these schemes the Irish Priests have enlisted the
whole body of Catholic females into their ser-
vice. In 1819 we had, share to remember ! fe-
male reformers in England, and now we have
female rebels in Ireland! These amiable politi-
cians are loud and laughable in their admiration
of Mr. O'Connell, for they at once make a
Jupiter of him ! What piece of folly and fana-
ticism shall the Association be guilty of next ?

PROVINCIAL JOURNALS.

(From toe Liverpool Courier, Dec. 29, 1824.)

IRELAND.—It is the manoeuvre of several of
these public prints which have advocated the admission of the
Papists to power in this Protestant and free country, to repre-
sent the proceedings of the Popish Faction in Ireland as either
the work of noisy and clamorous men, without power to
do mischief; or as innoxious and praiseworthy, because
Popish Noblemen and Gentlemen are contributing their quota
to the " Catholic Rent." They have argued, from the in-
nocence and harmlessness of the Papists, in favour of their
claims being granted ; and now, forsooth, since it is obvious
to all the world that they are neither innocent nor harmless,
we are told, in order to hide, as long as possible, the evidence
of their own stultification, that the noise now making
is without danger, and the Catholic Rent a harmless fund, be-
cause O'Connell swells the one with his orations, and' my
Lord such an one" swells the other with his subscription.—
Thus several of the leading London Morning Papers hide the
real case from the country, for the sake of the poor pride of ap_
pearing to be consistent, and give scarcely any report of those
proceedings from the Irish papers which, if faithfully exhibited, '
would still more fully open the eyes of the country to the mo-
tives and proceedings of the Irish Papists. We ask, in answer
to all these smooth and delusive remarks, hiding, as they care-
fully do, as much Irish intelligence as possible from their En-
glish readers ; we ask, what is the object of what is called
" Catholic Rent ?" It is now a formidable and rapidly in-
creasing fund ; it is wrung, by all the arts of the priests, from
the Papists, and by the threats of the Papists, from some Pro-
testants. Nor is it to be viewed like subscriptions for Hunt and
the Queen's plate, and other radical devices, a fund raised from
the deluded only, as a purse into which needy demagogues, who
never keep their hands from picking and stealing, might dip
their hands, and arrest in its progress to its intended objects.
There are men too cunning and too watchful connected with
the Catholic Rent to suffer this. What, then, is its object ? We
defy any man to think of a rational and assignable one, except
either to force what they call emancipation, by overawing Par-
liament; or to effect a popish revolution. If any man think
that we put the case too strongly, let him attempt to form to
himself any other reasonable conjecture as to the application of
a subscription so universal, increased daily by the application of
a subscription so universal, increased daily by the application
of the whole influence of the priests, extending to all classes,
and swelling to so large an amount. We repeat, that this is