The Sun.
London, England, 1821-07-11 00:00:00

SI. R. HARCO URT LEES.

[From " The Hibernian Journal" of July 2.]
In complying with the general wish, so loudly
and so enthusiastically expressed on Saturday
last by the public—" Hundreds of anxious in-
quirers both Protestants and Catholics, having
called at our office for papers, who were obliged
to retire disappointed," we this day re-publish,
in full, one of the ablest letters ever addressed to
the population of a great country, and we ear-
nestly request the attention of every individual in
the community to the sound constitutional advice
given them by their enlightened, indefatigable,
and eminently distinguished countryman, Sir Har-
court Lees, who by the force of his genius and
unrivalled talents, seems to regulate the passions,
and even the prejudices of both countries as he
pleases. his Addresses to the People of Eng-
land, acted like an electric shock upon their feel-
ings—and within a few weeks changed the ap-
pearance of that country from a state bordering
on, sedition; to one of universal loyalty and alle-
giance; and we prophecy that his letter, which
we now submit to the public, will have the effect
of defeating that measu;•e, which he deprecates
with so much learning and ability ; and of per-
suading the Roman Catholics of this country,
also, that he has their true interests nearer his
heart, than any demagogue that ever yet appear-
ed to distract and disturb the loyalty and peace
of Ireland.
AN ADDRESS TO IRISHMEN OF EVERY RELI-
GIOUS PERSUASION.
BY SIR HARCOURT LEES, BART.
Black-Rock, Thursday night, June 28th.
GE TL E N,—For a considerable timepast 1 havenot been
an inattentive observer to the flagrant and undisguised attempts
that have been made, and are at this hour making, to irritate
the population of my country into violence, and finally, to fo-
ment rebellion in this part of this United Empire; and whilst I
viewed with indigna':an the efforts of the demagogues, I consi-
dered it politic to allow every prudent license to the inflamma-
tory and seditious exhortations of the incendiary, that amidst
the animated, and ingenuous disclosures of the patriot,
we might ascertain, and consequently defeat the dark
and insidious machination of the traitor. Gentlemen, our
mutual enemies, in the sincerity of their declaration, have
exposed the fallacy of their system, and whilst the sole
object of their ambition was to exalt themselves on the
ruins of their country, the real interests of Protestant or Roman
Catholic, in the State, never once entered into their .serious
consideration ; and provided that the Popish Patriots of Ireland
were admitted within the pale of Parliament, and into the of-
fices of trust, the Popish citizens of Dublin might starve in a
jail, or execrate, at their leisure, the loyal and eloquent pas.
torals of their barristers, which had organized the welling
chorus of reform, or had stimulated " unintentionally on their
parts, I am certain," the operative classes of the community,
in conjunction with the Ribbonmen, into acts of outrage, mur-
der, and rebellion. Gentlemen, it has been incontrovertibly
established by Muretus, and proved from ancient documents,
that there were 49 persons of illustrious family engaged in the
Roman conspiracy of Catalina ; and it has been also ascertained
that Julius Caesar and Crassus were both strongly suspected of
encouraging this patriotic band of desperate vagabonds, in'their
nefarious efforts to destroy the liberties of Rome ; but Cicero
discouraged every attempt to involve them in the conspiracy,
not wishing to afford it additional strength from their supposed
co-operation. Whatever conspiracy may be hatching at the
present day, we have at least the consolation of knowing, that
the parties implicated, with the exception of two or three that
I could name, are compoaed Of the most despicable and
the most ignorant 'of human beings ; and we have the addi-
tional satisfaction of believing, that in the event of any ge-
neral disturbance taking place, Ireland is at present in a very
different state to resist it, to that which Italy presented at the
period above alluded to. In Italia nullus Exercitus. Cn.
Pompeius in extremis terris helium gerebat.--Sal. in Cat.—
So that, Gentlemen, your minds may be perfectly at ease,
as to the immediate dispersion and annihilation of any body
of miscreants, who should have the folly or temerity to ap-
pear in arms against the Government, or the Established
Religion of the Empire; the exertions of the Demagogues
will be fruitless, and the lineal descendant of Milesian Kings,
shall be turned into still greater ridicule, by the undaunted
and ever watchful guardian of your true interests, and your
necessarily defined rights and privileges. Believe me, that the
period is rapidly advancing, when all political differences will
be reconciled, and an indentity of civil power will no longer be
withheld from an apprehension of religious persecution--a period,
when the massy portals of the British Constitution will be
thrown wide open by the hands of Protestants, to receive with
brotherly love and perfect confidence, the Representatives of
their educated, enlightened, and convinced Roman Catholics.
But this change, Gentlemen, shall not be accomplished by vio-
lence or faction ; that enlarged system of general education,
which I recommended in my antidote, two years ago, free
from prejudice, and above every other consideration uncon-
nected with the direct PERSONAL interference of Evangelical
canting Psalm-singing hypocrites, with the religious duties of
the Roman Catholic Priesthood, will eventually accomplish the
mighty task I have taken in hands, and the full force of the
great truths I have been so long and so zealously impressing
upon the attention of my deceived countrymen, will be acknow-
ledged eventually with gratitude and thanks, by the very body,
whose hostility-and resentment I was at first daring enough to
encounter.-1 am encouraged in the indulgence of this hope,
from the assurances of hundreds of Roman Catholics them-
selves, who have allowed the acknowledged superiority of my
information, on those subjects connected with their Creed, and
their decided conviction, that my character and disposition are
any thing hut bigotted or intolerant. Gentlemen, when the
period of emancipation, which I contemplate, shall arrive, and
arrive it will, if my valued friend O'Connell will continue to
assist me by his letters and his speeches, I will pledge myself
to draw up in a sheet and a half of paper, such securities
for the Established Church of my country, as shall give
perfect satisfaction to both Protestants and Roman Catholics—
such securities, I promise you, as will neither imprison the
virtuous and conscientious Popish Prelate, or perjure the
liberal Protestant Representative--if under the sanction of a
Parliamentary writ of summons, he should take the Oath
of Allegiance as framed by Mr. Plunkett, and who with
the impression on his mind, that he is evincing his avowed
fidelity to his Sovereign by the declaration, must inevitably
gelid convicted before the All-seeing Majesty of Heaven, of
offering a direct insult to his God, by a voluntary and irreligious
act of blasphemy. Gentlemen, attemps are making, 1 am this
day informed to a certainty, through the medium of the able and
constitutional columns of the Patriot Journal' to summon an
Aggregate Meeting in Dublin of the Roman Catholics of Ire-
land; and I find, as connected I much fear with this most im-
politic proceeding, the arrival in this lately loyal and tranquil
city, of one of die most inveterate and most bigotted enemies
the Protect= Religion of the British Empire ever had to con-
tend with--the Supreme Apostolical Vicar of England, Doctor
Milner; in propria persona—a man, Gentlemen, whose writings
against the 1t Church of England commenced in bigotry
of the blackest nature, and possibly may have concluded, and I
trust has, in the most malignant and unbounded misrepresenta-
tions against our establishments ; for in this line of invective his
Lordship can go no farther—whilst, Gentlemen, his Ecclesias-
tical Democracy, in vindicating and extolliNg the provisions of
the blasphemous and murderous Fourth Council of Lateran,
" commanding the massacre of Protestants," which he designau s
in that laboured week as the Great Council, alarms us not only