The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-22 00:00:00

people of this country. These were the arguments; this was
the instrumentality, this we; the stratagem, this was the fraud
—a pious fraud, no doubt—(Loud cheers)—but such a fraud
as, he trusted, would not long abuse the minds of the people of
England—nor would it effect that which it was intended to
do. He did not pretend to approve of all that was
taught at Maynooth, neither dd he approve of all
that was taught by Dr. Sarderson, the Regius Professor
at Oxford. Neither did he approve of all that appeared in
Blackstone—he could not assent to the doctrine of mate pro/Libi-
tum malum in se. He would take the class-books of Maynooth
as a whole. If there was such a great objection to the princi-
ples taught at Maynooth, he should be happy to take the sense of
the House, and wonldreadily vote for a Committee of the House
of Commons for inquiry to a.certain what there was that was
defective, and he trusted the Government would support it.
There bad been a deal of casuistry employed to assail Maynooth,
but, unfortunately, casuistry did not always attain what it aimed
at. If there was evil in the class-books it was
the evil to be found in Aristophanes, and the mischief contain-
ed in the first six satires of Juvenal. Casuistry was like sur-
gery—it disclosed all it was most necessary to conceal—the
concession was laying open the inward feelings by which
human nature was actuated—that anatomy of the heart by
which the whole of its internal corruption was laid bare. But
he did not dread investigation. What he looked at were the
moral result: of education at Maynooth. and he was glad to
find that the Right Hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home
Department w. s disinclined to listen to the trash which had
issued from the lips of sophistry; for even on that most dan-
garous ground of the confessional he felt assured that the repu-
tation of Maynooth would come out honourably and unscathed.
Would any man be prepared to say—could any man take upon
himself to prove—that the confessional had been perverted to
such iniquitous uses as had been suggested in that House
( Hear, hear.) Would it he presumed to be upheld as a fact.
that the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland were so utterly, so
fearfully sunk in debauchery.—( Hear, hear.) No, the cler2y
of the people of Ireland stood far too high above sneh an impu-
tation—(Cheers)—the clergy of the people of Ireland, amidst
any phase of political and religious adversity, stood unble-
mished and unsuspected.—( Cheers.) In the performance of
their duties they sought not ease, pleasure, or convenience,
but endured pain, sickness, and death.—(Cheers ) Then,
were not the daughters, the wives, the mothers of Roman
Catholic Ireland the very essence, the very ideal of all the
domestic virtues—( Cheers)—and were not the Roman Ca-
tholic men of Ireland, with all their faults, honest, faithful,
temperate, and, with all their lamentable misfortunes and
defects, most marvellously abstinent.—( Loud cheers.) Great
were the crimes that bad been committed in Ireland ; but
how few of them were there that had not their origin in
fearful misgovernment ?—( Hear, hear.) Appalling were the
murders that stained the annals of that country, but did
they bear anything like a yraportien, either in number or in
character, to those committed in this vast metropolis?—
( Hear, hear.) And whatever might be the extent of those
crimes of agrarian ferocity that darkened the Irish people's
fame, those moot inclined to render still darker
that deep stain, should at least admit, that but for the
Roman Catholic clergy it would have been increased.
tenfold.—(Hear, hear.) In fact, there was not a Secretary
for Ireland of late years be his political feelings what they
may, who had not admitted that it was through the influence
of the Roman Catholic clergy that the people of that country
had been restrained from acts of violence that no other people
in the world, with the same provocation, could have been with-
held from.—( Hear, hear.) These were facts, indisputable
facts, upon which he relied—facts which required no eloquence
to establish—facts, which no eloquence could controvert, and
which fully justified the Right Hon. Baronet in bringing for-
ward this measure.—( Cheers.) That measure he (Mr. Sheil)
was happy to observe the Right Hon. Baronet had determined
to carry out with a courageous perseverance—(Cheers)—
and he (Mr. Sheil) bad no hesitation in saying that if the
Right Hon. Baronet persevered in this course as he had done
from the commencement, he might rest assured that he would
achieve the restoration of peace in Ireland, and establish a
system of peaceful Government in that country of a character
far more desirable than any he could ever hope to establish by
farce.—( Cheers.) Every speck that now dimmed the dazzling
horizon of that country would be removed ; peace, happiness,
and order, would spread over the land, and the Right Hon.
Baronet would be entitled to the lasting gratitude of the Irish
ps ople.—( Loud cheers. )
Mr. PLUMPTRE, amidst loud cries of " Divide, divide,"
rose, and said he would detain the House but a short time.
He differed from the Right Hou. Gentleman who had just sat
down as to the books read in Maynooth, and he called upon
the Government not to rely upon the Right Hon. Gentle-
man's statement.—(Cries of " Oh, oh.') He meant to say
that the Right Hon. Gentleman was mistaken, and he would,
upon the third reading of this Bill, which he supposed would
take place to-night—he would, upon the motion that the Bill
do pass, move for a Select Committee to inquire into this sub-
ject.—(Laughter.) He had repeatedly solicited the Govern-
ment to afford an opportunity for the thorough investigation of
this subject; but the Government had shrunk from the ordeal,
and refused the inquiry.—( Cries of " Divide.") He begged
to assure the House he would be very brief ; but he had a few
remarks to make on some observations that had fallen from the
Right Hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department,
in reference to certain expressions that had been used at
Exeter-hall. He begged to assure the House that there was a
wide distinction between love for the Roman Catholics and ab-
horrence of their religion.—(Loud cries of " Oh, oh.") He
would maintain that Ireland had not been, and would not be
pacified by such measures as this, and, therefore, in his own
name, and in the name of his Protestant constituents, he did
most solemnly abjure this measure.—( Loud cries of" Divide.")
Mr. Sergeant MURPHY said he could assure the House
that if they would bear with him for a few moments be would
not press on their time by making a speech.—( Hear.) When
he entered the House that evening he had not the slightest in-
tention of saying a word, nor would he now have risen to do so
but for the repeated personal allusions made to him by the
Hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lune. In one of that lion.
Member's observations he charged the people of Ireland with
the practice of bigotry to such an extent as to control and hamper
the free exercise of opinion by those who differed from them.
It had been said that the measures of the Government, so far
from conciliating even the members of the Nlaynooth establish.
ment, had created a spirit of persecution throughout the entire
Roman Catholic population of Ireland, both clerical and lay ;
and that assertion had been attempted to be proved, by a re-
ference to a trial where, it was urged, the system of prosely-
tism pursued by Catholics had been discovered and exposed.
It was for the purpose of defending the Irish people from that
aspersion, that he had then risen, and he would retort upon the
Hon. Member for Newcastle the charge of " proselytism " by
a similar quotation from evidence on a trial. In a college
established in a remote district of Kerry, at a place called
" Dingle," a clergyman called Gaher appeared to have been
practising this system of proselytism, but the evidence elicited
from one or two of the witnesses was worthy of attention. One
old man, who had served in the navy under Lord Rodney, de-
posed to being met by the clergyman of the parish, and solicited
to attend Church on the ground that he would get plenty of
wine there ?—(Laughter. ) And he had sworn that that con-
sideration, coupled with the prospect of getting a belly-full,
had induced him to go to Church.—( Loud laughter.)
But there was another witness to whose evidence and name he
solicited the most earnest attention of the House. The name
was especially interesting—he thought apposite at the pre-
sent juncture. A Mrs. Peebles—( Roars of laughter)—a
Mrs. Peebles—( Renewed roars of laughter from all parts of
the House)--on being questioned as to her sudden conversion
replied, " I think necessity compelled me, and I kept my
place."—(Continued laughter.) There was a system of pro-
selytism for the Member for Newcastle.—( Hear, hear.) But
one more quotation and he bad done. An old man at Kerry
was similarly visited by a very zealous proselyting minister,
under whose especial guardianship he had been taker,. He
had a horse, and that horse he had lent to the minister, on the
terms of 51. 105. a year, payable in weekly instalments—
(Laughter)—bat when he came for his money, he was told
that the hire of the horse was a nutulum pactunz.—( The
remainder of the sentence was lost in the bursts of laughter
which followed this observation.) There was a system of
proselytism for the Member of Newcastle to digest I And with
its exposure he would close his remarks, which he had merely
made, to justify the sneer with which he had met the asper-
sions cast upon his co-religionists in Ireland.—(Cheers. )
Mr. FER RAND (who was received with loud cries of " Di-
vide)—promised not to delay the House five minutes while he
offered a few observations on the conduct of the Bight Hon.
Baronet at the head of the Government. In 1E39 he found
himself in a minority in that House, but believing that the ma-
jority of the country was in his favour, he bade them fight the
battle of the Constitution in the Registration Courts. They had
done so, and had raised what they called the " Conser-
vatives" to power: they obeyed his injunctions and
bad been betrayed. Yes, the Right Hon. Baronet had
betrayed them, and leading them on into the very
heart of the enemy's camp, had won for himself the ho-
nourable cognomen of " The Marotto of Con-ervatisra." tut
he would warn the R:ght Hon. Gentleman, that as the battle
of the Constitution had been fought, and fought sue-
eessfully when the Whigs were in power, so also
would it be fought when the Conservatives were in power.
—(Derisive cheers.) As sure as there was a dissolution of
Parliament, to which the Hon. Baronet had been defied, so sure
would the traitors meet with their deserts.—(Cheers.) The
Learned Member for Dungarvon had said there was no Pro-
testant feeling in Ireland against Maynooth, and talked of the
meeting of a few gentlemen in Galway as evincing the opinion
of the great Protestant body. He had mentioned the name
of a Mr. St. George, and be (Mr. Ferrand) would also quote
a gentleman of that name. In a letter which he had

received from that gentleman the soundest principles
of Protestant opposition to the grant were enunciated.
This was the authority of a Protestant clergyman in Ireland,
and he would hope that no more would be heard in that House
about the sanction of the Irish Protestant having been given to
the grant. Why even the Roman Catholics were not
.

vernally satisfied with it, coming, as it did, from the hands of
the Conservatives. What had 51r. O'Connell said on this

matter? He had stated that the Conservatives had betrayed
the Irish people, and would deceive them still further. Let
the people only trust in him (Mr. O'Connell) and he would
give them the repeal of the union, and grants to Maynooth
would speedily follow. The Right Hon. Baronet at the head
of the Government had told the people of Ireland they should
have anything short of repeal ; and, as an earnest of his honest
intentions, he had offered the Maynooth sugar-plum.—
( Laughter.) But was the Right Hon. Gentleman more to
be trusted in than Mr. O'Connell? Mr. O'Connell had never

betrayed the Irish people, but the Right Honourable Baronet
had; and not only had he betrayed them, but he had
also seduced many Honourable Members in that Hou;e
to give their support to the proposed mea=ure, under
the belief that toey would not compromise their seats if they
so voted. He could, however, tell them a different story.
Diving the Whitsuntide recess he had been down in the north,
and, from various inquiries he had made in that quarter, he felt
satisfied that the mvjority of the constituents of the various
Members who have voted in favour of the grant wet e determined
to visit with great severity upon them the great d 'reliction
from their duty of which the, had been guilty.
Capt. LAYAi,D rose amidst loud cries of " Divide," which
continued nearly the whole time the Hon. and Gallant Gentle-
man was speaking, and he was barely audible in the gallery.
He was understood to say, in reference to a speech which had
been made yesterday in the House by the Right lion. the
Member for Dublin, that the Right lion. Gentleman had been
so long in taking leave of his former love, and expressed so
much regret at parting, that he considered a lingering affection
still remained. He did not, however, express the same love
when he bid adieu to the Right Hon. Secretary for the Home
Department, and he thought that heavy damages might be
recovered in any court of justice for the breach of
The lion. Member then quoted from the old nursery ihr;in'tnies—e.
" It is good to be merry and wise,
It is good to be honest and true,
It is good to be quit of your old love
Before you take up with a new."
He would assert that the Right Hon. Gentleman had been
guilty of gross hypocrisy, and had cheated his old friends. The
Hon. and Gallant Member thenbewrelnt on to say he would wil-
lingly give his suppot tto any I measure that was biought
forward in the House, no atter from what party it might
originally emanate. He had heard that 3000 g. had been
sidered too much for the grant to Maysooth, but in hisopircioiont;
thirty times :50,000/. m.uld not be more than sufficient to atone
to the Irish people for the wrongs that had for centuries been
done to them, especially when the gross ignorance under
which they laboured was taken into consideration.—( Hear.)
He could bear witness to the zeal and fidelity of the Irish
priesthood, and he felt sure that they would do all in their
power to pre-erve tranquillity and order. Ile hoped the Right
Hon. Gentlemen would persevere in the course he had adopted.
He saw by this morning's papers that the Right Hon. Gentle-
man the Secretary at War hail conferred the sum of WO/.
a year on thaw Catholic priests. ble hoped that such munificent