The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-14 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 1845.

An important letter from Dr. CNOLLY, the Catholic
Archbishop of Armagh, to Mr. O'CONNELL will be
found in another part of The Sun of this day. It
seems that some short time ago the Hon. and Learned
Member for Kilkenny publicly asserted that a docu-
ment sent from the Propaganda of Rome to Dr.
CROLLT, on the subject of a system of popular agita-
tion that had been carried on in Ireland by certain
Catholic ecclesiastics, was not canonical. In answer
to this assertion of Mr. O'CONNELL, the Most Rev.
Doctor expressly states, " allow me to assure
you that in the year 1839 I received from
the Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda a
communication in which I was directed to admo-
nish some political ecclesiastics who had made
at public meetings such violent speeches as were not i
congenial to the mild spirit of their sacred ministry.
In obedience to the injunction of the Holy See, I en-
deavoured to reclaim these misguided clergymen, but
as my fraternal admonitions did not produce the de-

sired effect, his HOLINESS directed the Sacred Congre-
gation to send me another letter on the same subject, in
order that I should more efficaciously admonish such
priests or prelates as I might find taking a prominent
and imprudent part in political proceedings. I
considered it my duty to lay this docu-
ment before the assembled prelates at our
last general meeting in Dublin, who not only
acknowledged it to be authentic and canonical, but to
be a document of such importance that they entered
it on their minutes, and unanimously resolved that
they would regulate their conduct according to its
injunctions, and use their influence with the clergy in
their respective dioceses, and prevail on them to follow
its salutary instructions." This letter of Dr. CROLLY
to Mr. O'CONNELL is, at the present crisis, a
most important one, and cannot fail to produce
immediate results of moment in Ireland. It
is a direct and by no means a sparing rebuke
of all those Catholic bishops and priests who distin-
guished themselves a few years since by the prominent
part which they took in the agitation for a repeal of
the union, when that question interested the Irish
masses more deeply than appears to be the case at
present. They are here assured through the medium
of the Propaganda, that the turbulent game which
they then played, was " imprudent," and " not con-
genial to the mild spirit of their sacred ministry ;"
and they are emphatically warned by the
`` Sacred Congregation," by the express com-
mand of his Holiness the Pore, to desist
from such agitation for the future. in order to
render this rebuke more effectual, the Catholic pre-
lates at their last general meeting in Dublin unani-
mously resolved that they would use their influence
with the clergy in their respective dioceses to prevail
on them to forego all further agitation. Here, then,
is a strong blow levelled at the repeal crotchet,—the
most severe, in fact, that that measure has vet
sustained. Of course the majority of the Irish
Catholic ecclesiastics will take the emphatic warn-
ing sent them express from Rome, and thus
we shall have a vast amount of moral force
withdrawn from the side of repeal. Hitherto,
the priests have been among the most prominent and
successful agitators of that crazy measure, but hence-
forth they will perforce retire into the hack-ground,
and Mr. O'CONNELL and the Repeal Association will
be left "alone in their glory." It is evident from
circumstances that have recently transpired, that the
unity of action which has so long existed among the
Irish Catholics is well nigh gone, and that the more
intelligent among the upper and middle classes of
that party are about to separate altogether from
the more democratic and inflammable members.
When once this separation is fully accomplished—and
events are hastening it—Mr. O'CoNNELL's influence
over his countrymen will be diminished to no incon-
siderable extent; and as fur repeal, the chances of
its success will be ten times more remote than ever.
We are not sorry for this ; for the agitation of such
an impracticable question for so many years succes-
sively, has done infinite mischief to Ireland, by un-
settling men's minds—keeping one party in a constant
state of apprehension, and the other in as constant a
state of fretfulness and exacerbation.

If we recur, often, to the aspect of our relations
with the United States and to British colonial ques-
tions, it is not only on account of our deep sense of
their general importance, but because they are be-
coming, with every post, as it were, of more impres-
sive
interest.
We lately announced, on the authority ofadvices from
New York, that " the Americans in the Oregon terri-
tory have formed themselves a government, elected
executive and legislative officers, and established
courts of justice." It is in this, or some such man-
ner, we have no doubt, that the "settlement" of the
Oregon question will be precipitated ; and if it be, its
results must tend, inevitably, either to dishonourable
concessions on our part, or to a repression, of the
most hostile character, of the attempts at Ame-
rican occupation of which these proceedings, if truly
stated, are but the forerunners. The tardy di-
plomacy of the old Court of Spain, under the LERMAS
and the D'OLIVEREZ', was surely not more halting in
its progress, in the early part of the sixteenth cen-
tury, than that of our Foreign and Colonial De-
partments apparently is in the nineteenth century.
Why has nothing been done in the shape of some
distinct attempt to adjust this Oregon question, since
it so largely occupied the public attention in the
spring of last year ? Our Government, as we re-
marked a few days ago, seem to labour under a spe-
cies of mania for unsettled or open questions. Be they
boundary line—right of search—construction of treaty
—or territorial occupation disputes—the one great
maxim in Downing-street seems to be, "Leave them
all to take their chance. It will be time enough for us to
go into the merits when the matters are forcibly pressed
upon us for our immediate examination and defini-
tive settlement, either by a violent action from with-
out, or by the recorded opinions of Parliament from
within." That does not seem to be a received axiom
in our s 3 stem of diplomacy which is a practical truth
in the working out of these affairs—namely, that
this country, in nine cases out of ten, is a sufferer
by its delay in meeting and closing questions of dis-
puted principles. Our reclamations are always too
late. The aggressions of which we complain have
always been abruptly, if not unexpectedly committed.
Pretensions are set up against, say our national sove-
reignty over a certain district. We hold our title to
be so good, that we seem to think it would be a
stigma upon its legitimacy to defend it. America,
France, or Russia, as the case may be, takes advan-
tage of this neglect, by making a second move in
advance on the board, in the shape of some preposterous
extension of the original pretension. America has
done this, in more than one instance, with the avowed
and bargain-driving purpose of leaving herself suffi-
cient margin, in the event of failing in her second, to
carry her first set of demands. By the time the
American Government have acted upon President
TYLER'S significant suggestion of providing a chain
of military forts to the Oregon territory for the re-
freshment and protection of emigrating citizens of
the United States, ;we shall be beginning to put
ourselves on the alert. It is notorious that the fur
trade of that region, and the occupation of the hunt-
ing-grounds about the mouth of the Columbia River,
are becoming of hourly augmented importance since
our new and improved relations with the markets of
China. Is it meant to abandon this lucrative peltry
trade—(if the questions of possessory title and our
national honour are really to go for nothing)—to the
Americans, without an effort to accelerate the official
machinery of Downing-street ? For our own parts,
we confess with pain that both on this matter, and on
that of the annexation of Texas, we regret profoundly
to observe, in the House of Representatives, the pre-
valence among a majority of its Members of a spirit
towards England which cannot be mistaken. This
does not seem to be limited to simple hostility. There
is a sustained effort to do things in the way which
may be most offensive to the feelings and the dignity
of the English nation. This is short-sighted policy,
indeed, on the part of a somewhat over-shrewd
and under-scrupulous political assembly. If they
foment this spirit, until from the spark which is now
discernible it kindle into a flame, the United States
must inevitably be the real sufferers by the conflagra-
tion. We will not allude to a case of active hosti-
lities, though it is not gravely to be assumed that the
most outrageous insanity of Tylerism would commit
the States to such a suicidal trial of strength with
Great Britain. But we will put the hypothesis of a
reaction on American produce, trade, and society.
Two articles of the intelligence we have so lately
published have a bearing on this view of the matter,
too illustrative to need much of commentary from
us. One of these is from Brown's county, in Ohio;
the other from the Cape of Good Hope. The one
regards the terrible insecurity of all social order and
institutions under Governments which tolerate negro
slavery; the other demonstrates the precarious con-
tinuance
of that staple trade to the United States,
through which she at present derives so vast a pro-
portion of her commercial wealth and prosperity
from Great Britain, that staple being raised by negro
slaves. Both of the articles we advert to have this
bearing in common ; they show that it is at any time
in the power of this country to effect the reaction we
speak of on American interests, whenever the dis-
position of the American Government or people to
perpetrate such acts of territorial aggression and
aggrandisement shall have developed itself in overt
acts, the hostile tendency of which we shall find our-
selves no longer able to permit, or to overlook. In
the course of the sanguinary affrays between some
ruffians, slave-holders from Kentucky, and "negro