The Sun.
London, England, 1827-06-23 00:00:00

SEPARATE MEETING OF CATI4OLICS.

DTSBLL,, 20.
(rapt OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
Mr. KaLLY, of Acton, having been called to the Chair,
\lr. O'Gorman, as Secretary, read the minutes of the last
Meeting. Inquiry was then made whether any Address to
,zir Patrick Bellew bad been prepared; and Mr. O'Connell
toil Mr. Sheil not being present,
Mr. LAwt.rss rose, and informed the Chairman that be
had endeavoured to perform his duty to the best of his abi-
ity, by drawing up a sketch of such an Address as it was
ilia opinion ought to be presented to Sir Patrick with the
'east possible delay. He would, for his own part, have
preferred the more open way of coming before the Legisla-
ure with a petition for the removal of Lord Manners ; but,
is the form of addressing Sir P. Bellew had been agreed
opon at the last Meeting, he had considered it his duty to
prepare an Address, which he now took the liberty of sub-
mitting to the Committee. Mr. L. proceeded to read the
Address, in which he strongly inveighed against the dicta-
torial authority assumed by the Lord Chancellor, and de-
fended the Catholic Aisociation against the calumnies and
insinuations brought forward against it. He described the
Association as consisting of the Catholic Nobility, Clergy,

And Gentry of Ireland—it body of men too respectable for
Lord Manners to have it in his power to injure ; and, in
,bort, a body to which they congratulated Sir Patrick
Bellew upon his having the honour to belong. Having
iead the Address, Mr. Lawless expressed his regret that
'Jr. O'Connell should have been absent ; but declared his
..onviction that, however superior in point of elegance that
Gentleman's address might have been to his (Ur. Law
s's), the one now proposed would not be found to be ont...
:article inferior in spirit.
After a desultory conversation, in which Messrs. Kelly,
Lawless, O'Gorman, Steele, and Mr. O'Connell joined, the
Address was referred to the Committee for revision, and a
'notion made that the present Meeting adjourn till Saturday
the 30th inst.

This motion having been carried, an impression seemed
t,-) be received that the business of the day was concluded,
.nd a great proportion of the gentlemen present, including
the greater part of the Reporters, withdrew.
Mr. O'GoRMAN Marrox, reminded by tbe Meeting of
he promise given then on Wednesday, that /fa would favour
ahem with the natural history of that unclean animal the
';honeen' many about to retire resumed their seats, and
'qr. M. addressed them to nearly the' foll4ing-effect*:
When, on Wednesday last, I rose to second the motion of

,ay friend (Mr. Steele), I did make use of .an epithet, in
;peaking of a portion of the Irish }Magistracy, which I am
now desirous of explaining. By some chance a notion has
found its way into the public prints that,-.by the epithet of
Shoneene, it was my intention to designate the whole of
Eke Magistrates of the County of Clart;• nothing was ever
rlirther from my intentions. There are among the Magis-
;ratcs of that county gentlemen of whose friendship I am
9roed—gentlemen distinguished for the enlightened libe-
rality of their political principles ; as a proof of which I
,hall only mention, that it was among the Protestant Ma-
-I:istrates of that county that a petition to Parliament oni-
:;inated during the present Session, praying for an eaten-
-ion of religious liberty to their oppressed Catholic fellow-
.!ountrymen. I am, however, sorry to add (what, on a for-
tier occasion, I took an opportunity of declaring in Eug-
!and, and subsequently in a letter to Lord Manners), that

!here are among them many with whom it would be de-
grading for a gentleman to associate. A considerable part
f this evil I attribute to the circumstance that the Irish
Magistracy are in close connection with the local armed
uody of men whom, as now constituted, I COD-
,ider a national bane, and to whom I am sincerely sorry to
ind that the respectable Nobleman. at the head of this coun-
try is so strongly wedded. Mr. Mahon proceeded to men-
tion several mean tricks attempted by the Orange Squireens
~f his native county, which, by his personal exertions, be
had had the good fortune to frustrate; to which he &Uri-
4uted the rancour which those gentlemen appeared in the
sequel to have conceived against him ; and detailed the fol-
lowing stratagem, by which it was attempted to procure his
expulsion from the Bench :—I had been to Waterford, to
meet an assembly held there ; and, on my arrival in Dublin,
was informed that a meeting of Magistrates had taken place
in my county, under the immediate sanction of Govern-
ment; that accusations of a serious nature had been there

odged against me ; and that I was threatened with results
,o me tremendous. I procured an immediate inter-.
view with Mr. Goulburn, from whom I demanded an. ex-
planation, and was assured by him that no such meeting had
been held with the consent or sanction ofhis Majesty's Govern-
ment, or of any person connected with Government,' and
that no accusation whatever had • been lodged against me.
I began to fear that my correspondent must have deceived
ne, and by way of apology for my intrusion, took out my
friend's letter, read the passage, and, as I was leaving the
room, asked him whether he had received any communica-
tion from the county of Clare, in which my name was
mentioned. At this question be started, and with symp-
toms of evident confusion admitted that be had received a
qtatement, but that it was of a nature altogether beneath
my consideration. By a series of questions I, however,
Ascertained from him that this statement had been returned
to the country to be verified on affidavit, and en having
been so verified, had been forwarded to the Lord Lieute-
nant. I expressed some surprise at his having thought it
worth while to occupy the attention of the Viceroy with a
statement, which he did not consider as deserving the con-
sideration of the individual principally concerned;. he an-
swered, that it was his duty to forward every paper of much
.t nature. I now rose to make my bow, when suddenly I
heard a noise, as if some cat or domestic puppy had been
concealed in the room. On turning round to ascertain
whence this noise proceeded, I perceived a large screen di-
rectly behind me, and the Secretary's countenance imme-
'lately betrayed embarrassment, considerably greater than
I could have thought it possible, for any man so long a,
oustomed to the intrigues of public life to have betrayed.
%Ir. Mahon next detailed the history of this secret state..
:vent, which had been described by Mr. Goulburn as so
•rximpartant, but which be (Mr. Mahon) afterwards
Ascertainedfrom Mr. Lockwood, the Secretary of the Lord
Chancellor, to he of a most serious nature. It contained
charges which, if true, would not only have justified his
,expulsion from the Bench, but would have made it more-
,wer an imperative duty on the Attorney-General to have
prosecuted him. The statement was in the form of an
Affidavit, sworn by a jailor of the name of Thomas Darcy,
.1 man of infamous character, against whom a true bill
had been fotind, accusing him of perjury and forgery, but
who, through some occult influence, bad never been
brought to trial, but had simply been removed from one
Government situation to another. This was supported by
an affidavit sworn privately before a Magistrate by a half-
pay offiber, now employed as Chief Constable of Police, of
the name of Westrop Peard Watkins, containing minute
details of a conversation which had taken place six weeks
previously between him (Mr. Mahon) and this very Wat-
kins. Mr. Mahon then inveighed strongly against the in-
famous conduct of Watkins in thus betraying a private con.,
venation, although that conversation contained only such
sentiments as he had never hesitated to put forward in
public, and did not hesitate to repeat the epithet applied
to them by Mr. Grattan, that the Irish police were a mere
body of political spies, and dwelt particularly on what he
described .as cowardly prevarication on the part of Mr.
Goulburn, in attempting to deceive him. Lord Manners,
?)oti•ever, did not proceed on the statement till he haul in-
quired a little into its private history, which inquiry ter-
minated in the entire discomii.ture of the Shoneen con-
spiracy.

Mr. O'CONNELL, who had entered the room during the
latter part of Mr. Mahon's addristi, apologized for his late
appearance, having been detained by professional duties.
He then spoke at some length in favour of a coalition with
the Protestant Dissenters, and recommended that in (owe
:heir poitions should cease to pray for Catholic Emancip-
tion, but should come forward upon the broad basis of uni-
versal civil and religious liberty. No time ought to he
lost, a sufficient concession had already been made to the
present Ministry, and most assuredly he would never make
A similar concession to any future Ministry : no, not filQ
Another hour! He would recall to tlieir memory tht
;Teat saying of the now almost forgotten Dr. Drenner,
when the Attorney-General said be had been in jail only
two hours, " I have been in prison," said Dreamer, " one
hundred and twenty minutes !" He (O'Connell) would in
the same way urge to them that servitude counted by mi-
nutes, and that that man would he unworthy of liberty
who could for a moment endure slavery with patience.
lie concluded by moving that an aggregate meeting he
called for the 6th of Jul,y to take into consideration the
most efficacious means of ~,ecuring civil and religious liberty
to themselves and their dissenting fellow-countrymen.
Mr. LAWLESS had never heard a motion in this asser,,_
hly which he more cheerfully supported ; the henal) basis
of universal civil and religious liberty was the only one
upon which he ever wished the question $•() be placed.
Wkile the Catholics trusted to Kings and Parliaments,
they were leaning upon reeds ; but a splendid coalition,
such as now recommended, would unite no less than
14,000,000 of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom.
Their enemies might endeavour to prevent such a coalition,
hut he should be glad to sec any authority that would dare
oppose it,

The .Duke of PORTLAND, the-Earl of HAR-
mowhY, the .Efirl of CARLISLE, Viscount DUDLEY, Vis-
count Gonscuctr, Viscount PAL/UE*IEOW, and Mr. Ms-
If-