The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-11-04 00:00:00

TO THE REV. HUGH M'NEILE, LIVERPOOL,

SIR, —We, of the wild Western Island, owe you obligations
incalculable for your grand discovery, recently, that the viper
was not St. Paul; and that Damascus is not Melita. For this
transcendent effort of biographical and geographical genius
you are entitled to the immortality of Ditton and \Merton, with
which they were crowned by Dean Swift, for their equally
brilliant discovery of the longitude; and truly, sir, I must,
henceforth, endeavour to persuade myself that I have been
born under the influence of some auspicious constellation;
when a man of your superhuman Scriptural research has mo-
destly declined a viva rocs discussion with an ignorance so
shallow as myself. It is but right to inform your Piety, that in
my letter, as published in the Liverpool Mercury, Journal, Dub-
lin Evening l'ost, and Dublin Pilot, there is no " lapsus pentue"
to be found—the locus in quo not being so much as syllable(' ;
and thus—" pity 'tis 'tis true"—the little triumph of a little
mind has had little time for exultation. My amanuensis, in all
the copies, substituted the word " perjury" for the original
word " forgery;" and of this oversight I wonder that your can-
dour did not take a similar advantage. But, sir, since you
have led me reluctantly into the unprofitable vein of criticism,
permit me to inquire whether by" LAPSCI PENNtE" you mean
a slip of the pen ? If so, the information I received from a
Protestant gentleman, who occasionally attends your fanatical
outpourings, is un7uestionably true; that sou know as much
classical Latin as Greek, and as much Greek as Sanscrit. This
ho told me without reserve, in presence of several gentlemen in
Liverpool, and he is a linguist of no common pretensions. But,
perchance, vuu will say that "pennce" is good rhetorical Latin
for a pen—because the winq may be put for the quill, and the
quill is a good representative of the pen—and why not the
goose for the wing ? and, then, by a logical induction, the slip
of a goose and the slip of a pen will be quite quid unum et idem.
And this is the creature who thinks, by one sneering note of ad-
miration, to smile away Dr. Brown's solid claims to a know-
ledge of scripture and 'Hebrew. But, penile majora, instead of
retracting, like a Christian and a gentleman, your wanton and
scandalous accusation of forgery, you have the unblushing as-
surance to set public patience and Christian morality at de-
thrice by daring to repeat it. This charge was at first your
only excuse for not meeting me in oral controversy. The whole
substance of the charge is this : that I wrote, or caused to be
written, letters, in the names of Protestants, containing objec-
tions against my own creed, for the purpose of answering them
from the pulpit during my lent sermons in Dublin. Now, air,
I solemnly declare on the word of a man, and the faith of a
Christian, that the charge is a malignant, prepense, concocted
falsehood ; and I believe, in my conscience, originally fabri-
cated by Nolan and his now allies to cover your retreat. The
calumny was first circulated by Nolan, or by some one in his
name. Nolan has given no proof; he only refers to anynymous au-
thority. Nolan, oven if willing, is incapable of wounding my cha-
racter. But you, self-sanctified sir, have made the charge your
own—you have given it currency by giving it importance—you
.have made yourself attorney-general in the case, and filed an ex-
4icio information against use; I call upon you. therefore, pub-
licly and solemnly, as you value your own character, as you
value the ministry to which you belong, to come into open
court and cancel the indictment. or to sustain it by evidence,
written, oral, or circumstantial. By the laws of your own coun-
try and of your own church you arc bound to presume my inno-
cence till my guilt be fairly established. Either, then, you
have proof of my guilt, or you have not. If you have, produce
it—l court, I challenge, I dare you to produce it. "Jubeo, cogo,
impero." If not, then you are a hawker of scandal, and a re-
tailer of calumny; and the retailer in this instance is as bad as
the coiner himself. You refuse to meet me on the platform,
because I am suspected of forgery; and yet you require me to
meet Mr. M‘Ghee, who is convicted of forgery. You refuse to
meet me on the platform, because you suspect me of jitrgery; but
you are willing to meet me on paper, although you suspect. me of
forgery—you are fond of fighting, fund of hearing your cannon
roar, if nut at a foolish, certainly et a very sale, distance. You
tell me " Mr. MAllhee is ready." Beady to do what ? Speak
out, man—be explicit—for 1 ens ready also—ready to meet you
both, fur you have both sinned against truth; you, by misstat-
ing our doctrine and misrepresenting our church, heedless of
St. Augustine's admonitory maxim, "Contra rationem nemo
Sol,ciris—contra Scripturam nemo Christianus, contra Eccle-
senn nemo paciticue Sanscrit;" he, by wilfully suppressing the
explanatory portion of Peter Dens' Chapter on Heresy, which
would have neutralized the virus of his poisonous declamation,
and have unmasked the knavery and hypocrisy of the great
political plot. These are tangible charges—they are serious
charges, and free to face I offer to maintain them. Is Mr.
M‘Gbee ready ?—so am I. Is Mr. M`Neile ready ?—so aria I.
I shall encounter you doubly or singly; not upon paper alone,
but where we can, sir, hear, correct, argue, and explain. And
to satisfy my English friends that in this offer there is no eva-
sion intended by me, I am ready, should you or ho assent, to
submit all the conditions and preliminaries of our meeting to
any one of three protestant rectors whom I shall name, they
being of the Church of England, and men of honour, integrity,
and rank. On the other hand, you or Mr. l'al‘Ghee shall have
the option of choosing three catholic gentlemen, to whose can-
dour and impartiality lam equally willing to submit. Further,
unless you retract the charge of forgery in the meautime, you
shall then and there be called upon to prove, and I to disprove,
the discreditable artifice. Forgery is a word which you and
yours should for ever blush to repeat. Prudence would prompt
you to shun it as a fetter fir your feet, a rope for your neck,
and a servile ring for your nose.
This is a letter of gentle remonstrance; my next shall he one
of scathing retaliation. When christian patience ceases to be
a virtue, the lex 'alio/a:cannot be a crime; in us it has evidently
ceased to be a virtue, since its observance towards you and your
political crusading accomplices has only served to multiply ag-
gression and encourage the most insulting calumnies. Nolan
may be hired to slander, the Liverpool Mail to bully and revile;
but public opinion is not to be shaken by insinuation, nor ens 1
to be silenced by menace or abuse. T. MAGUIRE.
Ballinamore, October 28, 1836.

REV. J. L. NOLAN.-REV. T. MAGUIRE.

(FROM TOR DURI.IN EVENING MAIL.)

The letter of the Rev. J. L. Nolan is addressed to the Rev.
Thomas Maguire. It denies, in indignant language, the asser-
tion of the latter, that Mr. Nolan had been a degraded or dis-
graced priest. The fact is notoriously otherwise, as Mr. Nolan,
when he first entertained conscientious doubts as to the doc-
trines of the Church of Rome, communicated his scruples to his
bishop; and in presence of a third person, discussed the points
upon which such doubts had arisen ; and no satisfactory an-
swers being given to the questions put, Mr. Nolan had the moral
courage to avow his conviction of the errors of that creed in
which he had been educated; and relinquishing great worldly
prospects—a valuable parish, and future and certain promotion
in his church, he abandoned all for conscience sake, and down
to the present moment, after a probationary term of some years
is contented with the moderate income accruing from au hum-
ble curacy.

I he writer having ably and unanswerably defended himself
from the unfounded and calumnious charge made against him,
proceeds in his turn to accuse Mr. Maguire of the most foul and
disreputable course adopted by him in the progress of his dis-
cussion with Mr. Pope—natnely, of having read and relied upon
forged and fictitious documents from German and other authors,
which he produced and prevailed upon Mr. Pope to admit as
authorities. This is an accusation of so grave an.l serious a
character, so pregnant with important results, that we refrain
from publishing Al r. Nolan's letter fur the present, recommend-
ing that gentleman to lay his charge, and the evidence by which
he is prepared to sustain it, before some clerical friends, who
will doubtless bring the matter before the public in a more so-
lemn form than it is capable of assuming in the shape of alnere
letter, written by an aggrieved and much-injured individual.