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

TO THE REV. HUGH NI'NEILE, LIVERPOOL.

Sia,—We, of the wild Western Island. owe you obligations
incalculable fir your gr;:ud discovery, recently, that the viper
was not St. Paul; and that Damascus is nut Melita. For this
transcendent effort of biographical and geographical genius
you are entitled to the immortality of Ditton arid Winston, 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. Jr is but right to inform your Piety, that in
my letter, as published in the Liverpool Mercury, Journal, Dub-
lin Evening Post, and Dublin Pilot, there is no lapsus penme"
to be found—the locus in quo not being so much as syllabled;
and thus—" pity true"—the little triumph of a little
mind has had Itttle 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 use reluctantly into the unprofitable vein of criticism,
- permit me to inquire whether by" LA PSUS PENNA.:" you mean
a slip of the pen ? If so, the information I received from a
Protestant gentlethan, who occasionally attends your fanatical
outpourings, is unquestionably true • that volt know as touch
classical Latin as Greek, and as metal Greek as Sauscrit. This
he t :Id me without reserve, in presence of several gentlemen in
LiverpOol, and he is a linguist of no common pretensions. But,
perchance, you will say that " 'senate" is good rhetorical Latin
for a pen—because the with/ may be put fur the quill, and the
quill is a good representative of the pen—and why not the
goose fur Or! 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, paulo majora, instead of
retracting, like a Christian and a geMleurian, your wanton and
scandalous accusation of forgery, you have the unblushing as-
' serance to set public patience and Christian morality at de-
fi ince bs; 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
front 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 new allies to cover your retreat. The
calumny was first circulated by Nolan, -or by some one in his
nano). Nolan has given no proof; he only refers to anonymous au-
thority. Nolan, even 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 inade yourself attorney-general in the case, and filed an ex-
officio information against me; I call upon you. therefore, puli-
ficly and solemnly, as you value vour own character, as you
value the ministry to which you belong, to come into open
court and mince' 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 are hound to ',resume my inuo-
eerie° till Inv 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,' 1 dare you to produce it. "Jubeo, cog°,
napery." If not, then you are a hawker of scandal, and a re-
tailer of calumny; and the retailer in this instauca is as hail as
the coiner himself. You refuse to meet me on the platform,
because I sun suspected of forgery; and yet you require tee to
meet Mr. M'Ghee, who is convicted of forgery. You refuse to
meet me on the platform, because you suspect me of fiogery ; but
You are willing to meet me on paper. although you suspect use of
forgery—you are fond of fighting, fond of hearing your cannon
roar, if not at a foolish, certainly eta very soft, distant e. You
tell me " Mr. M'Ghee is ready." Ready to do what ? Speak
out; man—be explicit—for I am ready also—ready to meet you
both, for 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 nem()
Sobeiris—contra Scriptnram nemo Christianus, contra
uemo pacilicus 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 face to face I offer to maintain them. Is Mr.
M`Ghee ready?—so am I. Is Mr. M'Neile ready ?—so am 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 he 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. M'Ghee shall have
the option of choosing three catholic gentlemen, to whose can-
dour and impartiality lam equally willing to submit. Further,
unless yet: retract the charge of forgery in the meantime, you
shall then and these he 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 be one
of scathing retaliation. When ehristian patience ceases to be
a virtue, the let ialionis cannot be a crime; iu 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 he shaken by insinuation. nor am I
to be silenced by menaee or abuse. T. M AGUI liE.
Ballinamore, October '2B, 1836.