was unwilling to publish to the world a passage, "which might serve to the justification of one, "whom he meant to accuse."

4. Is it not favourable to the Catholics, that this great unfairness in the legal proceedings against them has been discovered?

But what avails testimony in favour of Catholics? Having seen both the testimony of Winter and the testimony of Guy Fawkes, You repeat the charge!!!

5.-Did not justice require of You to mention, that as soon as the conspiracy became known, the Catholics universally expressed their horror at it? That Blackwell, the Catholic arch-priest, and the other heads of the English Catholic Church, immediately circulated a pastoral letter, in which they called it "detestable and damnable," and assured the Catholics, that "the Pope had always con"demned such unlawful practices ?" That the Catholics presented an address to the king; another to both houses of parliament; a third to Cecil, the secretary; declaring in each their abhorrence of the plot, asserting their innocence, and urging inquiry; that the arch-priest received a brief from the Pope reprobating the plot, and published it. All this is mentioned in my Historical Memoirs, and in my sixteenth letter to Dr. Southey; yet You conceal it all. Dodd also mentions,-but this,

* Hist. Men. Vol. ii. p. 182; and see Collier, p. 670, on the Oath of Allegiance, 8vo. 1608.

perhaps, You did not know,--that " Pope Paul V. "addressed a letter to James, in which he ex"pressed the strongest condemnation of the gunpowder conspiracy." Did not Father Persons,* who wrote at the time, apply to it the harshest terms of condemnation? Did not Dr. Challoner,† the oracle, in his time, of the English Catholics, call it a detestable conspiracy? Does not Dr. Milner tell Dr. Sturges, that it is impossible for the doctor to detest it more than he does?

What

ever You knew of these facts, surely justice called on You to mention; Finally,-Did not every feeling of honour require You to mention, that a single instance cannot be produced, in which a Roman Catholic has attempted to defend it; or in which, if he has mentioned it, he has not spoken of it with execration? You yourself know that it is condemned, abominated and abhorred by Catholics as much as Protestants :-all this You know; but nothing of it You mention. No ignorant person will rise from the perusal of this part of Your work, without believing, that the principles which induced the gunpowder conspirators to engage in their diabolical designs, have been for centuries, and are at this time, the actual principles of the Catholic religion, and would lead the present Catholics, if not repressed by the hand of power, into similar enormities.

* Judgment of an Englishmen, &c. &c. &c.

+ Memoirs of Missionary Priests, Vol. II. p. 446. Letters to a Prebendary, Letter IV.

Is this to be endured? Is it to be borne, that the Roman Catholics, who possess some of the noblest blood in the country, who fill every condition of life with honour and integrity, to whose loyalty, the late and the present king, and the legislature, have paid the amplest tribute of praise, and whose affection it is so much the interest and the wish of Government to conciliate, should be thus maligned?

XVI. 6.

Examples of similar Attempts of Protestants against Catholic Princes.

Permit me to transcribe, from Doctor Milner's seventh letter, what he says upon the subject to which I now call your attention.

"I have one more observation to make on this subject. You, no less than the writers whom you quote, exhaust your eloquence in representing the crime of those wretched dupes of "Cecil's villainy,* as a wickedness unexampled, as well as unequalled in history. It is impossible, Sir, for you to detest it more than I "do; but when you speak of it as a new and "unheard of species of guilt, you pay a compli "ment to the inventive genius of its contriver,

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In the preceding section of this letter, I have absolutely acquitted Cecil from the charge of being the contriver of the plot, and have stated my reason for it at length.

† P. 81.

"whether that were Cecil or Catesby, to which "he is really not entitled. For, Sir, did you

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never hear of the preceding conspiracy of the "Protestants in the Netherlands, to blow up the "Prince of Parma, governor of these countries, "with all the nobility and magistrates belonging "to them, at a solemn procession, in the city of Antwerp?* If you have not heard of this, you cannot at least be ignorant that a Catholic king of Scotland, the father of the very sovereign against whom the treason in question was devised, king Henry Darnley, was actually "blown up, and destroyed, with all his servants "and attendants, by means of a mine stored "with gunpowder, as he lay sick at his house of Kirk-a-field; and that the Protestant Earls of Murray, Morton, Bothwell, Lethington, Sir "Archibald Douglas, Sir James Balfour, &c. "were the contrivers and perpetrators of this

villainy, not without the privity and consent of "Lord Burghley, the Earl of Salisbury's father, "and of Elizabeth herself. † The chief difference "between this original and too successful gun

* Michael ab Isselt. de Bell. Belg.

"+Whittaker's Vindication, Vol. III. p. 255.-This author, "with his usual candour and zeal for truth, admits that the "Gunpowder Plot in England was the imitation and offspring "of that in Scotland; and he applies to them these lines of Virgil,

"Crudelis muter magis, au puer improbus ille ?

Improbus ille peur, crudelis tu quoque mater.”

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"powder plot in Scotland, and its bungling imi"tation here in England, is, that the Protestants "who devised and executed the former, were the "heads and founders of the Reformation in that "country; whereas the Catholics who were con"cerned in the latter, were the disgrace and outcast of their religion in this. Having exhibited "this enlarged and faithful view of the powder "plot, I may be permitted to ask, where is the "charity, nay, where is the justice, of those acri"monious sermons and services, and of those "tumultuous rejoicings, which have been an"nually made and directed against the Catholic body on that account for above two hundred "years?

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It is undoubtedly proper to return

"In the first collect of the service for the 5th November, "the Almighty is thanked for the deliverance of King "James I. &c. from Popish treachery, thereby transferring "the crime of thirteen self-convicted wretches to the whole "church of which they were the disgrace. In the last prayer, "the Catholics are indiscriminately called cruel and bloodthirsty enemies. I once had occasion to hear one of these "annual phillippics against Catholics from the pulpit in Win"chester cathedral. Having afterwards complained of the "calumnies and misrepresentations contained in it, a worthy "literary character (Dr. Wharton) expressed his surprize "that I should be dissatisfied with the discourse, saying, "that it was a very good fifth of November sermon. My answer was: so then I find that the Catholics, like Shrove"tide poultry, are once a year fair game for every one who "chooses to pelt at; and I am left to understand, that what "is false every other day in the year, is true on the fifth of "November."