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disunion converts the very balm of the bowl into poison, commissioning its vile and harpy offspring, to turn even our festivity into famine. My client was at this dinner; it was not to be endured that a Catholic should pollute with his presence the civic festivities of the loyal Londonderry! such an intrusion, even the acknowledged sanctity of his character could not excuse; it became necessary to insult him. There is a toast, which, perhaps, few in this united country are in the habit of hearing, but it is the invariable watchword of the Orange orgies; it is briefly entitled "The glorious, pious, and immortal memory of the great and good King William." I have no doubt the simplicity of your understandings is puzzled how to discover any offence in the commemoration of the Revolution Hero. The loyalists of Derry are more wise in their generation. There, when some Bacchanalian bigots wish to avert the intrusive visitations of their own memory, they commence by violating the memory of King William.* Those who happen to have shoes or silver in their fraternity-no very usual occurrence-thank His Ma

* This loyal toast, handed down by Orange tradition, is literally as follows,-we give it for the edification of the sister island.

"The glorious, pious, and immortal memory of the great and good King William, who saved us from Pope and Popery, James and slavery, brass money and wooden shoes; here is bad luck to the Pope, and a hempen rope to all Papists"

It is drank kneeling, if they cannot stand, nine times nine, amid various mysteries which none but the elect can comprehend.

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jesty that the shoes are not wooden, and that the silver is not brass, a commodity, by the bye, of which any legacy would have been quite superfluous. The Pope comes in for a pious benediction; and the toast concludes with a patriotic wish, for all his persuasion, by the consummation of which, there can be no doubt, the hempen manufactures of this country would experience a very considerable consumption. Such, Gentlemen, is the enlightened, and liberal, and social sentiment of which the first sentence, all that is usually given, forms the suggestion. I must not omit that it is generally taken standing, always providing it be in the power of the company. This toast was pointedly given to insult Mr. O'Mullan. Naturally averse to any altercation, his most obvious course was to quit the company, and this he did immediately. He was, however, as immediately recalled by an intimation, that the Catholic question, and might its claims be considered justly and liberally, had been toasted as a peace-offering by Sir George Hill, the City Recorder. My client had no gall in his disposition; he at once clasped to his heart the friendly overture, and in such phrase as his simplicity supplied, poured forth the gratitude of that heart to the liberal Recorder. Poor O'Mullan had the wisdom to imagine that the politician's compliment was the man's conviction, and that a table toast was the certain prelude to a parliamentary suffrage. Despising all experience, he applied the adage, Calum non animum mutant qui trans

mare currunt, to the Irish patriot. I need not paint to you the consternation of Sir George, at so unusual and so unparliamentary a construction. He indignantly disclaimed the intention imputed to him, denied and deprecated the unfashionable inference, and acting on the broad scale of an impartial policy, gave to one party the weight of his vote, and to the other, the (no doubt in his opinion) equally valuable acquisition of his eloquence;-by the way, no unusual compromise amongst modern politi

cians.

The proceedings of this dinner soon became public. Sir George, you may be sure, was little in love with his notoriety. However, Gentlemen, the sufferings of the powerful are seldom without sympathy; if they receive not the solace of the disinterested and the sincere, they are at least sure to find a substitute in the miserable professions of an interested hypocrisy. Who could imagine, that Sir George, of all men, was to drink from the spring of Catholic consolation? yet so it happened. Two men of that communion had the hardihood, and the servility, to frame an address to him, reflecting upon the pastor, who was its pride, and its ornament. This address, with the most obnoxious commentaries, was instantly published by the Derry Journalist, who, from that hour, down to the period of his ruin, has never ceased to persecute my client, with all that the most deliberate falsehood could invent, and all that the most infuriate bigotry could perpetrate. This Journal, I may as well now describe to you;

it is one of the numerous publications which the misfortunes of this unhappy land have generated, and which has grown into considerable affluence by the sad contributions of the public calamity. There is not a provincial village in Ireland, which some such official fiend does not infest, fabricating a gazette of fraud and falsehood, upon all who presume to advocate her interests, or uphold the ancient religion of her people ;-the worst foes of government, under pretence of giving it assistance; the deadliest enemies to the Irish name, under the mockery of supporting its character; the most licentious, irreligious, illiterate banditti, that ever polluted the fair fields of literature, under the spoliated banner of the press. Bloated with the public spoil, and blooded in the chase of character, no abilities can arrest, no piety can awe; no misfortune affect, no benevolence conciliate them; the reputation of the living, and the memory of the dead, are equally plundered in their desolating progress; even the awful sepulchre affords not an asylum to their selected victim. HUMAN HYENAS! they will rush into the sacred receptacle of death, gorging their ravenous and brutal rapine, amid the memorials of our last infirmity! Such is a too true picture of what I hope unauthorizedly misnames itself the ministerial press of Ireland. Amid that

polluted press, it is for you to say, whether The Londonderry Journal stands on an infamous elevation. When this address was published in the name of the Catholics, that calumniated body, as

was naturally to be expected, became universally indignant.

You may remember, Gentlemen, amongst the many expedients resorted to by Ireland, for the recovery of her rights, after she had knelt session after session at the bar of the legislature, covered with the wounds of glory, and praying redemption from the chains that rewarded them;-you may remember, I say, amongst many vain expedients of supplication and remonstrance, her Catholic population delegated a board to consult on their affairs, and forward their petition. Of that body, fashionable as the topic has now become, far be it from me to speak with disrespect. It contained much talent, much integrity; and it exhibited what must ever be to me an interesting spectacle, a great body of my fellow-men, and fellow-christians, claiming admission into that constitution which their ancestors had achieved by their valour, and to which they were entitled as their inheritance. This is no time, this is no place for the discussion of that question; but since it does force itself incidentally upon me, I will say, that, as on the one hand, I cannot fancy a despotism more impious, or more inhumàn, than the political debasement here, on account of that faith by which men hope to win an happy eternity hereafter; so on the other, I CANNOT FANCY A VISION IN ITS ASPECT MORE DIVINE THAN THE ETERNAL CROSS RED WITH THE MARTYR'S BLOOD, AND RADIANT WITH THE PILGRIM'S HOPE, REARED BY THE PATRIOT AND THE CHRISTIAN HAND, HIGH IN THE VAN OF

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