A LETTER TO THE

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they yet saw nothing in the proposed pledge which was likely to violate or endan-ger either — then the principal argument against the Veto must, of course, fallpointless to the ground. But if, on the contrary, they were false to their trust —if, believing ( as their lay masters would have them believe^ that the measure wasdeeply injurious to the Church, so large a portion of your dignified clergy weredriven by fear, or seduced by emolument, to sign what they considered the death-warrant of then - faith — then, I ask, would not your rulers be justified in suspect-ing the integrity of these men, and in asking for some guard against the appoint-ment of persons so ineligible, in the event of your becoming co-partners in the Con-stitution ? Could they, who had failed in faith, be expected to prove steady in po-litics? or would not the same hands which had surrendered your Church to the Go-vernment, in like manner surrender that Government to the enemy ? Such is thealternative to which we are forced, by those violent charges and insidious vin-dications with which the members of your episcopacy have been assailed: the lessupright and trust-worthy they make your Bishops appear, the more fully do theyjustify the Government in demanding some security against the appointment ofsuch persons in future.

But the characters of these venerable men are a sufficient answer to so grossan imputation. It is worse than insult to suspect, that, if they had perceived inthe measure any one of those ruinous results so boldly and fancifully predicted byyour orators, they could have lapsed, for a moment, through motives of fear orambition, into such an act of spiritual treason, such a recreant abandonment oftheir ministry. It is quite impossible; and we are therefore warranted in consider-ing those anti-catholic terrors in which the Veto is arrayed , as the dreams of ig-norant , though perhaps well-meaning alarmists, who, if they could be prevailedupon to adopt the philosophy of Panurge , and “ fear nothing but danger,’' wouldbe much more respectable in their panic , and might be somewhat more easily re-lieved from it.

The second occasion which called forth the sentiments of your Bishops, was the cla-mour excited in the year 1808, when your parliamentary friends, upon the authority ofthis document and the corroborating information of Br. Milner, declared that, in theevent of your full emancipation , a negative control upon the nomination of your Bi-shops would be vested, as a pledge of security, in the Crown. The effect whichthis proposal produced, upon the Parliamant and people of England, must be re-membered with a mixture of pleasure and x'egret, for the brightness of its promiseand the shortness of its duration. The hopes of your friends were kindled into con-fidence; the fears of the timid, and the doubts of the conscientious, were allayed andsatisfied by this liberal compromise; and the champions of intolerance saw, withdismay, the last dark barrier of exclusion disappearing. But transient indeed wasthis lucid interval. In the v ery act of curing the folly of your adversaries, youvvere suddenly seized with the infection yourselves; and the senseless cry of “Thechurch is in danger,” was just dying away upon the lips of Protestants , when itwas caught up by Catholics , and echoed with emulous vociferation.

The laity were the first to give the alarm; the proposed concession was de-nounced as an act of apostacy; and your friends, not less than your enemies, werecharged with a design to overturn the Catholic religion in Ireland : Dr. Milner wasdegraded from an apostle into a hireling, and your Bishops were called upon,with the most indecorous menaces, to disavow the conciliatory spirit which he hatlimputed to them. And here, let me ask, can any one suppose for an instant, thatDr. Milner, the acknowledged agent of your hierarchy (with whose sentiments, uponevery bearing of the question, he must have made himself intimately conversant)— is it rational to think that he w ould have ventured even to hint at an arrange-ment , which he considered, in the last degree, unwelcome to the feelings andprinciples of his constituents? It is not to be imagined; and, though lam but littleinclined; to argue from Dr. Milner’s consistency, being of opinion that there is,in this right reverend scholar, a certain irresponsible unsteadiness of judgment,which not even his studies of Cabbasutius and Thomasinus ’ have been heavy enoughto ballast sufficiently, it is impossible, I think, not to see, in his conduct uponthis occasion, a conclusive proof that the great body of your Prelates was by nomeans averse from the concession of a negative to the Crown.

The alarm, however w'as gone abroad — a rash and unreasoning laity weretaught to see perils and mischiefs in the measure, which had escaped the eyes of thosemost interested and best informed upon the subject. The decisions of the ignorant are

* Two. favourite authors of Dr. Milner. I confess I am ungrateful enough to wish, that,before Dr. Milner did us the honour of visiting Ireland , he had consulted his friend Cabbasu-tius for some of those canons which so wisely forbid ecclesiastics to travel . He will find some-thing to this purpose in page 591 of the JVotitia Ecclesiastics, and also amongst the Canons ofthe ConciliumDudense, the fifth of which complains that it was the practice of clergymen “tamturpiter quam damnabiliter per terram saepius evagari.”— Cabbasut. Not, Ecclesidst. pageW

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