THE ORANGE SOIREE.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1689, 17 July 1875, Page 4

THE ORANGE SOIREE.

[To the Editor of the Eve_t^*~™J

Siß,—ln your issue of Mr, Dargaville" is reported- haT e Baid at the Orange Soiree held-' 15 Previous evening of which he was o^rman : "The object of the meeting w'xo commemorate the struggles and P -_i eSßea oi their Protestant forefwp-™ iQ relation to civil and religious .__>erty." Now I propose to shew they did not struggle for civil and religious liberty, and secondly, they were far from being as their descendants. Mr Dargaville amongst them, would make it appear, liberty-loving and loyal men, but were a very persecuting, disloyal and plundering set. In 1688, "William, Prince of Orange, landed in Epgland to contest the right to the Throne with his father-in-law, James the Second. Now James was the lawful Monarch, and, although a Catholic, was, as King, head of the English Church, and acting in that capacity imprisoned the seven bishops which caused his rebellious Protestant subjects to invite "William to usurp tbe throne. But history nowhere proves James, weak and white feathered as he was, to have persecuted his subjects as a whole for their religion, and the real reason of the rebellion against him was his religion, which was obnoxious to the strong prejudices and the deep hatred held for it by Anglicians, Puritans, and other religions, but especially the second—the Puritans who formed for the most part the r_nk and tile of the Protestant planters of Ireland. These tyrants, who dispossessed the small number of the native Irish who were left, prior to Cromwell's time in a sort of possession of their properties were, on James's accession, fearful of losing all they had gained by perjury, fraud and violence during the Lord Protector's reign when they tad full power, not ouly over the property of the "merelrishry" but banned their religion, deprived them of every right of a free citizen, and made their very lives a terror by the unnatural and brutal effects of the penal laws. These men were therefore only too ready to seize any excuse to join the malcontents in England against James, as they were ready to behead Charles I. when it suited their book to join with Cromwell. But what was the conduct of James and his loyal Catholic Irish subjects when, in 1689, he fled to Ireland, and held a Parliament there composed almost wholly of Roman Catholics ? In that Parliament the law was enacted and put into force, ."That henceforth no man of whatsoever religion shall suffer for it}" and an eloquent and impartial historian says, speaking of this moderation and charity on the part of Catholic Irishmen when in the ascendant, " What a noble example of forbearance and tolerance when the turn of the tide of events J laced in the power of the long suffering rish Catholics to whip with the lash of vengeance their unwearying persecutors !" What becomes then of Mr Dargaville's empty boast about his Protestant (more properly Orange) ancestors winning religious liberty, seeing that after their defeat at Limerick, where they were giad to accept honorable terms, they broke through that very law of freedom of conscience and the treaty made by them at their overthrow at that 'city, when the flower of the Irish army had gone to France? Mr Dargaville along with trying his 'prentice hand at politics has the ambition to palm himself off as a theologian, for we find him telling his willing audience, "One of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church was that force might be used to promote the interest of that religion if necessary." Clever Dargaville to discover this ! Ob, the depth of the wisdom and shrewdness of the elect of City East. How wonderful his knowledge, how unerring his .theological truth ! But where did he find .this ; aye, where indeed, but in his own disordered imagination ? I deny its truth. I challenge him to prove it. 'Tis false ; and, like all falsehood, defames the truth. Sir, I regret the introduction by these misguided 'men, under a flimsy pretence of loyalty and zeal for freedom of conscience, which no man wishes to deprive them of, into this young country of the feuds which have torn unhappy Ireland', and I am sure the good sense and charitable feelings of all right thinking persons of all creeds and classes will stamp out the social political ill will which such societies as Orangeism are likely to perpetuate, and thus confound Mr JDargaville's politics, and maintain peace and good will amongst all men.—Yours, &c, Public Safety.