LORD CLARENDON'S LETTER. DIPLOMATIC REVELATIONS. From the Tablet.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 578, 29 October 1851, Page 3

LORD CLARENDON'S LETTER. DIPLOMATIC REVELATIONS. From the Tablet.

i. fc u^ r » 'POii tuc Eaiu, or to inn Eapi. of ■• U u i,*vo uttlow tlie "iibs^nnc" o{ the greater part of a lettu which has recently reached our hands under circumstances that leave us at lull libeity to give it to the worid. It carve to us from Engl md, from a lapmaa ;it has rva^s -d through many hands— has more than once been leientd to in the press — lias alieady attained considerable notojiery — and, though in foim addressed by a nobleman in otlice to a nobleman in piivate life, it is, in substince, an official despatch, obviously \vutten|foi use as a deapa'ch, and liable, theiefoie lo the incidents and accident* to wluch Mich documents are exposed. We iancy wo shall not err very widely if, on guess, we fill up the blanks in the names of the noble conespondents (we have them only in blank) with the titles ot Claiendon and Shrewsbury. Loid Clarendon, we take it, is the writT—Loid Shrewsbuiy the tecipient; but the persons for whom every line oi the letter was written aie evidently the Pope and the Caidinals at Rome :—: — " Dublin, Dec. 2, 1850. "My dear Lord,— l am sincerely obliged to you for yoiu letters of November the 12th and 15th, and I know not whether most to admire your accmate knowledge of all the affairs of Ireland, or the eminent tact and judgment you have dnplayed in the com'erences with the Hoy !<at!iei <i n' the Cardinal-, of which you have had the goodness to send me so complete and so interesting aiopoit. I take the liberty of making some olwrvations on what was said in these conferences, and I hope that you will peimit me to expies., them with all frankness," because 1 cannot wute aoout the ignorance, or something worse, which prevails in Rome regarding this countiy without candidly declaring my judgment as to us causes, and the deploiable consequences which must attend if. "The Pope has shown the extent of the deceit which has peen practised upon him. All good men in Ireland, of whatever cieedor politics, are agieed m reverencing Di. lUunay as the beau i-leal of a Christian pastor, and jet } our Lnidslnp found hi-. Holiness irritated against him alone, -Ul i°i >c in l 'isideiiug Dr. JM'llale as au ill-disposed demagogue, w ho does nothing but afford au example of all that a bishop ought not to do, and jet when your Lordship blamed him, you weie told that you had a strange animosity against the Irish. This is enough to prove that the state of things as to the hieraichy has been presented to the Pope in such a way as to make him believe the very reverse of what is true. So far as regaids the colleges, the moi>t complete, and I must add, the most deliberate mistake has existed from the first, and continues to exist, at Rome. They were founded with ihe puieat motives by Sir R. Peel, in accordance w ith the tinited and expressed will of the clergy am' i it/, aud with a clear understanding that they" would bo founded on the principle of mixed education — the only system pi action Me in Ireland, and which, after the experience of many years in the National schools, was seen lo work with perfect secuiityto the faith and morals of the 500,000 childien educated in them by the bounty of the State. Objections w ere raised, and new guarantees demanded by s«i.ue of the bishops, and in every important point Loid lleytesbury acceded to their wishes. Other secunties were demanded of me, and were gi anted, and yet the opposition of Home continues to be as unqusihhrd as it was at first ; and | although these colleges guaid the faith and moiah of the students m a manner not to be found m any otliei institution in Euiope, and although they have been established a whole year without any accusation of misconduct being made to theauthonties against any of the students (in "number about 400), although they were veiy attentive to their religious instructors, and had hvud chiefly with tbeir parents and tutors, instead of being exposed to temptations by living away from bom;?, and deprived of exact surveillance, the mad clamour of infidelity still continues in Ireland, and comes back to us, le-echoed from Home. I call it mad, because not one syllable of proof has been brought forward to prove the accusation, and when h was demanded all our opponents could say was, that there was not a due proportion of Catholic professors. Now, no person was more annoyed than 1 was at ihere not bein.'r a due proportion of Catholic candidates for the chans. But whose fault was it? Was it any wonder, when, long befoio the election, the fiercest denunciations were read evny day in the wiitings of Dr. M'Hale, and in all that poition of the press over which the priesthood exercise u despotic control. 1 * * * *

" I feel indignant at the accusation of infidelity brought against the professors generally, because, in the first place, it is a base attack on a number of men than whom there are not to be found, I believe, any raoie moral or worthy in any similar institutions in Europe ; and it is, at the same time, an unfounded accusation against the Government that appointed them. "If it bo &aid that all those who are not wiihui the pale of the Catholic Church are, ipsojaclo, unbelievers, or that the English Government care little if the people are biought up m indifference to then leligious duties, how (not to mention higher motives) could they be blind to the political necessity that a nation should be educated in the knowledge and fear of God? To one of these odious absurdities must be ascabed the extraoiduiary assertion which hab just been made.

"Great complaints have been made to your Lordship about Mr. Freeborn, and you have been asked how you can have confidence in the Biitish Government when they allow ed such a, man at Rome. I do not pretend to know much of tin's matter, but I am certain that some of the things alleged against him in your letter are exaggerated, and iti all sach cases ono should hear the other sidp. Mr. Freeborn has, 1 believe, proved cleaily that in giving passports to certain persons, and sending them quickly away, he promoted the cause of order and the saiety of the city. But 1 may be permitted 10 asfc, on the other hand, what we ought to think of the Government of the Pope, who, in violation of the rules for the nomination of bishops , sent here a man like Dr. Cullon, whoae only object has been to destroy the colleges established by the Legislatuie, and maintained by the state, and to extinguish the National Schools, in which 500,000 of the pooiest classes are educated, without an attempt to provide for the deficiency of t"»taW. 3 3 l imf»nts of these two kinds, and thus leave tho miiiul.. and poorest class in brutal ignoiance, without tioni/i.ag himself about the consequences that would follow ! Dr. Culleu, moreover, published a synodical addie=>3, in which he did not stop at condemning the colleges, but bought to set class against class, and to njpre&ent eveiy poor man us a m.uryi, and eveiy lich mnn as a Ur.int. Theie is moie rank communism m that tiiUiress than could bo thymically distilled from M. de Ve'iicom's whole book, Jt cannot be alleged that all this opposition nribe& from religious zeal, because at this moment T>r. JU'Hale and others would induce the siude.iri to leave ibe colleges where then faith and mot, -I . .#* protected, and to go to Tnnity College, in Du!' ,i , a place eminently Piotestant, where theie are uo guarantees for kith, and wlieie there is every temptation to apostacy. i\l: . L.ic as, editor of the Tubkt one of the most virulent and mo-,t offensive news>p.ijipr in i^w.ope — i<- in 'jorutmt communication with i)i. Cullui, and is, moieover, ilie c'-vf instigator, as his, ir.ipei is tbu oip.m of the lonmit Lc;\a,iie, the obji-ct oi" whuh in to nbuli&h the lights of j> < yrty, and to shake to it- veiy foundation evei\thin^ ou which society dopeuds. Uo is ably ass^ted in tins \\ vik of regeneration

by the Pnest<t, who, with this end in view, have fraternized with the Presbyterian clergy. But not a woul of counsel or reprimand has been uttered by the PiinifUe; on the contrary, his journal applauds, and the Editor acts m the league with Mr. Duffy, of the Nation, who would have been at this hour a deported felon if one of the jury bad not perjured himself. It ii very true that the Pope ordeied the clergy not to meddle in politics ; this he did in 1847, in the same rescript in which he condwi )pd the colleges. The second part wa* received with roveience, as hostile to the Government, and the first was obeyed by the clergy rushing headlong into the revolutionary movement of 1848, wb°n nothing saved them except their belief in the impartiality of the Government — in which they were quite right, necau«e, if (he legal evidence of their guilt had been as strong as its moral certainty, several of them would havn now been along with their friends in exile in Van DienWa

11 Not a word of reprimand came from the Pope to Ireland against these unchristian andunclmcul proceedmj?s — not a sign of disapproval of the disobedience of his oiders— -not an attempt was made by the Primate (although invested with special powers to have the commands of the Pope executed) to keep the clergy w ithm the sphere of their duties. And now let me ask of \ou, my dear Loul what could I, or, rather, what could any unprejudiced spectator of passing events think, or what could one infer as to the consequences of all the things which I have mentioned, and others which 1 need not add * What could one think, except that spuitual jurisdiction was not the object they had in view, but rather political hostility — that between I Catholics and Piote«tants good-will should not exist — that confusion must be promoted a tout piix, and that for arms with which to assault England Home uses Ireland as an inexhaustible arsenal 1 Certainly a state of things such as I have in. part described is much more than a compensation for the peccadilloes of a vice consular agent, and give me the right to ask what confidence could England have in the Papal Government 1 " I believe that a great part of the fatal evils which have at Hen, and of which the end will not be seen in our lifetime, might have been hindered if we bad had a pioper reptesentative in Rome; and no one laments more than I do that the assent of so many Catholic peers on so vital a question permitted Lord Eglintoun to obtain the inseition of Ins obnoxious chase in the bill. My own desue would have been to abandon the bill altogether when it was necessary to take it with a pi oTision insulting to the Pope as a sovereign Prince, nnd uhich ho cuuld not and ought not to have endured. Hut if we had had a discreet Minister accredited to his Holiness, who would have told him the real truth about England, ho would never have reconstructed the hieraichy m the way he has done. If he had thought only of the interests and the wants of the Catholic Chinch; ; if the bishops had been appointed without ostentation; if there had been assigned to them districts without territorial titles, without a demarcation of the country, or assumption of the powers of Government, no one would have had a right to complain, and I am certain that no lemonstrance would have been heard ; but the Pope's bull and tbe Caidmal's pastoral presented themselves suddenly to the astonished nation, in terms which made no account of the Sovereign, of the Church, and of the public opinion of England. When England was treated like a, heathen country, which, having been conquered, was now- going to be occupied, who could wonder at the people's believing that a serious and studied msulr had been ofteie-1 them, and that they prepared to resist ] it and to show their resentment? I admit and I deploie that this was done in an extravagant manner, that the fiercest bigotry has been displayed, and that sentiments have been expressed and demands made which, in this enlightened age, I should have hoped were impossible; but tbe people were in a frenzy, —thought, not only that their Queen bad been affronted, and their religion attacked, but also that their civil liberty, indissolubly conjoined with our Protestant institutions, was in danger by means of the assumption and the exercise of an exoibitaat power on the part of the Catholic Church, and by tbe establishment amongst us of the canon law of Rome, which, according to the Cardinal's own words, was a great object in the restoration of the Hierarchy. It is useless to say that all thp uproar has been for a mere nothing, seeing that the English are neither stupid j nor excitable ; and it cannot be for a light cause, nor for a mere misunderstanding, that this universal alarm and this ungovernable zeal have taken this shape. " It is a cruel thing for the Catholics of England, good men, respectable, and as loyal as any others to the authority of the Queen, to see their religion insulted and their loyalty impugned ; but the Pope has unhappily acted on false data. Those who have gone over to the Church of Rome, and who, like all converts, wish to magnify their number and their importance, have led him to believe that England was on the eve of conversion, and only required a display of Pontifical authority to complete tbe great work. He has followed their counsel, and has roused the predominant bigotry of the middle classes of England, and has given a new life and a new energy to Piotestantism, which, if I mistake not, will extend beyond our country, and of which the ! vibrations and results will be felt on the continent. | " On one point, and that a most important onp, the J Pope has acted againsl the advice he had received, and | the prudence of which could not be doubted. Lord Minio, when he d^cussed with Ms Holiness the renewal | of diplomatic relations between England and Rome, explained the grave political objections which would exist in England against receiving an ecclesiastic of rank and influence. 1 believe this was understood and admitted by tbe Pope ; but, so far has he been from remembering it, that he has sent into England a cardinal, who is also Archbishop of Westminster, and will not have the restraint of the responsibility arising from a diplomatic position, while there will be all the inconvenience of his ecclesiastical rank, and, besides, tbe dislike of his English title. Can it be said that this showed any consideration towards the English Government, or any regard for English feelings'! and, therefore, 1 again ask how can we plica confidence in tbe Papal Government ? j " In reply to your question, as to the articles in the Jotnnaldes Debats, and the Constitutionnel, I muat ex- j piess my doubts whether they have been so mucb read becauseit is believed that they express the opinions of j none but the writers, while much importance is attached to the Unixers, the Ami, and the Tablet, because it is known that they speak with authority, and they have explained, without reserve, the full scope and signification of the Pontifical measures, in the extinction of the Protestant religion, and in the establishment of the | Catholic religion in the Queen's dominions. The Tablet speaks of the extinct sees of Oxfotd, London, &c, and of tbe ministers of the Established Church as her Majesty's clergy. " Heaven knows what will be the end of this deplorable state of things. As for me, I entertain but slight hope, because, though yielding to none in the spirit of toleration, and sincerely desirous of seeing our Roman Catholic countrymen placed in perfect equality, at that point I stop. I believe my religion to be the true one, and that it is the safeguard of our civil liberties, and that it is my bounden duty to resist tbe ascendency of any other creed. But you, who know Ireland so well, will do me the justice of confessing that from the time of my coming to Ireland the religious sentiments of otheis have been always conscientiously respected by me. The Roman Catholic Prelates have enjoyed tbe social position which corresponded to their ecclesiastical rank, whilst tbe laity have perhaps bad more than their fair share of favours and appointments."