We cannot manage this fellow. He roars like a bull, incessantly, night and day. We endeavoured indeed to tie him up; but he broke all our chains, and, in consequence of our tormenting him as we have done, will absolutely run mad and gore us to death.

We have been, Sir, I will admit, very foolish throughout this business. Our Secretary adopted mistaken Manners, or Manners mistook this strange genius; for he has behaved most rudely. We wrote him first a letter, to which he would pay no attention, although the Secretary wrote his name on the cover, and that it was sent on His Majesty's service. He tore the letter in pieces, got into a violent passion, and our messenger was glad to escape with whole bones. This you will admit was a high contempt of our authority and of all Government, not to be passed over with impunity we, therefore, determined to apprehend him, and got an order to that effect signed by Paddy D-g-n, who you know can write, having been in former days what the Irish call a poor scholar. But here again, Sir, we have been disappointed. The man is so strong, we can get no hold of him. No constables will venture near him, notwithstanding Mr. P. --l's strictest orders. We sent immediately a reprimand to them by a Courier *; but all in vain. The Sun also for once proved false, and did not communicate the hidden tumult which it might have known, and ought to have disclosed t. He since has not shown his gilded beams, nor given us a solitary and cheering ray of comfort, and our friends he has left wholly in

The Courier, was indignant with the Duke of Richmond, and surprised at his allowing the extraordinary Meeting of the Catholic Committee.

The Sun informed the public, in answer to the first letter of your correspondent Hibern Angius, who stated that the Irish Government executed its orders timidly, even within the seat of its own residence, that he was miserably misinformed," and that the Government would vigorously suppress every illegal meeting. Has it so done?

the

THE HIEREU-MANIA.

333

the dark. It is a sad omen of our fate. Fatal eclipse! how are the mighty fallen!

Entre nous, what should we have done with this fellow, if our constables had caught him, for certainly our cage is not sufficiently large-we must build a new one, if we can get the means from Parliament; but we are so weak, that we fear we shall not be able to go down to the House, even on the first day of the Session. Oh! Mr. Perry, do procure us the beans, we will give every thing for the beans.

--

You will of course take no notice of all that we have said about Hibern-Anglus; but have the goodness to present to him our kindest compliments-assure him of our great consideration and high regard, and that Mr. P would be highly flattered if he would do him, the honour of dining in Downing Street any day which he may be pleased to name. There is no harm in his dining with us at table once, but afterwards we shall neither give him loaves, nor on Fridays or Saturdays any fish. We can settle him at one dinner, but keep him henceforward at a proper distance. Your own friends, we know, will be more kind, and entertain for him a sincere regard; but in our hearts we hate him as the Devil, and nothing but necessity would compel us to take off even our hats to this Papist. We shall quarrel even during dinner-time, unless third parties be present. If, therefore, Earl Grey and Lord Grenville would be of the party, it would add to the felicity of Mr. P——l; and as they will come from the country, he can accommodate them in Downing Street. There is a smaller house, which can contain himself and family; but the health of the latter would suffer, if they were to remain wholly from their present neighbourhood. It agrees also particularly with his very amiable lady, who is subject to frequent indisposition and confinement.

You shall hear from me further, when I have any

news

news which I am at liberty to communicate. In the

PROMISED you, in my last letter, some more chit-chat; and you will see, by this long letter, that I have kept my word-no usual thing with persons like myself, who have recently succeeded to office.

What a sad thing it is to have Popish subjects! As bad as in Ireland to have Popish servants. Lord R--le was complaining of this the other day, and talked of recommending all the Protestant servants out of place to go over to Ireland, where they need not pay the Mg Hd for advertisements, but are advertised for. His Lordship asked Mr. P what he thought of this; and urged the measure as an admirable means of reclaiming Ireland from the errors of Popery. Mr. P thought the idea good; but suggested an improvement, which was, to send there all the Protestant convicts, and land them on the western coast, in Conna-Mora, the territories of that Papistical Member Mn of Galway, who, as you may happen to recollect, protected the Papists, and gave them an asylum when driven out from the North by the furious Orangemen-excellent Protestants, however-with a warning, that they were to depart “to Connaught or to Hell"

Much good, Mr. P thought, would result from this measure; and as the ideas of Sir S. Romilly upon penal laws are gaining ground, he thought they might by this means be more safely adopted. He observed, that care had been taken by the Legislature of

2

late,

Tate, to enjoin residence upon the Irish Clergy (to the great annoyance of Mr. King, the Master of the Ceremonies at Bath, and of the gentlemen themselves); but it was highly expedient to go beyond the Legislature, and procure men that which the law in all its omnipotence, and assisted even by all the Circulars and Proclamations of Mr. Pole, cannot obtain, Congregations. Others of our peasantry would not like to venture among the Papists; but he thought the convicts "would feel no alarm. A great obstacle to the Protestantizing of Ireland, was the difficulty, in many parts, of procuring not only congregations, but even clerks; he therefore thought those who had been repeatedly taught in England to kneel down, and pray benefit of Clergy, would serve excellently for that purpose.Their influence might be increased by appointing them to the exalted, and, in Ireland, highly-esteemed, character of Tithe-Proctors, upon whom the people look with singular veneration, associating them with the ministry of the Clergyman himself. The duties of the office they might be able effectually to discharge-and defy the Peep-o'-day boys. They would prove admirable protectors of Church property; better than the Right Honourable and Learned Doctor himself.

Mr. P-1, you know, thinks deeply on these things; and the Protestantizing of Ireland he conceives the most important point in the consideration of State affairs. This is one of the effects of the Hiereu-mania; and it was raging violently at this moment, when a Messenger came over with dispatches from the Colonial Office. The Premier was so intent with Lord R-le upon extirpating Popery from Ireland, that he would not even open the blue box.There came repeated messages from Lord L-1, and at length an intimation that the Church might be endangered. We then indeed applied the magic key, but with fear and trembling, and (as if it were that of

Pandora)

Pandora) what do you think flew out the Maltese Petition!!! It was like the apparition of the ghosts in Blue-Beard. Oh! if you had seen our consternation-and, as the Devil would have it, there was in the fatal box also a Proclamation! We shut it up immediately, and swore we would not say one word about its existence.

The very name of a Proclamation sets me a-shivering! it fills me now with horror; and, whenever I hear of one, I am sure we are going wrong. Wrong, Sir, in India, about whiskers-wrong, Sir, in Jamaica -wrong in Canada-wrong in Ireland! I was once fond of Proclamations: they sounded, as the Lawyers say, in vigour and strong government; but now I wish there existed not such a word.

The public, Sir, would have beard nothing of this but for your lapsus penne, and that vile Cobbett.There is no keeping auy thing from that fellow. We never shall forgive him for having said of us once, that "we were Jobbers all the morning, and Methodists all the evening." We thought we did well when we shut him up in Newgate. Entre nous, we were great fools for sending him there. We showed neither gratitude for past favours, nor prudence for the future. He certainly ran down the Talents, and, though he would not join in the cry of No-Popery, he enabled us to keep our places. Our conduct towards Cobbett, you will say, has always been part of a system. made Wilkes, and we might have unmade Cobbett. We wished at one time to have sent you also to Newgate, to show our former good will and profound respect for the P of W— ; but you were too cunning: and now even Sir V. G-s himself rejoices at your escape. We are sadly afraid of the Ghost of Junius a prophet has foretold its appearance, with the fiery tail of a Comet, and I hurry home at night from the Tabernacle (lest he should rise up), without waiting

We

to