reasoning, exposes me to censure, or requires the slightest alteration or explanation. I say in it," That the replies made by the priests to the six questions were unsatisfactory, "is too clear;" that "they are either refusals to answer or evasive answers, or such answers as "expressed their belief of the deposing doctrine, or "at least a hesitation of opinion respecting it." I add, "that among the six questions, there is not one which the Catholics of the present times "have not fully and unexceptionably answered in "the oaths which they have taken in compliance "with the acts of the 18th, 31st and 33d year of "his present majesty; "-and that, "in the reign "of Elizabeth, several priests and the bulk of the laity would have answered them with the same "candour and integrity of principle, as all the pre sent Catholic clergymen and laity of England "would now answer them, and have in fact an"swered them." In every part of my works, in which I have mentioned the refusal of the priests to answer these questions, I have lamented and condemned it. But let them not be blamed more than they deserve. In the words of Father Hart, one of the refusing priests,-which answer I have transcribed in my Historical Memoirs ;† "they acknowledged "her majesty to be their lawful queen; and that "she ought to be obeyed, notwithstanding the bull † Vol. I. p. 429. * Vol. I. p. 429. "the bull, supposed to be published by Pius the "Fifth; but whether she ought to be obeyed and "taken for lawful queen, notwithstanding any bull or sentence, the Pope could give, this, they said "they could not answer." I have no hestitation in repeating my opinion of that their refusal to answer their questions, justified strong precautions. But I also confidently assert, that all Elizabeth's new creation of felonies, premunires and treasons was an enormous abuse of the power of legislation, and cannot be too strongly deplored or condemned. If her government had been just and humane, even precaution would have been unnecessary. 15. Your account of Father Campian, (page 226), contains much misrepresentation, both of him and of my account of his trial. You say, that, from "my account of him, You might infer, that he came into the country as an "innocent merchant and traveller, and was arrested "and condemned solely because he was a priest, "and believed in transubstantiation and purga tory.”—Have I insinuated anything of the kind? -Have I not said, and, in your next preceding page, have You not cited me for saying, that " he had entered into the society of Jesus,-had "been ordained priest, and had returned to Eng"land to exercise his missionary functions?" Then You exclaim,-" How great will be the " astonishment of the reader, who has depended on your apparent fairness and impartiality in 66 your Book of the Roman Catholic Church, "when he hears that Father Campian came to 66 England," at the time and for the purposes. You proceed to specify.-What grounds have You for this exclamation?-I certainly mention, in the Book of the Roman Catholic Church, the time of Campian's arrival. I mention in it, that his purpose was, as I have just observed, to exercise his missionary functions.-The Bull of Mitigation I have cited and condemned in my Historical Memoirs, and it is mentioned in the authors I have referred to in the bottom of this page of the Book of the Roman Catholic Church? Was it necessary that I should re-write in that book every part of my Historical Memoirs? Are not these continually referred to? Do I not know by Your frequent references to them, that they were always under your eye? Campian did not come to execute the Bull of Deposition. He declared, both upon his trial, and under the fatal beam, that he considered Elizabeth, both in fact and right his queen. But all this is beside the question; I only profess to give an account of his trial; and upon his trial nothing said or insinuated in your exclamation, was proved, except his having been ordained a priest and having come into England. 16. Here I beg leave to protest against your presenting, as You do in this place, and in a multitude of others, Your own views of the missionary functions or objects of the priests, as their real functions and real objects. These were,-and only were, to instruct and confirm the people in the antient religion of the country, and in their religious and moral duties. The spiritual supremacy of the Pope was certainly a prominent tenet of the antient religion. You infer it to be a necessary consequence of their teaching the supremacy, that they instigated the people to accept the Pope's bull, and to concur in the deposition of the queen, which it prescribed. This is Your conclusion? and if You only presented it as such, I should have nothing to complain of, for You have the same right to draw conclusions as I have. But,-when You present Your conclusions as facts, You con. found one with the other, and present to your readers the former as the latter. * From the firft existence of these sanguinary laws to the present time, the Roman Catholics have uniformly denied, and their priests as strougly as others, that it was a part of their instructions to recommend, or that they ever did recommend a "Counterfeit letters compliance with that bull. were privately left in their houses; spies sent up "and down the country, to notice their discourses, " and lay hold of their words; informers and re"porters of idle stories against them, countenanced " and credited: and even innocence itself," to use Camden's own words, "though accompanied by "prudence, was no guard to them." Emissaries were employed, witnesses tutored, solicitation and terror used, and even the torture applied to procure * Carte's History, Vol. III. p. 385. evidence of the facts of which the priests were accused but I defy You to produce a single instance, among the two hundred priests who suffered, in which their having recommended a compliance with the deposing injunctions of the bull, or even their having mentioned them, was proved against them. Is it then just, is it honourable, to present as clear indisputable facts, Your own conclusions? conclusions ever denied and protested against by the Catholics? If we are to be infamed, let it be by the production of facts, not by suppositions of them. -But no such facts can be produced against us; nothing is more completely true, than, what Dr. Milner asserts, in the sixth of his unanswered and unanswerable letters to Doctor Sturges, respecting the undeviating loyalty both of the Catholic clergy and Catholic laity, through the whole of the reign of Elizabeth: I shall transcribe a passage from the work at the end of this section of my present letter. 17.-I must now consider Your vindication of Hume, (p. 231). "He avers, that sedition, rebel<< lion, and sometimes assassination, were the means "by which the seminarists intended to effect their purpose against the queen." In my fifteenth Letter to Doctor Southey, and in my Historical Memoirs, I have denied the charge generally, and justified my denial by seven unquestionable facts. These You successively mention and answer. I shall state in Your own words, my assertions and your answers, and then severally reply to the latter. 1.I have said in the work I have mentioned,. |