"It was moved, that Robert Tennent leave the chair, and Archibald Hamilton Rowan was called on to take it.

"Resolved, That this meeting, from their affectionate sense of the private virtues and the public sufferings of Robert Tennent, as well as for his conduct in the chair this day, do return him their most sincere thanks.

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"A. H. ROWAN."

ROMAN CATHOLIC PETITION.-AGGREGATE MEETING AT CORK.-LORD DONOUGHMORE AND MR. GRATTAN. "Never ending, still beginning."

THE noble Lord and the Right Hon. Commoner are not yet suffered to remain in peace, unmolested by their troublesome friends the Papists. We compile the following account of the late proceedings at Cork, from the Belfast News-Letter of Sept. 23, and the last number of the [Popish] Orthodox Journal for Sept.—a work in which the follies of the Papists are regularly chronicled, and their views and measures disclosed mouth by month. In the character of the Journal given by our correspondent Indagator, (see our last number, p. 36.) we heartily concur; although, at the same time, we cannot but acknowledge our gratitude to our opponents, who kindly supply us with documents and arguments operating strongly against themselves.

"On Friday, the 27th of August, an aggregate meeting was held in the South chapel at Cork, which was attended by a numerous concourse of persons, among whom were several Protestant gentlemen of considerable rank and property. Mr. Mahon, after a speech of considerable length, in which he censured the conduct of Lord Donoughmore and Mr. Grattan during the last session of Parliament, and considered them no longer entitled to the confidence of the Catholics, proposed to transfer the presenting of the petitions to Lord Holland and Mr. Whitbread, upon whom he pronounced a well-deserved eulogium. Mr. Mahon then moved a resolution to this effect, upon which the Rev. Mr. England came forward, for the purpose of proposing an amendment, to the effect that, in the hope Lord Donoughmore would receive the respectful instructions of the Catholics, their petition should be again entrusted to him.-This he would do, though his opinion was, that his lordship had treated the Catholics badly.

" Counsellor M'Donnell opposed the amendment, and read extracts from letters of Lord Donoughmore's to prove that he was unfit for the trust, and that he had betrayed the Catholics. A long discussion then Vol. III. [Prot. Adv. Nov. 1814.]

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took place, and a division was very nearly pressed, when an accommodation took place, both parties agreeing to the fifth, sixth, and seventh resolutions. The following resolutions were then read and agreed to, and the meeting broke up

"1. That we shall continue from year to year, until our grievances be redressed, to resort to the constitutional mode of presenting petitions to Parliament, for the unqualified repeal of the penal laws which oppress the Catholic people of Ireland.

"2. That the open and frequent discussion of our claims in Parliament had always been found to make new friends and converts to the justice of our cause; and that the preventing or keeping back such discussion is only calculated to injure and retard the final and successful attainment of our wishes.

3. That the individuals who undertook the management of our petitions presented to Parliament in the last sessions be requested to prepare our present petitions, and procure signatures thereto, so as that the same may be laid before both Houses of Parliament, at the earliest possible period.

"4. That those individuals were not, and are not, representatives, neither are they appointed in any wise to represent any portion of the people; and that if any of them shall, under any pretence, or for any purpose, assume or pretend to any representative quality or capacity whatsoever, every such person shall thereby be excluded from any farther interference in the management of our petitions.

5. That the Right Hon. Earl Donoughmore be again entrusted with the presentation of our petition to the House of Lords, in case his Lordship shall agree to receive and attend to the instructions of the petitioners, or of their accredited organ.

"6. That our chairman be directed to communicate this resolution in the most respectful manner to his Lordship, and that this meeting do at its rising adjourn to Friday the 16th September next, and that his Lordship's reply be submitted to the consideration of that meeting.

7. That a similar communication be respectfully made to the Right Hon. Henry Grattan, respecting the presentation of our petition to the House of Commons."

"On the 10th of Sept. the adjourned meeting was held at the South Parish Chapel, for the purpose of receiving and taking into consideration the replies of Lord Donoughmore and Mr. Grattan, on the subject of the resolutions of the last aggregate meeting. The letters from those distinguished personages had not been received until about the hour fixed for the meeting, and it then became necessary to prepare resolutions grounded

in some measure upon those communications, which occasioned a short delay, and the chair was not taken until one o'clock. After the chair was taken by Charles Sugrue, Esq. to which he was unanimously called by the meeting, Mr. Mahon, the secretary, read the following correspondence.

"Mr. Sugrue to Lord Donoughmore and Mr. Grattan.

"Cork, 27th August, 1814.

"MY LORD, As chairman of the aggregate meeting of the Catholics of the county and city of Cork, held yesterday, it is my duty to transmit to your Lordship the enclosed resolutions, unanimously adopted by that assembly, and founded, I am certain, upon the anxious wish of the Catholics, that by communicating with your Lordship, they may be able, from time to time, (whilst they could disclaim any idea of dictation,) to point out to your Lordship's consideration facts which might have escaped the observation of even our warmest friend, though he should have made our grievances his particular study. I am, my Lord, very desirous to discharge this duty in a manner best suited to express the high respect and consideration in which your Lordship is held by the Catholics of this county and city, sentiments in which, I beg leave to add, no person can more cordially participate than,

"My Lord, your Lordship's, &c.

"CHARLES Sugrue."

"Lord Donoughmore's Answer.

"Knocklofty, 14th September, 1814.

"SIR,-To the resolution of that assemblage of persons at which you appear to have presided, calling itself "an aggregate meeting of the Catholics of the county and city of Cork," and according to which, "I am again to be intrusted with the presentation of their petition, in case I shall agree to receive and attend to the instructions of the petitioners, or of their accredited organ," an explicit and decided NEGATIVE is the only answer which it is possible for me to give: and it is not easy to conceive how any other could have been expected from me, inasmuch as, in November last, before I had the honour of being selected to present the petition of that year, I had thought it my duty to make the same reply to a similar requisition from the Catholic Board. An uninterrupted interchange of confidence and kindness with my Catholic countrymen of the county and city of Cork, would naturally dispose my mind to a ready acquiescence in any wish of theirs: and the respect which attaches itself to the character and motives of the proposer of this resolution would create, in the present instance, a strong additional inducement. But in

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the discharge of my parliamentary duty, I can enter into no preliminary stipulations. Acknowledging in its most extended sense the unquestionable rights of free intercourse between the constituent body and the members of both Houses, I claim for them, and for myself, on the same constitutional principle, an equal freedom of judgment and decision. Of the sentiments of the Catholic Board on the subject of their own question, detailed in several distinct propositions, I am already in full possession; and I should think it my duty to be equally open, at all times, to similar communications from any portion of the petitioners, reserving to my elf the undoubted right of deciding thereupon, and upon every part thereof, agreeably to my own opinions and conviction.

"To the frequent discussion of the Catholic claims in Parliament I am, and have never at any period ceased to be, a decided and avowed friend. You are already apprized of the reluctance with which I abstained from the discussion of them in the last session, from respect to the opinions of the other friends of your cause, not less zealous than myself. For any further postponement I can see no possible inducement or justification; I should, on the contrary, conceive that such a course would be unjustifiable, and injurious to your interests in the greatest degree; and to which nothing, therefore, should induce me to become a consenting party, From a conviction that I was a decided enemy to the project of the veto,"-in which those who formed that judgment of me were not mistaken,-the presentation of the Catholic petition was first confided to me. To the arrangements and machinery of the bill of 1813, my hostility, as declared in my letter to Lord Fingall on the abandonment of that measure, was no less decided and unequivocal-and as it is not possible that I could have been so entirely misunderstood by any man of common apprehension, it could not have been insinuated without a gross and voluntary perversion of the truth, that these feelings of mine were in any respect weakened or shaken by the observations which I thought it necessary to make on the subject of Quarantotti's rescript, from whose opinions and advice I dissented altogether, and to whom I at all alluded with no other view, but in furtherance only of the endeavour which I was then making, to recommend that temperance in the discussion of their own interests by the Catholics themselves; of the want of which I could not help thinking that there was then reason to complain, and from which the progress of the cause in the public mind did not appear to me to have made those rapid advances to which I had looked forward.

"To the question which you propounded to me, by desire of the late meeting at Cork, the answer was necessarily easy, and required little consideration and very few words. I have, however, availed myself of

the opportunity which has been thus afforded to me, for the purpose of rescuing, by a plain statement of facts, my conduct and opinions from the gross misrepresentations with which they have been industriously loaded. The intemperance of youthful declamation may pass discretion by, in its too rapid course-may outrun the recollection of whatever is due to decorum and good manners, to others and to ourselves. It may gather flwers in Billingsgate, or borrow arguments from the scandalous Chronicle. Detected libel may throw off the mask, avow its calling, and spit its venom in the face of day. To the experienced reprehension of their disgusted auditors I consign the declaimers and their orations. From the judgment of such a tribunal I appeal with confidence to the justice of my Catholic countrymen to the best exertions of my political life, devoted to the extension of religious liberty-and finally, to the sacrifice of an independent legislature, to which I was induced to submit, for this one avowed reason→→→ because I despaired of Catholic emancipation in the Irish Parliament, con. stituted as it was; and with which I am now upbraided, with singular and appropriate justice, by a declaimer of that religious persuasion.

"To Charles Sugrue, Esq.

Chairman, &c."

"I have the honour to be, Sir, &c.

"Answer of Mr. Grattan.

"DONOUGHMORE."

"SIR,-I have the honour to inclose my answer, with the assurance of my esteem for you, and an unalterable attachment to the cause of the Catholics.

"Charles Sugrue, Esq. &c."

"I am your faithful humble servant,
"HENRY GRATTAN."

"To the Roman Catholics of the County and City of Cork, assembled 26th August, 1814.

"Sept. 14, 1814.

"I was favoured with your resolution-that Mr. Grattan be intrusted with the presentation of our petition, in case he shall agree to receive and pay attention to the instructions of the petitioners, or their accredited organ. To which I answer-I beg to decline the honour of presenting your petition on the proposed stipulation. I have been always ready to receive the information of my fellow-subjects with every attention to the right of free communication, and to my right of free judgment :-but I shall make no stipulation on this head-a proceeding new and extraordinary, and of a tendency to create a supposition, that I could submit my conduct to the direction of any organ, accredited or otherwise, or of any