more keenly felt than during the worst periods of '47—the practical sympathy manifested by other countries. with our people, even during this season, by Italy, France and America, from which countries I myself received large sums of money, with which I saved the lives of thousands of the starving poor in this diocese, while the Government and England showed nothing but cold indifference to our wants; yea more, insulted and mocked at our misery, giving full swing-I should say, encouragement-to the ruthless exterminator to level the cabins of our peasantry, and cast them out in thousands to die in ditches; all this, with many other things which it is useless for me now to mention, have much tended to remove the aforesaid good impressions, and spread disaffection everywhere abroad among us. Let but the people and government of England secure the rights of possession and of industry to our farmers, employment to our laboring classes; let them remove from among us these established anomalies which shock the common sense of Christendom, these nurseries of interested bigotry and consequent detestation of the masses of the Irish people, and make Ireland what she should be, prosperous and happy; or rather, since they have failed in producing by their legislation this state of things, which it is the duty of all rulers to produce, though they had tried their hands at it for the last forty-eight years, and made things still worse, let them allow us to legislate for ourselves, and become, as we should be, responsible for our own prosperity or misery, and Her Majesty Queen Victoria will not have, under the wide sway of her sceptre, more devoted subjects, nor the English people more faithful friends and allies than the Irish people. EDWARD MAGINN. To James Hawkins, Theo. Jones, John Gilmore, Esqrs. 13 WINDSOR TOWER, KINGSTOWN, July 30, 1848. My Lord,-I read, the other day, a letter or address of yours in the Freeman's Journal, in which you made a most temperate statement, relative to the Established Church of Ireland. This day I have read with surprise, the speech of Mr. Anstey, the Roman Catholic member for Youghell, on Mr. Sharman Crawford's motion the other night, in which he says, "He (Mr. Anstey) must say, as a Roman Catholic, that the Roman Catholics of Ireland did not consider the Established Church as the chief grievance of that country, nor indeed any grievance at all!" Now, my Lord, does not this put the liberal, the sincere Protestants, who agree with you on this subject, in a very awkward position, to have this Roman Catholic member's speech to be thrown in our faces and quoted as the sentiments of the Roman Catholics of Ireland? I venture to call your attention to it, and hope you will excuse my troubling you, and to subscribe myself, Your faithful servant, WILLIAM FITZGERALD. P. S.-This is private, but I think ought to be looked to. May I hope an answer? If so, address Lord William Fitzgerald, as above. MULGRAVE CASTLE, November 25, 1848. Sir, I have received your letter of the 20th instant, with an accompanying address to the Queen from a meeting of the barony of Innishowen, held on the 7th of August, and which you state would have been sooner transmitted to me for presentation but for my absence abroad. I receive this request, as you say it was intended as an additional proof of the continued confidence and favorable recollection of the Irish People. For all which I assure you I feel ever grateful. The meeting appears to have been most numerously attended, and solely by persons connected with that part of the country. Believing many of the complaints, both general and local, to be well-founded, and making consequent allowance for, whilst regretting, some of the expressions used, I should have forwarded the address at once, through the constitutional channel, for presentation to Her Majesty, but for one difficulty connected, not with the nature of the remedy proposed, but with the Prayer itself, which seems to me to be, that the Queen, by an exercise of the prerogative, should declare the Union void. This is advice which I feel that no minister, even if favorable to the Repeal of the Union, could give to a constitutional sovereign. This alone is the difficulty I feel in forwarding the address, unless you could explain away this impression. If the petitioners had only generously bespoken the sovereign's favorable consideration to the question of Repeal, however widely I might differ from them in that wish, I should not have hesitated to have been the medium of conveying the grievances of the people to the foot of the throne. I should have contented myself with repeating what I stated on an appropriate occasion during my government of Ireland, that to a meeting as numerous as that lately held at Buncrana, that "my decided opposition to a repeal of the Union was founded upon, and in exact proportion to, my love for Ireland;" and I shall have been as well assured now as I was then, that my sincerity would not have been doubted by those who differ from me, my conviction being that it would not realize any of the results you propose. But I added, at the same time, that "the only assurance of a true union, must be perfect equality on all subjects of legislation." These opinions I still maintain, and to this latter state I am sure we must come. With this view, I hold it to be the first duty of every Englishman who takes part in public affairs, even from the private station I now occupy, to lose no opportunity of pressing upon his countrymen the removal of all invidious distinctions still existing, which it is the height of injustice to refuse and would be no sacrifice to concede, and that, by doing substantial and speedy justice to Ireland, they alone can maintain the security of united institutions, and thereby preserve the peace and prosperity of this great empire, happily committed to the charge of our present gracious sovereign. Accept my best thanks for your personal expressions towards myself. I am, Sir, your faithful servant, NORMANBY. Rev. Edward Maginn. MULGRAVE CASTLE, December 12. Sir,-I have this day received your letter of the 8th containing a farther explanation of the Innishowen address. I could not take upon myself to make any alteration in an address sent to me for presentation; but as as you have, you say, the authority of the committee to whom was intrusted the charge of drawing it up, if you will make the substitution of the words you propose, as more accurately conveying the legitimate meaning, and freeing it from all appearance of the objection I had stated, I will then, upon its return to me, forward it for presentation, as (though I shall still depend from the prayer,) I shall feel that it is one perfectly competent for the petitioners to address to the throne. Thanking you again for your kind expressions towards myself, I am, sir, Yours faithfully, NORMANBY. YORK, December 18, 1847. My Dear Lord,-At any time, and under ordinary cir cumstances, the Bishops of Ireland, England and Scotland, would have very good reason to look with serious apprehension at a representative from the Protestant Government of this country, being invited and going to transact business with the Holy See. We are, however, not in ordinary, but in very peculiar, extraordinary circumstances at this present time. We have, then, much greater reason to be filled with apprehension and, indeed, with alarm, at this step being taken at the present trying and critical conjuncture. Hence it has occurred to me, that we, the Bishops of this kingdom, as faithful watch |