investigating the religious as well as political state of more than three millions, composing the great majority of the inhabitants of an independent kingdom, who are contradistinguished by laws of high disqualification, and which exclude them from the most valued franchises open to the minority of their fellow-subjects.

But it seems evident, from what has occurred in the debates of the British Parliament, that the King's Ministers themselves are fully aware of the justice and importance of gradually conceding to the Catholics such farther privileges as may not militate with the spirit of our Constitution. I have not as yet heard any adequate measures proposed of guarding against every possible inroad, and giving complete security to our Establishment in Church and State; yet I am persuaded it is not difficult for those who are acquainted with the usages of the See of Rome, and the different bearings of Catholic discipline, to devise a practicable and inoffensive system, that will effectually embrace the just object of Government.

To effect this desirable end, we must divest ourselves of many prejudices, fairly facing (as I before observed) the whole subject, and tracing the disorders and mischiefs connected with it to their true sources. That Catholic Priests, in many instances, have been the promoters of sedition, I can well imagine; but let us not infer from thence that the See of Rome is the natural fountain of rebellion. Let us, in candour, recollect that Mr. Horne Tooke is himself a Priest of the Church of England, and educated in a British university.

There are expedients, my Lord, of easy adoption, and, as I conceive, of pressing exigency, which would necessarily produce much useful information on the Catholic subject, and ought to precede the enacting of any Parliamentary regulation, whether of extension or restriction. These expedients (which I shall beg presently to suggest) will be strictly justified by an authority that the Catholics themselves cannot question, and the present state of too great a proportion of their Clergy in Ireland urges the propriety of adopting them.

The authority I shall cite is an extract of a Memorial, drawn up by the Prelate who was Secretary of the College of Propaganda Fide, by order of Innocent XI., anno 1677. This college, which consists of a great number of Cardinals and other Prelates, has the superintendence of the Catholic Clergy of the British dominions and all foreign missions. Having ready access to the records of that college, when last in Rome, I made several extracts from this Memorial, and I shall annex to this letter what applies to my present purpose.

If the Monks and Friars employed on missions were so disorderly as Monsignor Cerri represents them to have been, at a period when the See of Rome may be supposed to have held stronger checks on her Clergy, there is very little reason to believe that they will universally conduct themselves with more decorum in the present age. It has long been the persuasion of the See of Rome, that the regular (or monastic) Clergy, though often employed in mission, are less fitted than the secular for the charge of Parish Priests, and my former letter to your Lordship expresses the sentiments of the Cardinal Prefect of the College of Propaganda on this subject.

Your Lordship has probably been informed that, on the vacancy of a Catholic See, the Chapter of the particular diocese elects a Vicar Capitular to govern the diocese, per interim, and, having also the right of postulation, recommends three names to the Pope. The Congregation of Propaganda, to which the Pope refers the nomination, is generally governed by the recommendation of the National Prelates, and Dr. Troy (who, I have before mentioned, is a Dominican Friar) having an entire influence on the Catholic Primate (Dr. Reilly, of Armagh) has, in effect, a great control in the nomination to the vacant dioceses in Ireland. The Deans are also appointed by the Pope, on the recommendation of the Prelates, and the Papal Bull is expedited from Rome for that purpose.

In my last letter, I mentioned that Mr. Fallon, a Dominican, agent to Dr. Troy, expressed his hopes that, at some future period, Father Concanen might be appointed to a Bishopric

in Ireland. I then perceived that Mr. Fallon wished to draw from me a eulogy of his friend, with whom I had much communication at Rome. Mr. Fallon must have then known that Father Concanen had been actually appointed to the Catholic See of Kilmacduagh, on the translation of Dr. Edward Dillon to Tuam. This appointment adds another Friar to those I before mentioned in the list of the present Catholic Bishops of Ireland, viz., three Dominicans and one Franciscan; and here let me add, that the disunion between the Secular and Regular Clergy, even in Rome, is surpassed only by the squabbles and animosity existing between the several subdivisions of orders among the Monks and Friars themselves.

On this appointment of Father Concanen to the vacant Catholic See, I trust your Lordship will agree with me in thinking that some discreet resident secular Priest might have been found, of local weight and reputation with his own communion, who, by the additional influence of the Episcopacy, might have rendered essential services in his district in these tumultuous times. Such a person ought to have been recommended, in preference to a Friar whose residence has been the greater part of his life in the Dominican Convent at Romenot even a member of the confraternity of the Irish Dominicans (who have their appropriate seminary), but of a Roman Convent, and Secretary to the Spanish General of the Order. I hesitate not to say that this is, at least, under all its circumstances, an indiscreet nomination, and must give reasonable offence to the resident Secular Clergy of the diocese. It should be the care of Government that such nominations are not repeated. Father Concanen is a very smooth but wily Friar; and, in the long contention I had with the Cardinal Protector of the Irish College at Rome (who opposed the reform I afterwards obtained in the appointment of National Superiors of the British and Irish Seminaries in Rome), I found the views of the Cardinal had more influence with the Friar than the interests of his country.

Much credit is certainly due to Dr. Troy, on account of many of his encyclical letters, and I represented his conduct in this view to the Pope when I was at Rome, which procured him the handsome compliment, of which he expresses his acknowledgments in the letter your Lordship has seen; yet, the circumstance of his being a Dominican Friar, and the chief organ of communication with the King's Ministers in Ireland, must always produce some jealousy in the minds of the Secular Prelates. Of this fact I have had much evidence, in their correspondence with their secular agent in Rome. Dr. Troy's residence in the capital gives him many advantages, and particularly a greater facility of communication with Government; but he has fewer Suffragans than any other metropolitan. Armagh has nine; Tuam five, exclusive of the Warden of Galway; Cashel eight, and Dublin only four, Suffragans.

Had Father Concanen been recommended for the vacant prelacy before the Congregation of the College of Propaganda was driven from Rome, I am persuaded his name would have been passed over, consistently with the assurance I had received from Cardinal Antonelli (which I before noted), and a Secular Priest, if any had stood on the list, been appointed.

The distinction between the Secular and Regular clergy your Lordship will probably recollect to be, that the latter are professed, under strict vows of obedience, to the rules of their order, and to their generals, and subdivided into the different communities of Benedictines, Augustines, Carthusians, Franciscans, &c., and these again are contradistinguished as monks and friars; the monks being supported by permanent funds attached to their convents, and the friars chiefly mendicant, and living by " quest," in fact, begging, through the medium of their lay brothers, and having no appropriate funds, except the institution of particular masses, which are established in their respective churches. The Franciscan is beyond comparison the most numerous mendicant order, and has also its

subordinate divisions of Recollects, Capuchins, &c. The Dominicans, since the extinction of the Jesuits, are the most intriguing of the existing orders, and, though allowed to possess funds, as the other orders of monks, are also Mendicant. The Inquisition, in every country where it exists, is under their exclusive direction, except at Rome, where it is merely nominal, and under a congregation of Cardinals.

I apprehend it is scarcely necessary to inform your Lordship, that the regular or monastic clergy are employed as parochial priests or curates in great abundance in Ireland, and the orders existing there are Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustines, Carmelites of two kinds, and Capuchins (which last are also of the reformed of St. Francis). The two former orders are by much the most numerous in Ireland. I shall not attempt to appreciate their relative merits or demerits, as contrasted with the secular clergy, nor is it candid to condemn so great a body of men in mass, but I contend that it is extremely important at this crisis especially, that Government should be acquainted with the detail of their avocations. The accompanying extract of Monsignor Cerri's memorial will bear me out in that opinion.

Translation of an Extract from the Memorial of Monsignor Cerri, Secretary of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide at Rome, which is entrusted with the Government of the Roman Catholic Establishments and Missions in the British Dominions, &c. (The Memorial was drawn up by order of Pope Innocent XI. Anno 1677.)

"Ireland contains a great number of Catholics, who, notwithstanding all the persecutions they have undergone, have ever remained unshaken in their faith, so that the Congregation has again established bishops there. The island is divided into four archbishoprics; those of Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam, which form in all, with their suffragans, twenty-six churches, some of which have bishops, and others vicars, each