flaughter: the Proteftant Gentlemen of the county were fummoned to a general meeting in the town of Wexford on the 7th of July 1798, by General Lake. A copy of the Duke's letter was laid before them; they were all ftruck with amazement and they determined unanimoufly to fend a letter to the Duke on the subject, of which the following is a copy: it was figned by the High Sheriff of the county:

1

The Committee of Gentlemen of the county of Wexford, appointed by General Lake, having read a < copy of a letter from his Grace the Duke of Portland to Meffrs Bowen and Jordan, Magiftrates in the town • of Haverford Weft, South Wales, dated 22d June, ult.

and which appears to have been in answer to a letter < received by his Grace from thofe Gentlemen, cannot • avoid teftifying their hearty forrow at the cenfure thrown upon the Clergy of their diocefe in faid letter, and their ⚫ indignation at the grofs mifrepresentation which muft < have occafioned it. They are unanimous in a high opinion of the loyalty, patriotism, and proper condu&t ❝ of the Clergy, and strongly feel the neceffity of their ⚫ flight and absence during the continuance of the Rebel• lion which fo unhappily raged in this county; as, had they not effected their escape, they have every reason to • conclude that they would have shared a similar fate with • those unhappy few of that body, who early fell into the ❝ hands of the Infurgents, and were afterwards maffacred in cold blood.

They lament, that men of fuch unblemished cha⚫racter and conduct, fhould, from the fecret reprefenta<tions of perfons no way qualified, be profcribed that • protection

protection and afylum fo liberally bestowed on the per<fons of Mr. John Colclough and Thomas M'Cord, men who were and might have remained in perfect fecurity ' in His Majesty's fort at Duncannon, and whose characters are by no means free from imputation in this C country, and on whom they are forry to find fuch favour lavished by the English Cabinet, as they are certain no favourable account of their conduct could be made to • Government fave by themselves.

EDWARD PERCIVALL,

Sheriff, and Chairman of the Committee,

Wexford, July 7th, 1798.

To his Grace the Duke of Portland, Whitehall.'

To this letter, though written in the names of a great number of the most refpectable Gentlemen in the county, and figned by the High Sheriff, his Grace, as I am informed, never condefcended to return any answer.

The following paragraph was inferted in the Waterford Newspaper of July the 10th, 1798:

Yesterday Mr. John Colclough of Tintern Castle, county of Wexford, was brought here from Milford, in cuftody of two King's meffengers; he was escorted by a party of the Union cavalry to Thomas Town on his way to Dublin. Mr. McCord, who was implicated in the charge for which the former was apprehended, had made off, but it is faid that there is no probability of his avoiding the vigilance of his purfuers. These are the two gentlemen who were spoken fo favourably of, in a 2 3 "letter

letter from the Duke of Portland to Mers. Jordan and Bowen at Haverford Weft.

CLERICUS WEXFORDIENSIS.'

His Grace the Duke of Portland is the chief of the family of Bentinck in England, which is originally Dutch; his Grace's ancestor was the great favourite of King William the Third, our glorious deliverer from Popery, Slavery,andarbitrary Power: he accompanied thatgreatPrince to England,and received from him moft bountiful rewards for his fervices, and moft lavish marks of his favour. His Grace owes all his honours, all his great eftates, to the Revolution of 1688: he enjoys, and holds them, if I may fo fay, by a Proteftant tenure. His Grace is univerfally esteemed a Nobleman of great benevolence, and amply endowed with the focial virtues. At the time he wrote this letter to the Magiftrates of Haverford Weft, he was, as he now is, His Majefty's principal Secretary of State for the Home Department; and confequently ought to have been well informed on points relating to the internal ftate, as well of Ireland, as of Great Britain. To what cause then can the writing of fuch a letter by his Grace, fo unmeritedly reflecting on the conduct of Proteftant Clergymen, be attributed? Proteflant Clergymen in the most diftreffed fituation that men could be reduced to! obliged to beg from strangers a morfel of bread, and a spot to lay their wearied limbs in! a letter profcribing all relief to Proteftant Clergymen, obliged to fly, naked and destitute, from their homes, in open boats across the fea, and to brave all the perils of the deep, to escape from the ruthlefs daggers of infuriate Romish affaffins; that relief which was fo liberally and charitably afforded to French Romish Priefs in fimilar circumftances! a letter enjoining their

Proteftant

Protefiant fellow-fubjects to fpurn Froteftant Clergymen flying from maffacre, and imploring protection, with contempt and reprobation from their doors! The caufe is to be found in the indefatigable exertions of the difciples of the late Mr. Edmund Burke, and of himfelf whilft living, in infufing the poison of his Romish principles into the minds of his Grace, and of other great men in England: mifreprefenting, traducing, and vilifying with unwearied and unceasing application, the whole Proteftant fyftem in Ireland. How powerful muft the influence of Burkifm be, when it could load the mild and benevolent difpofition of his Grace with fo uncharitable a bias! I have been for fifteen years laft paft Vicar General of the diocefe of Ferns; I have therefore an opportunity of being well acquainted with the Clergy of it; and I never yet knew a fet of men more orthodox, more pious, more charitable, more efteemed by their Proteftant parishioners, and, as was generally fuppofed, by their Romifh parishioners too, till the late Rebellion fet fire to the mine of their irreclaimable hoftility to what they are taught to repute Herefy. The Wexford Clergy were almost all refident in their respective parishes, and were regular in the discharge of their duties. But my teftimony of their irreproachable and meritorious conduct is of very little confequence, when weighed with that of the great body of the Proteftant Gentlemen of the county, their parishioners, and their attached friends, from a due fenfe and experience of their merits. His Grace's unwarrantable reflections on the conduct of the poor, diftreffed, defpoiled, and exiled Proteftant Clergy of Wexford in his letter, are not more wonderful, than his favourable recommendation of Meffrs. Colclough and McCord to the Magiftrates of Haverford Weft. Surely if the conduct of

the Clergy, in flying from their country in a feafon of Rebellion, was reprehenfibie; that of these two perfonages, particularly of the first, in abandoning their country at fo critical a period,deferved infinately more the cenfure of his Grace. They were both young men able to fight in defence of their lives and properties; and Mr. Colclough could have been of great fervice in extinguishing the flames of Rebellion in a very confiderable part of the county of Wexford, had he been inclined to exert himfelf for that purpofe; and they could both have remained at home with much lefs hazard to their perfons or properties, than the Proteftant Clergy. His Grace's favour in these two men must have arifen from the fame fource with his reprobation of the conduct of theWexford Clergy. And I do perfume moft humbly to fuggeft to his Grace, the juftice and propriety of reviewing his own conduct on this occafion; and examining into the fources of that mifinformation, which led his Grace to adopt a proceeding fo oppofite to the general operations of his Grace's humanity, fo very diftreffing to the innocent and oppreffed objects of his Grace's cenfure, and fo grating to the feelings of every loyal Proteftant fubject of the British Empire.*

I will conclude with expreffing a wifh, that the influence of Burkifm may receive an effectual and timely check, as well in Great Britain as in Ireland: and that all difgraceful and pitiful intrigues with an Irish Romish faction, in itself utterly inefficient, either for the promotion or obftruction of an incorporating Union of the two nations, and highly offenfive to the loyal Proteftant fubjects of his Majefty in Ireland, may be fpeedily and for ever abandoned: and that the patronage by British Statesmen