Georgia statesman. (Milledgeville, Ga.) 1825-1827, October 17, 1826, Image 1

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Cj-eorgiaS Statesman. |. e r\lS, PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE,] iJ's. MLACHAM. m *he 1.-OHG2A STATESS2A2C F 1S PUBLISHED EVERT TUESDAY IN p MILLEDQEVILLE, Gd. I no-street, opposite the Eagle Hotel. ■ .. -yo f, r mg....Tt r(e Dollars in advance, I Dollars if not paid in sis months.— ■ sU bscription received for less than one “unless the money is paid in advance, K 'no paper discontinued till all arrearages, ■ subscription and advertisements are paid. ■ v g Notice of the sdes of land and ne -1., bv Administrators, Executors, or Guar- l rs ’ mast be published sixty days previous day of sale. ... Ii ie sale of per sor'd property in like rr.an- IfVust be published forty days previous to E jay of sale. ■notice that application will be made to the l .'t of Ordinary for leave to sell land, must ■ published nine months. ■ Vutic, that application has been made for 1., rs of Administration, must also be pub ■ " J forty days. I \|| letters directed to the Editor, on l iuess relating t.O the Office, must be post | From the U. S- Catholic Miscellany. TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR TROUP, Os Georgia. I iriE. —I feel no small share of re [rct at finding myself obliged to bite what you have very thought- U ss ly made necessary.—l have just head your Oration as it has appeared |n o Southern Recorder of the 15th August. It is not because of the bunt of taste which you exhibited Lvour poetical selections; in'the hrst of which you place before us tbo Be ith of a tyrant preparatory to your li>coursc upon the death of Jefferson, Bid in the second you tell us that Bi-'thcr such has fallen, because Ad- Bms is no more. Neither do I com- Bbiin because in your effusion you do But manifest as much capacity for ireaiiug your subject as might be ex pected from much more humble as pirants to the fame of Oratory. I shall not quarrel with you for the charge which you make upon General Washington and John Adams, or one of them having during his Presidency weakened aud destroyed the Con stitution ; though the one is embalm ed in the recollections of the wise and the good, and the other was the object of your panegyric. But my charge against you is that you have made a very wanton attack upon., a Jorge number of your fellow citizens You have said that in the declara tion of Independence Mr. Jefferson embodied what was valuable of Mag na Charta, the Bill of Rights, and act of settlement. £>ir,a subsequent parage of yours and of which I re grit to know that you are the author is the following : "The political constitutions of Eu rope, the offspring of Feudalism and essentially despotic, were still moro corrupted by an union with the con stitution of the Roman Church— Priests came in aid of Kings and No bles to multiply aud perpetuate abus es, and the Divine right and iofallib dy of Royalty were preached by the successors of St. Peter, to make a mystery of government, and by im pressing the hopelessness of reform but through Divine grace, to perpet uate the dominion of the few and the vassalage of the many—when therefore it was said that govern ment was no mystery, that rational beings are capable of self govern ment, that all men are equal, and that governors are but the servants efthe people, created by aad re sponsible to the people, the promul gators of these obvious truths were decried as wild euthusiasists and vis ionary theorists, whose doctrines otight amuse the multitude, but cou’d never be reduced to practice.” Under any circumstances, such a declaration coming from the mouth o! the governor of one of the old thirteen states, must be galling to the Roman Catholics of America : but, sir, if the statement which you made be untrue, and if you have in this instance calumniated institutions with "hcKt. mature and whose History you appear to have little or no acquaint ance; the insulted Catholics will .lot be compensated for the injury which you have done them, even should they discover that you are an honor able man, who feel contrition for your offence ; they may pardon you, but still they suffer. -Magna Charta, sir, was but a par tial assertion of the rights of Eng lishmen against the feudal tyranny o! their conquerors—Feudalism was introduced into Engiaud after the unfortunate overthrow at Hastings by \Y illiarn the conqueror. Previous ly to this, the English hada free gov ernment, they had written charters, fixed laws, aud well defined princi ples : they also had in its full vigor »he Roman Catholic religion ; and 'he bpst gunarantee and bulwark of their liberties was voluntarily given to them from conscientious convic tion, and by the advice of Bishops and Priests, by a king whom the Ro -sla, ‘ Catholics generally revere as a saint. The laws of Edward the Con fessor, sir, are at once the result ol Catholic regal justice, and the best protection of British liberty. They are the collected excellence of the laws of a series of Catholic kings.— Those of Kent were promulgated firstly Ethelbert in 602 ; and their enactment by which the fixed system of law was substituted, for the mon arch’s, or the Witten’s caprice was one of the first results of this king’s conversion by priests sent from the Roman Church, by the successor of St. Poter. So early did they com mence their labour to make govern ment not mystery but law. His suc cessor Withred, in 696, continued their improvement ; three years be fore, Ina had done the same for West Sex ; a/id in 790, the Mercians re ceived their laws from Offa. Alfred who was not only a most religious and pious Roman Catholic, but a student in Ireland, and a learne at Rome, and a disciple of the Pope in the art of government, embodied the great principles of justice and of right which he found in those several codes, and in the laudable customs of his nation ; and gave to all Eng land her first national code of law and is justly styled the father of Brit ish liberty. He also gave a special code to Guthrum the Dane, who be came a Roman Catholic, and made an alliance with him in 870 cr 71, and by which this convert was to govern the Danish Catholics who were permitted to remain in East Angle. Athelstan, Edmund, Edgar, and Ethelrel improved those laws ; and from a conviction of its being his duty to secure for the people over whom he was called by their own free choice to reign, as much liberty and security as he could; Edward the Confessor compiled his code of laws. During this whole period there was no feudal principle in England ; they had free customs and fixed law's and allodial tenure. Feudalism was established in sev eral places upon the Continent of Eu rope. I agree with you in stating that it was essentially despotic ; but your Excellency must have forgotten your historical researches when you made your next assertion, “ that those teudul constitutions were still more corrupted by an union with the constitution of the Roman Church.” Had your Excellency condescended to w'rite without ambiguity, 1 should have had less trouble in my answer. Gentlemen like you perhaps do not care to learn even obvious distinct ions, where Propery is concerned; but Sir, the knowledge of the eco nomy of even a nest of ants, would be no degradation. There is as ob vious a distinction between the con stitution ol the Roman Church and that of the Roman Catholic Church, as there .is* between the constitution of the City of Washington and the const iution of the United States ; but perhaps you never took the trouble of examining either the one or the other* Believe me that your Excel lency would write and speak better upon any subject by being acquaint ed with its nature. If in your Ora tion you meant what you said, the Roman you made just as in telligible an assertion, as if, you had gravely told your auditors, that the constitution ofoi.r Colleges essential ly literary, became much better by an union with the constitnion of the City of Washington. But if you meant the Roman Catholic Church, when you said “ Roman Church,” as l assume, you did, you contradicted all history. . Si*-, if you do not know, you and every man in such a station as you fill, ought to know more of the histo ry of the European governments than you exhibit; you ought to know that feudalism at its first establish ment in Southern Europe, was not only despotic but ferocious, and that iis spirit was softened by the Roman Catholic Church, and its usurpations were resisted and checked by that same church. I shall now glance at a few facts to which you have direct ed my.attention, and confining my self to them, exhibit to you enough to make you fell that you have acted unwisely in venturing to attack a church of whose principles you know so little. We have seen,, Sir, that England had not fcndal principles in her con stitution at the time of king Edward the Confessor, who died on the sth of January 1066—The Norman Will iam soon found his sword had hewn a passage to the British throne. He preferred the Norman to tho British principles ; and first established the feudal tenure in the island ; though in 1070 he confirmed the laws oi Ed ward. yet through his whole reign lsis first object was to make the Eng lish nation submit to mitigated feu dalism. Tho Church had before the conquest, held her psosessions*either by the allodial tide or that of frec ulms, but the great object of the con Hse tibienmt artu, pacisque imponere mortal, parccre subjects et debellare guperbos.—Virgil. MILLEDGEVILLE, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1826. queror was to have the litle to these' lands, and all other'rights to any temporalities which she held, depen dent upon, and derived from the king, upon the feudal principle ; in some instances he and his successors were able by the dint of oppression to fore the clergy to a surrender of their ancient rights, and acceptance of anew feudal title for the whole or for a part, from his majesty. The old Saxons who did not accept of such titles when offered, were dis possessed, and Normans very gladly became feudal possessors in their stead. The laws of the Confessor and the ancient rights gradually fell into disuse or were superceded. Thus during the reign 9 of the two first Williams, the two Henries, Ste phen, Richard, aud John, there exist ed an almost ceaseless war between those Monarchs and the Churcli, ui consequence of the resistance of the Prelates to the kingly usurpations : the Barons were generally awed or interested, and the people w re en slaved, the clergy alone made resist ance in a body, though lfequently for peace sake some of that order, as they did at Clarendon to the second Henry, parted with much of their rights and of the property of which Ihey were but trustees ; some as Becket, lost their lives ; and as Lang ton, were driven*into exile, This is not the picture of the Constitution of the Church uniting with that of feu dalism to make a despot more corropt ly powerful. Will your Excellency vouchsafe to accompany me to Runnyinede ? Who produced the old copyof Edward’s laws, and taught the Barons and the freemen their rights ? Who brought them to the altar to swear that they would hold together and persevere m seeking tlie restitution of. their rights 1 Who stood forward *to claim trom John that restitution, and whose steady demands aved the crouching tyrant more than the gleaming ol the armour which glittered on that field 1 It was Langton the Roman Catholic Arch bishop of Canterbury. Thus, Sir, whatever of good is to be found in Magna Charta, is due to tho very people whom Governor Troup has wantonly insulted. Feudalum was restrained in Eng land by the Roman Catholic Churcli aud sir, but that neither my leisur permits me, nor does the subject re quire it, I would shew you the same result upon the Continent of Europe. We shall stay in England, sir, be cause you have chosen it for your ground. With the exception of the third Edward, there was scarcely a monarch who did not endeavour to make his feudal prerogative prevail over popukir right, and in all those cases with scarcely an exception! the king experienced the opposition of the Church ; until in the ferocity of his rage and lust the eighth Hen ry laid that church prostrate at his feet, because it would not sacrifice eternal trutli to his beastly passions This, may it please your excel! :ncy was the commencement of the reli gious reformation of England. Now indeed for the first time the princi pal of feudalism gave to the first Brit ish monarch every thing he sought ; be was now lord paramount in church ind State. Need I inform Governor Troup what immediate consequences flowed from this usurpation ? The Parliament became a mere mockery; the royal proclamation had the force of law; any freeman who sought to obtain the benefit of the great char ter was transmitted to a dungeon : no charter was title; did any Bishop dare to raise his voice to vindicate his right, he was sent to the scaffold; an honest Chancellor’s fate was to be similar. Under Edward the sixth the Bishop's commission might be super seded. Thus, sir, the genuine prin ciple of perfect feudalism was estab lished in England, only upon the de struction of the constitution of the Roman Catholic church; and a more obedient set of gentleman to the powers that be, has never been ex hibited to the world, than in the sub stitutes for those turbulent prelates who contended for their aucieut rights, and chartered property. Eve ry semblance of liberty, save the shadow of a Parliament was now lost; when the Bill of rights was introduc ed and passed, it was but an attempt to restore long lost liberties which had ben tyrannically trampled upon contrary to the laws, usages, and principles of the ancient Catholic English people. Those enumerated and enacted in tho act of settlement are no more. The Roman Catholic church has no principle in her consti tution, no tenet in her doctrines, no custom in her discipline which teaches or implies that a king reigns by di vine right. When kings state that they rule by the grace of God, they mean by his favor or kindness as the word implies.—You’need not go to religion for its meaning, and certain ly not to the Roman Catholic reli- gion to explain that it is by a super natural gift or favor of God that George the fourth now persecute-* Roman Catholics. As I suppose you are a classical scholar, you must know that the words gratia dei are a gene ric expression, which according to the context are to be translated either the kindness of God regarding a temporal or a spiritual benefit: the Roman Catholic church never class ed the possession of a crown and sceptre amongst her Sacraments. It your excellency means to speak or to write upon those subjects again, it would be well if you took the pains to study them ; because I believe the Almighty never promised to give historical or classical or legal infor mation to Kings or to Governors by mere inspiration. Thus, sir, if Mr. Jefferson drew up with consummate lehcity a excellent declaration, “em bodying what is valuable in Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights and act of settlement,” it is no disparagement to his genius to assert, that the two lat ter only “invigorated and restored” what had beeu previously given in Magna Charta, but the force of that charter was impaired by feudalism to which the Roman Catholic church gave opposition, and which feudalism bv the destruction of that church got full vigour to cestroy the charter : and that this charter was obtained and established by the R. Catholic-, in opposition to a feudal tyrant, and was but the imperfect restitution of what Roman Catholics had creat ed and enjoyed by the aid of their church, before a feudal conqueror robbed them of tbeir rights ; and that the English Roman Catholic clergy endured their greatest hardships, because of their opposition to feudal tyrants. Your excellency having in defiance of all records stated iu reference to England, that Roman Catholic pries came iu to aid kings and nobles i perpetuating and multiplying as well as establishing the abuse of Feudal ism I come to examine your others assertions. “ The Divine rights and infallibili ty of royalty were preached by the successors of St Peer, to make a mystery of Government, and by im pression the hopelessness of reform unt through Divine grace, to per petuate the dominion of the few and the vassalage of the many.” Your sentence is wretchedly con structed ; but still we can discover your meaning.—Will you please to inform us what successor if St. Peter' preached the divine right > fkings ? Have not the Popes been generally accused of asserting that kings held their crowns from the Holy See, and not from God : by papal, not by di vine right I —What successor of Pe ter ever prcaclied or taught the in lallibibity of kings I —Have they not been generally accused of acting to wards kings not only as if their ma jesties were fallible, but criminal ? Have they not been at war with kings?—Have they not deposed ?—What page of history what record, what fact exhibited to your Excellency that they preached that government was a mystery ? I have sometimes heard of the Popes’ stat ing: that a king reigned by Divine right ; but I have never heard or read that any Pope Preached such a doctrine, until I read it in your ora tion: but for you was reserved the high distinction of being I believe the first public authority to charge the Pope with preaching that kings are infallible. There are some persons, may it please your excellency, hold as an opinion, that some of our state governors imagine themselves to be infallible; perhaps there were in former times kings who really had as high notions of their own opinions as any of our governors : the ob stinacy of such kings might also have caused considerable loss of territory to their states Now your excellency must admit that in revolting against king George 111. Mr, Jefferson and his assotiat 3 were aided by a Catholic King, the eldest son of the Roman Catholic church ; and the revolt was against a protestant king who persecuted Roman Catholics for not swearing that they would desert and reject the Pope. Yet with admirable facility, with a tact peculiar to yourself, you give as the prelude to your insult up on the Roman Catholics, and ’ your assertions regarding the Pope, a de claration that it was the most in veterate of tho enemies of Rome, was the superstitious protestant despot. v Mr. Jefferson had already done enough for his country and for his own fame—-He had marched with his comrades in the van guard of freedom, had palsied the arm of des potism, broken the chains of supersti tion, declared the independance oi his country, and promulgated the na tural, imperscriptibie and unaliena ble rights of man.” In doing all which he was aided by Roman Catholics IMA Roman Cath olic signature to his declaration pledg ed not only life and sacred honour, but a million of money; Gen. Wash ington testified that no blood was more freely shod in defcnca of Mr. Jefferson’s principles, than that of Roman Catholics; the king ofaCath olic nation, the king of all others most attached to Rome, sent his fleets and arihies to be the co-partners in palsying the despots*arm, and break ing the chains of superstition.... What superstition ? Certainly not Roman Catholic; because ther* was no Cath olic superstition to enchain any per son whom Mr. Jefferson had freed. What it mean ? Protes tant superstition ! Be it so, if you will. It is not my province to con tend with you that it was not. But if so, I ask you; why you attack the Pope and the Roman Catholic church in the next paragraph ! —Come gov ernor, honestly declare that you used the words ns many of our fellow-citi zens use them every day, merely for their sound, and without considering whether they had reason or not Why would you then carelessly insult a large portion of your fellow-citizens? I have done. Yours, A ROMAN CATHOLIC. THE MYSTERIOUS GUESTS. About sixty years ago, two En glishmen one day arrived at Calais in the Dover Packet. /They did not take up their quarters at the hotel of Mons. Denseiu, on whom the author of the Sentimental Jour ney bestowed such celebrity, but went to an obscure Inn, kept by a man of the name of Du Long. They desired to have his best apartments, spent a great deal of money, relish ed the produce of his wretched kitchen, and thought his adultera ted wine perfectly genuine. From day to day Du Long supplied they would continue their Journey, and proceed to the capital: for, that they had come merely to see Calais, was an idea too absurd to enter any body’s head. But so far from con tinuing their journey, and proceed ing to the capital, they did not even inspect what was worth seeing at Calais : for, except going out uow and then to %hoot snipes, they kept close at home, eating, drinking, and doing nothing. “ They may be spies,” thought the host, ‘or runa ways, or fools. No matter : what is that to me ? They pay honest ly.’ When he was sitting in one evening over a pint with his neigh bor and relation, the grocer, they used to rack their brains about the mysterious guests. * They are spies,’ said the grocer; ‘ one of them squints with his left eye.’ A man may squint without being a spy,’ rejoined the host; • I should take them for run aways, for they read all my news papers, probably for the sake of ad vertisements.’ His kinsman then as sured him that all Englishmen spend at least a twelfth part of their lives in reading newspapers. The con clusion to which they generally caine was, that as the said foreign* ers wore apparently neither spies nor runaways, they could not pos sibly be any thing else than fools, — Here the matter rested- In this o pinion Du Long was still more con firmed when, at the eud of a few weeks, one of his guests, an elderly man, thus addressed him: Land lord,’ said he, ’we like your house; and if you will acquiesce in a cer tain whim, it is probable that we might continue for a long time to °pend our money with you.’ ‘ Your honors have only to give your com mands ; an inkeeper is, by profes sion, the slave of all the whims that throng to him from all the four quar ters of the globe.’ * You have, to be sure, continued he, ‘ had a pro digiously large beast painted on your sign ; but your house is only a fly auiong inns ; it scarcely contains three tolerable rooms, and unfortu nately, they all look into the street. We are fond of rest, we want to sleep. Your watchman has a very loud voice, and the coaches roll the whole night along the street, so as to make all the windows rattle.— We wake every quarter of an hour to curse them, and fall asleep again, to be again waked in another quar ter of an hour. You must admit, my dear fclloy, that this is enough to destroy our health, and exhaust our patience.’ The host shrugged his shoulders. How can it be helped ?’ 'Very easily,’ replied the stranger, * if you are not afraid of a little ex pense, in which we will go halves, without requiring at our departure the smallest compensation.’ Du Long whose barren field had, since the arrival of the Englishmen, been daily fertilized with a shower of guineas, promised to do all that lay in his power to satisfy his guests, but he could not help the rattling of the. coaches and bellowing of the watch- fOR $4 IF NOT PAID IN SIX MONTHS. NO. 42....V0L. I. man. ‘Neither is it necessary’ an* swered the stranger. ‘ Behind your house yon have a snug little gar* den, though you are no lover of gar* dening; for, except a little parsley for your soups, observe nothing in it but nettles. The old garden wall, too, in spite of its thickness, is just ready to tumble. Suppose yott were to make use of this space to run up a little building, a sort of pleasure house, even if it were to contain no more than a couple of rooms. It might be supported by the old wall, by which means a con* siderable part of the expeuse would be spswed, and the wall itself would be propped up. As I just now men tioned, for the sake of a quiet lodg ing, we would willingly defray one half of the costs, and we are gone, the building will be yours; you will then have an additional couple of convenient rooms to let.- If, on the other hand, you object to our proposal, we must leave you.’— The host, howevor, had not the least objection, though he thought, with in himself, 1 My kinsman aud 1 were right enough iu concluding that these People were fools.’ He immediate ly sent lor a bricklayer; the placfe was examined, and the Englishmen described what they should like to have done. Joists and bricks werß quickly brought; three light walls were run up; the old garden wall formed the fourth, from which sloped a half roof , so that the whole looked more like a wc nd-house than a habi tation ; but the strangers were satis fied, and Du Long laughed in his leeve. Two months thus passed ia mutual content: the golden spring flowed abundantly, though the wine grew worse and worse every day.— The two Englishmen very seldom quitted their lodgings, where the ate, drank, and read the newspapers. The only thing that surprised tlfe landlord of the Golden Elephant was, that, for the sake of nocturnal re pose, they had built a house for themselves, and that new he very often preceived a light the whole night through in their apartments He once conjectured they might be coiners ; but, as all the money they spent passed through *his hands, and their guineas, alter a most care ful examination, were always found to be good, his kinsman and he had again no other alternative than to set them down for fools. One fine day in Autumn he saw them go out, with their guns slung over their shoulders. They told them they were going to take the diversion of snipe shooting, and took leave of him for three days. The three days were passed, and so did the fourth, but the strangers did not mako their appearance. On the fifth, Dn Long shook his head ; otj tho sixth, his kinsman began to shake his also ; on the 7th this suspicious circumstance was communicated to the police ; and on the eighth, the deserted habitation was broken open, w ith all the formalities of law. O® the table was found a billet, the contents of w hich were as follows i ‘ Dear landlord—ls your have auy acquaintance with history, you must know that the English were one-', during a period of two hundred and ten years, in possession of Calais; and they were at length driven out of it by the Duke of Guise, who treated them in the same manner as our Edward 111. did the French; that is, drove them out of the town and seized all their effects. Not long since, we were so fortunate as to discover, in n chest of old p uwnts, deeds that proved that one of our ancestors formerly possessed at Calais a large house, on the site of which three houses stand at pre* sent; yours is one of the three.— When our ancestor was obliged to flee, he buried his gold and silver at the foot of a thick wall, which is still in existence. Amoung his papers we found one which afforded Satis factory information respecting the situation of the building. We int mediately repaired to Calais, and luckily found h public house on the spot so interesting to us; we took lodgings in it, examined every thing, and concerted pressures to take posr session of oqr lawful inheritance without excdspg notice. In what manner we removed all obstacles is w 11 know nto you. The great hole, and the empty iron chest, which vcni w ill find under the wall in our cham ber, are proofs that we have been successful. We make you a present of the chest, and advise you to fill up the hole, and to gr e yourself no further concern about ns ; ai inqur ries will be in rain, as the names we went by were only assumed.— Farewell.’ The landlord ol the Gold en Elephant stood stock still, and with open mouth. His kinsman came ; both looked at the hole, and then at the empty chest, and then at one another, and agreed that the stramrers were not such loots as they i had taken them tor.?