herds, and permit yourselves to be taken by the deceitful voice of wolves, who cover themselves with the skins of sheep, to desolate, destroy, and massacre, more easily the flock. Therefore, we decry, in virtue of the apostolic authority with which we are clothed; and we declare that the election of William Vet to the bishopric of Deventer is illegal, vain, null, and his consecration illegitimate, and sacrilegious. We excommunicate and anathematize the above-named William, and all those who took any part in his culpable election, and who have concurred by their power, their endeavours, and their consent and advice, either to his election or his consecration. We decide, decree, and declare, that they are separated from the communion of the Church as schismatics, and that they ought to be avoided. And moreover the said William is suspended from the exercise of the rights and functions belonging to the jurisdiction or to the order of bishops, and we interdict him under pain of incurring excommunication by the deed itself, and without any declaration, from making the holy chrism, from conferring the sacrament of confirmation, from giving orders, or from doing any of the acts reserved to the order of bishops, declaring them moreover vain, useless, of no value, and of no importance, all, and each of the acts which he shall have the boldness to perform.

"Let those who have received ecclesiastical order from him know that they are bound by this suspension, and that they will become irregular, if they shall have exercised the functions of the order which they have received.

""Tis with regret and with great grief that we impose these censures upon the guilty. Oh! if they were stricken and plagued in grief by our decree; if they should weep and repent, how great would not be our joy? What tears of joy a conversion so desirable would draw from our eyes! With what transports should we fold in our arms children returning to their father! How great would be our thanks to the God of mercy! We entreat him daily by ardent prayers, that he would deign to bestow this consolation upon us and upon the church. Do you do the same, our dearest children, you of whom we know, and so justly praise the invincible faith, and the indestructible union with the Holy See, the centre of orthodox unity.

"To assist you to satisfy more willingly, more fully, and with more joy this duty of evangelic charity, we give you affectionately the apostolic benediction.

"Given at Rome, at the Church of St. Peter, under the Fishermen's Seal, on the nineteenth day of August, 1825, second year of our Pontificate."

EPISODE OF MR. WARD AND MR. POINSETT

[The following piece, which appeared as an editorial article in the United States Catholic Miscellany, No. 2, of Vol. VI., for 1826, will have a special interest for the citizens of South Carolina, as preserving the memory of an incident in the public life of one of her greatest statesmen; a man who has shown himself a hero in action, as well as in words, and who, like all really brave men, has never been ashamed to avow his sympathy for the injured and oppressed.]

The Patriot, which is published in this city, contained the following article, on the evening of Friday, the 21st inst.:

"We have seen a letter from Mexico, under date of the 25th of May, which states that there is every probability of Mr. Poinsett soon being successful in concluding a commercial treaty between Mexico and this country, favourable to our interests. We have been informed also, that at a public dinner, given on St. Patrick's day, in the city of Mexico, on Mr. Poinsett's expressing a wish for the emancipation of the Catholics of Ireland, he was warmly replied to by Mr. Ward, the British Chargé des Affaires, who defended the policy of his government, to which Mr. Poinsett replied with calmness and courtesy, and was heartily cheered both by the natives and the British subjects present. We are beside given to understand that the Executive Council of Mexico was strongly inclined to fit out an expedition against Cuba, which had met with the concurrence of the Senate, but the proposition was rejected by the popular branch of the Legislature.''

So far as Mr. Poinsett is concerned, he has acted as we should expect, as well from our knowledge of him as a friend to public liberty; as particularly, from the very just notions which we know he entertains on Irish affairs.

We not only are attached by many ties to South Carolina, and love Charleston, but we respect the talent, the virtue, and the chivalrous honour of those who move in the van of our fellow-citizens. Shall we, therefore, say that on every subject they are well informed, and think correctly? No indeed, we cannot! but this is no reproach to them, it is but the evidence that they are human beings, and not gifted with the perfection of the Deity; there is no place whose inhabitants know everything, and are free from all delusion, and exempt from every bias.

The people of South Carolina know very little of the true state of Ireland, and are only acquiring the rudiments of knowledge, respecting the actual state of oppression, under which the unfortunate Irish Catholic labours in the land of his birth. Gentlemen in the city of Charles

ton, whose acquirements are very great, whose reading is very extensive, and whose dispositions are excellent, still know absolutely nothing of the thraldom and degradation in which the British government keeps the Irish Catholic, and yet, his present degradation is lenity-is mercy— compared to what his ancestors have endured. Greece meets, at least, with sympathy, even some little aid is extended to her.

But though New York and Baltimore and Washington have transmitted their sighs and aspirations and blessings upon the western breeze, and Ireland has been refreshed and consoled by the soothing zephyr, still no soul appears amongst us to be touched by the melancholy sound of the dishonoured harp. "Tis true our excellent attorney-general, Mr. Pettigru, has, on the 4th of July, 1825, poured the history of Ireland's wo into the ears of a Charleston assembly.

"Tis true, the passing glow of indignation mantled upon the cheek of the one sex, and made the darkened brow lower over the fixed eye of the other, whilst hands unconsciously sought for some warrior's weapon. This gave evidence that virtuous sympathy existed in the South; and that if the public mind had been correctly informed, the public feeling would have been appropriately manifested, and the public energies successfully directed. But we repeat, the public mind is not sufficiently informed, and here is to be found the true cause of Southern apathy. Why it is not informed, is easily answered. Because to admire Ireland is not fashionable. Greece!-why the very word is magic-classic recollections are associates with the very sound-the names of her early warriors of her venerable sages-all, all are repeated almost by every person who can lisp. They are, like the Greek sentence of Mr. Jenkinson in the Vicar of Wakefield, a talismanic expression, which astounds the vulgar, confers dignity on the utterer, makes the unlearned humbly dumb, teaches caution to the half instructed, and makes those who are truly erudite silent for a different reason; thus leaving him who has the courage to fling forth such amalgamated, stupendous, polysyllabic phraseology, sole possessor of the admiration of his audience. But alas for poor Ireland! how adverse has been her destiny? We shall not now advert to the cause-another time may be more appropriate. She has been made a byword of reproach. That she ever had sages! that she ever had warriors! that any of her sons were philosophers! that the name of an Irishman was not barbarous. Ridiculous!!! Who could listen to such assertions? The whole testimony of English historians, the frequent rebellions of the turbulent, wild Irish, and the acknowledged ignorance of their illiterate clergy who prevent the people from learning,— all establish the fact of Irish barbarity. The stage, the press, the pulpit,

and the senate, proclaim their degradation. Thus, while every scrap regarding Greece interests the fashionable world, it would be evidence of bad taste to take any interest in what concerns Ireland, and especially Irish Catholics. The cause of that ignorance of which we complain is, in the first place, that it has been made unfashionable to be interested for Ireland. We shall, before we conclude this article, exhibit another cause, far worse in its nature, but not more injurious in its results.

Mr. Poinsett is one of the very few with whom we have conversed, who has had the manliness to disengage himself from the trammels of this debasing fashion. We call that debasing which perpetuates ignorWe have found that his travels have been turned to much better account than those of other gentlemen, whose opportunities were equally good and extensive.

ance.

They viewed novelties with prejudice, and either sought no explanation, or sought it from an enemy of what they saw; and thus the original prejudice became almost incurably fixed, and far more deeply tinged. We have frequently lamented the ruin of fine minds, and of good dispositions, from this cause. Mr. Poinsett appeared to us to have sought to understand what he saw, and to have had recourse to those means of information which were best calculated to give him correct knowledge, and hence it seemed to us that he had very accurate notions upon many subjects not generally canvassed here.

Amongst those subjects was the state of Ireland, and of its state the case of the Catholic population was a peculiar feature. Hence we were fully convinced, that if he was ever called upon to speak upon that subject, he would have done so with effect; and we feel satisfied that whoever Mr. Ward may be, he must deeply regret having provoked the retort that it seems he has earned and received.

We now come to another part of our subject. Though we are about to use a very severe term, we do it with full deliberation, believing that the term is too mild for the crime. The conduct of the British government towards the Irish Catholic is so execrable, that no person could for one instant attempt to vindicate or even to palliate it, unless by showing that its victims were so criminal that their depravity required this extraordinary infliction: that they were so dangerous to society, that its wellbeing demanded their political incarceration. Hence, of necessity, it became part of the duty of British policy to criminate the Irish Catholics. A crimination of mere Irishmen would not, at present, be sufficient, as it would formerly have been. Before the change in religion made by Henry VIII., the English colony in Ireland oppressed the mere Irish. Then it became necessary to destroy the Irish character, that English

oppression might be justified. Every Irishman then was said to have had every bad quality. But when Henry and Elizabeth and James procured some few of these bad Irish to become of the new religion, the depravity of the Irish character was purged away by the merits of the adopted creed. All the rebellious remnant who obstinately followed in the way of their fathers, were now the outcasts, possessing the quality of Irishmen in common with their regenerated brethren. To attribute to that quality of mere Irishmen the inherent corruption, would be to discredit those mere Irish who had been received into the society of the reformed. But, as the quality of Catholicism was peculiar to the outcasts, it at the same time saved the credit of those who had changed, and it left the blot upon those whom they had [deserted] to attribute now to religion, what was before attributed to soil. Thus, the faults were now charged to Catholics. But still, as the majority of the people remained attached to their ancient faith, Ireland was with the multitude, and not with the exception. Thus, every English writer was bound to prove that Irish Catholics deserved the punishments under which they groaned, and of the two qualities, that of Catholicism, which was peculiar to the oppressed, was vilified the most. A dreadful remnant of the barbarous code yet exists, and it is the duty of every British servant to attempt the justification of the government by which he is paid. To justify that government, he must vilify the Irish Catholic. It was very natural for Mr. Ward to feel mortified when Mr. Poinsett expressed a wish that justice should be done to a people whom the king, Mr. Ward's master, persecuted. But it was equally natural that Mr. Poinsett, with the principles and feelings which he possesses, should express the wish of emancipation, a wish perfectly congenial to the principles of the nation which he has the honour to represent. Mr. Ward might have expressed his regret, as Mr. Canning would, or as many others would, that his government had not found it as yet expedient to do justice to the people of Ireland, together with a hope that this expedient time would arrive some day, before the wreck of his empire would alone remain. But, no; this would not satisfy his ardent zeal, and when he sought to justify what is unjustifiable in the presence of our minister, he reckoned without his host.

We feel that we have extended this article too far. We shall for this day conclude with returning our thanks to Mr. Poinsett, and expressing our conviction that the Irish Catholic citizens of America unite with us in the expression.