A Correct Account of the Horrible Occurrence Which Took Place at a Public-House in St. James's Market / In Which It Was Discovered That the Right Rev. Father in God the Bishop of Clogher, Lately Transferred From the Bishopric of Ferns, Was a Principal Actor With a Common Soldier! To the Disgrace Not Only of the Cloth, to Which He Was Attached, and as a Commissioner of the Board of Education, and a Dictator of Public Morals, but as a Member of That Nation Which Gave Him Birth!

by Anonymous

LONDON:
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY & FOR J. L. MARKS,
23, RUSSELL COURT, COVENT GARDEN.

Price Sixpence.

PREFACE.

To hold the vicious up to odium and contempt should be at all times a particular care of the Press; but when every powerful engine is exerted to veil the vices of the privileged ranks, and to make it appear that crime is peculiar to those who constitute what are called the lower classes, it becomes a sacred and imperative duty.

We know there are some who, from a pretended regard to religion, would suppress every fact that exposes the licentious conduct of its ministers, but, nine times out of ten, this is mere hypocritical cant to support those who “bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay on men’s shoulders.” The mistaken infidel may connect religion with the conduct of its professors, but the truly religious person makes no distinction of vice but its comparative enormity, and the more he venerates the doctrine of Christianity, the greater abhorrence he feels towards the wretch who violates every principle of the religion which it is his duty to inculcate.

We see a certain Association evincing a most scandalous partiality, by SELECTING the objects of their prosecution from those most unable to defend themselves! we participate in the general feeling of censure against them, and believe that they have done more injury to the cause they profess to support, than the united efforts of the persecuted parties could possibly have effected. This will ever be the case when exertions are influenced only by feelings of policy instead of principle, for if as much pains were taken to keep improper characters without the pale of the church, as there is art exerted to defend them through thick and thin, when they have entered it, the CLOTH would probably never have been disgraced by the “Rev. Father in God,” whose notoriety promises to eclipse that of all former brothers in divinity.

The name of the Prelate may have appeared in the subscription columns of a newspaper, the only place where the charity of many is heard of. Nay, we have little doubt but it might be found in the list of subscribers to the highly respectable association the “Bridge street gang” or the “Society for the suppression of vice.” We would not rob him of any action of merit on this score, or them of any claim to respectability in the eye of the public; for ourselves we would say, “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye—also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” Any comment on the case itself must be superfluous, we therefore give it to the reader as extracted verbatim from the Statesman.

From the Statesman.

July 22, 1822.

Our readers have often had to oblige us by their attention to what we have said of the blessed THING. We are now going to trouble them upon an extraordinary occasion indeed, and are going to give an instance of the baseness and infamy of the London newspapers, such as we never before had it in our power to give; and such as we are quite sure will, before we have done with it, implant the character of everlasting infamy upon that corrupt press, which has so long been boasting of its independence and its honour. What a deal we have heard about the press being the guardian of public morals! What volumes have we read about its powers of correction of evil! We have, indeed, heard a part of it condemned, the unstamped part of it; that part of it has been pointed out the refuse part; as the vile part; as the part which required laws to restrain it, to cramp it, to load it, to destroy it if possible. We have heard honourable Members in the honourable House, make a distinction between the respectable part of the press and another part, which they denominated disrespectable. We have heard volumes upon volumes of commendation, praise and puffery, about this respectable part of the press. We have always denominated it infamous; we have always said that that part of it which was not absolutely in the pay of Corruption was engaged in a sham warfare, quite as serviceable to Corruption as the efforts of her own hirelings; and that with perhaps a trifling exception or two, it was a mass of infamous fraud carried on under the name of impartiality; sending forth lies, endless in number, and boundless in magnitude, vomiting forth calumnies on the defenceless, and suppressing, through the means of bribes, directly or indirectly received, every fact that could tend to expose the thing, and give the common people their fair chance in society. This has been the character of this infamous press ever since we have known it; but we shall presently have to show our readers, that it has now surpassed even its own infamy, and done a deed so black as to make its former infamies turn pale.