INJUDICIOUS FRIENDS: THE HAULM CASE.
2e1 February 1853. Sri It appears to me, on reading in your journal of Saturday last the re- port a the meeting which took place atExeter Hall yesterday -week, that the Protestant Alliance, in endeavouringto accomplish a very good end, are run- ning a risk of doing a great injustice. It was proposed at the meeting to petition the Queen to "consider the propriety of discontinuing all diplomatic intercourse with a court which had shown itself indifferent alike to the dictates of humanity and the dahlia of international friendship and courtesy?' Now, ought we not to consider be- fore we pray the Queen to take a step which can do no good to the Medial., and will only tend to annoy our own countrymen, whether there is any reason- able ground for taking it For we must remember, that whatever the real motive for the persecution of the Medial, the ostensible one isnot for reading the 'Scriptures, but for proselytizing ; and the forms -of law affecting.people accused of breaking it in Tuscany: were preserved in their case ? If we ac- cuse the Tuscan Government of injustice, and say to them that because they have imprisoned 'two innocent persons for reading the Scriptures, there- fore we intend to have no further diplomatic relations with them, may they not 'very fairly reply—" We did not imprison two innocent people for read- ing the Scriptures, 'but for an offence of which they were convicted according to the laws of our country. Is your justice always-so perfectly administered in England that you have a right thus to call us to account? And-would you were we a large and powerful nation, think of withdrawing your Ambassador Is it not because we are but a small state that you thus intend to insult us ?" I fear we -need not look back far over the proceedings of our own Government end law courts to find as flagrant actsof injustice as that which we now complain of -towards the Medial. And why is the -whole Tuscan nation to be insulted because its Government has committed an unjust act.? Besides, to irritate the-Tuscan Court can in no way assist in liberating the Medial, but it may help to increase their sufferings. No one would rejoice more than myself at hearing-of the liberation of those two unfortunate and meritorious sufferers ; but I would, nevertheless, confine the interference of this country in the internal affairs of a foreign nation (always a very deli- cate undertaking) 'within the limits of the strictest justice, and:be very care- ful to make no accusations we cannot fairly support.
There was also a resolution passed against the Maynooth grant. What can the Maynooth grant have to do with the imprisonment of the Madiai Because a Catholic Government oppresses two °fits subjects, shall our Pro- testant Goverinnent (by way of showing the Catholic Govemment.its errors) do an injustice to fifty times the number of its Catholic subjects ? 'Two wrongs can never make a right. Can our Government expect Catholics to approve of that religion which they must conclude teaches it to force them to support a Protestant Church in a country where eo large a majority of the population are Catholic, and yet take away a sum of money from them which has been granted them for years, because a foreign Government unjustly im- prisons two of its subjects ? If we would set ourselves up as censors to the Tuscan Government, let us take care to act with strict justice ourselves. Do not let us, in endeavouring to make the Grand Duke of Tuscany repair an injustice, give him the oppor- tunity of accusing us of one as great, or greater, than that which he has
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