It is also a fact, that the Priest, named Quarter, with one of his
minions, did visit the house where Maria Monk resides, on the 13th day
of February, 1836; and did endeavor to see her alone, under the false
pretext of delivering to her a packet from her brother in Montreal; and
as an argument for having an interview with her without company, one of
the two impostors did protest that he had a parcel from John Monk;
which "he had sworn not to deliver except into the hands of his sister
in person." Now what object had Mr. Quarter in view; and what was his
design in going to her residence between nine and ten o'clock at night,
under a lying pretence? Mr. Quarter comes from Canada. He knows all the
Priests of Montreal. For what purpose did he assume a fictitious
character, and utter base and wilful falsehoods, that, he might have
access to her, with another man, when Maria Monk, as they hoped, would
be without a protector? For what ignoble design did he put an old Truth
Teller into a parcel, and make his priest-ridden minion declare that it
was a very valuable packet of letters from John Monk? That strange
contrivance requires explanation. Did Priest Quarter believe that Maria
Monk was in Montreal? Did he doubt her personal identity? Does not that
fact alone verity that all the Roman Priests are confederated? Does it
not prove that her delineations are correct? Does it not evince that
the Papal Ecclesiastics dread the disclosures?
4. _The great ultimate test which the nature of this case demands.
Challenge of the New York Protestant Association_.--It is readily
admitted, that the heinous charges which are made by Maria Monk against
the Roman priests cannot easily be rebutted in the usual form of
disproving criminal allegations. The denial of those Priests is good
for nothing, and they cannot show an alibi. But there is one mode of
destroying Maria Monk's testimony, equally _prompt_ and _decisive_, and
no other way is either feasible, just, or can be efficient. That method
is the plan proposed by the New York Protestant Association.
The Hotel Dieu Nunnery is in Montreal. Here is Maria Monk's description
of its interior apartments and passages. She offers to go to Montreal
under the protection of a committee of four members of the New York
Protestant Association, and in company with four gentlemen of Montreal,
to explore the Nunnery; and she also voluntarily proposes that if her
descriptions of the interior of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery are not found to
be true, she will surrender herself to Lartigue and his confederates to
torture her in what way they may please, or will bear the punishment of
the civil laws as a base and wilful slanderer of the Canadian Jesuit
Ecclesiastics.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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