In the country, the newspapers generally, I believe, followed the
example set in this city, though in Albany, Boston, and one or two
other places, a solitary one or two appeared disposed to examine the
subject.
At length appeared the long-threatened Montreal affidavits, which are
here inserted. They were published in several Roman Catholic, and one
or two Protestant papers in New York, with this introduction--
_"Maria Monk's 'Awful Disclosures.' Villany exposed!!_
"Of all the curious pranks and fanatical schemes which the foes of
Catholicity have been playing for some years past, there is not one
that fills the mind with greater disgust than the scandalous tale given
to the public by Maria Monk and her wicked associate.
"By the evidence which covers the following pages, the reader will see
the man himself clearly convinced of being a base calumniator, and
arch-hypocrite. He, and his associate prostitute, will be seen, with
brazen impudence, attempting to fix on the virtuous Catholic Ladies and
Catholic Priests of Montreal, the shameless character which belongs
only to themselves."
_From the Montreal Courier,_ Nov. 16, 1835.
"The _New York Protestant Vindicator_ of the 4th November, reiterates
its calumnies concerning the Roman Catholic Clergy and Nuns of this
city. We cherished the hope that, after the simultaneous and unanimous
expressions of disbelief and reprehension with which its extravagant
assertions had been met by the Canadian press, both Protestant and
Catholic, the conductors of that journal would have been slow to
repeat, without better evidence of their truth, the same disgraceful
charges. We have been deceived in our calculation. The fanatical print
demands _counter evidence_ before it will withdraw, or acknowledge the
falsehood of its previous statements. We believe that _counter_
evidence has already been adduced, of a nature far surpassing, in
weight, the claims to credibility which the accusations themselves
could offer. The impure fabrication trumped up by a woman of immoral
character and insane mind, in conjunction with a man of equally
depraved habits, can never be weighed in the balance with the testimony
of Protestants, living in the same community as the accused, and,
therefore, possessing the means of judging of the truth or falsehood of
what was advanced. By any persons of less interested credulity, and of
more discriminating and moral honesty, than what the conductors of the
_Protestant Vindicator_ appear to possess, counter evidence of the
above nature would have been deemed sufficient.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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