But to return--I assure my readers, then, that this book contains all
the testimony that has been brought against me, so far as I can
ascertain.
The extensive publication of the Montreal affidavits (for they appeared
in the Roman Catholic papers, and were circulated, it is believed, very
generally through New York), for a time, almost entirely closed the
newspapers against me. My publishers addressed the following letter to
the editor of the N. Y. Catholic Diary, and waited on him with a third
person, to request its publication in his next paper, but he declined.
He expressed doubts of my being in the city, and intimated a wish to
see me; but when they acceded, he refused to meet me anywhere but _at
his own residence!_
The same letter was then offered to other editors in New York, and even
sent to Philadelphia for publication, but refused. It appeared on the
29th of February, in the Brooklyn Star, thus introduced:--
_Extracts from the Long Island Star of Feb. 29th._
"Since the publication of our last paper, we have received a
communication from Messrs. Howe and Bates, of New York, the publishers
of Miss Monk's 'Awful Disclosures.' It appears that some influences
have been at work in that city, adverse to the free examination of the
case between her and the priests of Canada; for thus far the news
papers have been almost entirely closed against every thing in her
defence, while most of them have published false charges against the
book, some of a preposterous nature, the contradiction of which is
plain and palpable.
"Returning to New York, she then first resolved to publish her story,
which she has recently done, after several intelligent and
disinterested persons had satisfied themselves by much examination that
it was _true_.
"When it became known in Canada that this was her intention, six
affidavits were published in some of the newspapers, intended to
destroy confidence in her character; but these were found very
contradictory in several important points, and others to afford
undersigned confirmation of statements before made by her.
"On the publication of her book, the New York Catholic Diary, the Truth
Teller, the Green Banner, and other papers, made virulent attacks upon
it, and one of them proposed that the publishers should be 'Lynched.'
An anonymous handbill was also circulated in New York, declaring the
work a malignant libel, got up by Protestant clergymen, and promising
an ample refutation of it in a few days. This was re-published in the
Catholic Diary, &c. with the old Montreal affidavits which latter were
also distributed through New York and Brooklyn; and on the authority of
these, several Protestant newspapers denounced the work as false and
malicious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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