In this strain O'Leary argued at much length; but the impartial historian of this very time describes 'the system of Tithes as the greatest practical grievance, both of the poorer Catholics and of the Presbyterians.'[600] Most people have heard of O'Leary's controversy with the Bishop of Cloyne, in which, when the prelate disputed Purgatory, O'Leary retorted that he might 'go farther and fare worse.' The 'Critical Review' examined the controversy with a shrewdly penetrative eye. Lord Kenmare, in a letter dated October 2, 1787, writes: 'I read with the greatest pleasure the 'Critical Review' on the Cloyne controversy. It is the best performance that has yet appeared on the subject. Grattan is violent against the Bishop of Cloyne for his publication, and thinks, with the reviewer, that Government is at the bottom of it.'[601] O'Leary's reply, which runs to 175 pages, contains many excellent truths worthy of commendation; but it is a question whether this elaborate controversy may not have been inspired and encouraged from Dublin Castle. Law and order are, very properly, inculcated throughout by O'Leary, and powerful dissuasives addressed to the 'Whiteboys' are printed at the end.[602] As regards the Bishop of Cloyne, O'Leary assures him, in words somewhat supererogatory: 'I was not sent here to sow sedition (p. 119). I returned here, not as a felon from transportation, but as an honourable exile, who returns to his native land after having preferred a voluntary banishment to ignorance and the abjuration of the creed of his fathers.' Some years later, _i.e._ in 1789, he was falsely reported to have taken the latter step, and, like Drs. Butler and Kirwan, to meditate matrimony. 'Having from my early days,' he wrote, 'accustomed myself to get the mastery over ambition and love, the two passions which in every age have enslaved the greatest heroes, your correspondent may rest assured that I am not of the trio.' O'Leary was a Franciscan friar who had made vows of voluntary poverty. The fact that he had long been accustomed to rest content with a little may help to explain the modest sum he was satisfied to accept for services which, if cordially rendered, were worth the amount twenty times told. And in judging the man for accepting this money it must be remembered that the bulk of it was spent in alms deeds. Bishop Murphy told Father England that when a youth he was frequently O'Leary's almoner, and that a number of reduced persons were weekly relieved in Cork to the average extent of two or three pounds. 'Charity,' we are told, 'covers a multitude of sins.' FOOTNOTES: [548] Cumberland's _Memoirs_, ii. 2-38. (London, 1807.) [549] Cumberland several times calls it a 'treaty.' [550] Vide _Correspondence of Sir John Sinclair_, ii. 385-6. Del Campo's letters are written in excellent English; it appears that, though born in Spain, he had come from an English Catholic family named Field.