A REJOINDER.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3829, 12 June 1873, Page 2

A REJOINDER.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE INDEPENDENT,

Sir, — The report of the persecution recently suffered by the Protestants from the Romanists in Rotumah, so fiercely criticised by "An old CathoUc Missionary" in your issue of to-day, was an extract from a letter of the Rev J. Osborne, who has just returned to Sydney, published in the "Wesleyan Missionary Notices" for the month of April. In replying to your correspondent, my only wish is to assure your readers that the report was not a reckless statement made "to feast a Wesleyan audience," but an allegation of patent facts, which, if "An old CathoUc Missionary" can disprove, none wUI rejoice more than myself. At present the matter stands thus : — A letter from a returned missionary, published in the official notices issued by the Australian MissionarySociety, affirms that the Protestants were persecuted by the Romanists. The priests invited a French man - ofwar to visit the island. The captain, without investigating the charges bronght against the Protestants, fined them ten tons of oil, value about £200. This recent and public statement "An Old Catholic Missionary" confronts with a private letter, denying a similar report received by him thirty years since. Will that sort of reasoning satisfy any thoughtful man? The " Catholic Missionary" is evidently incompetent to deal with the

subject which he discusses so elaborately, for he talks of Wesleyan missionaries inflicting cruelties upon Romanist priests, &c, in Hawaii and Tahiti. He should have known that the Wesleyans never had missions in those islands. If "the Archbishop of Polynesia is a myth," perhaps the Bishop is a reality. — lam, &c, J. S. Smalley.