Awful Disclosures

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Mrs. ----, a widow lady now in New York, who formerly was a Papist in
Montreal, and was recently converted to Christianity, solemnly avers,
that the Priest Richards himself, conducted her from the Seminary
through the subterraneous passage to the nunnery, and describes the
whole exactly in accordance with the statement of Maria Monk.

_Mr. Lloyd_, who was in business a number of years adjacent to the
nunnery, and who is intimately acquainted with those priests, their
characters, principles, and habits, avows his unqualified conviction of
the truth of the "Awful Disclosures."

_Mr. Hogan_, who was eighteen months in the Jesuit Seminary at
Montreal, and in constant intercourse and attendance upon Lartigue and
his accomplices, unequivocally affirms, that Maria Monk's complex
description of those Priests are most minutely and accurately true.

One hundred other persons probably can be adduced, who, during their
residence in Canada, or on their tours to that province, by inquiries
ascertained that things in accordance with Maria Monk's delineations are
the undoubted belief of each class of persons, and of every variety of
condition, and in all places which they visited in Lower Canada.

_Mr. Greenfield_, the father of the gentleman who owns the two
steamboats on the river St. Lawrence, called the Lady of the Lake, and
the Canadian Eagle, who is a citizen of New York, avows his unqualified
assent to all Maria Monk's statements, and most emphatically adds--
_"Maria Monk has not disclosed one tenth part of the truth respecting
the Roman Priests and Nuns in Canada."_

Fifty other persons from that province, now residing in New York,
likewise attest the truth of the "Disclosures."

At Sorel, Berthier, and Three Rivers, the usual stopping-places for the
steamboats on the River St. Lawrence, the Priests, if they have any
cause to be at the wharf, may be seen accompanied by one or more
children, their _"Nephews,"_ as the Priests _facetiously_
denominate their offspring; and if any person on the steamboat should be
heard expatiating upon the piety, the temperance, the honesty, or the
purity of Roman Priests and Nuns, he would be laughed at outright,
either as a _natural_ or an ironical jester; while the priest
himself would join in the merriment, as being a "capital joke."

We are assured by the most indisputable authority in Montreal, that the
strictly religious people in that city do generally credit Maria Monk's
statements without hesitation; and the decisive impression of her
veracity can never be removed. If it were possible at once to reform the
nunneries, and to transform them from castles of ignorance, uncleanness,
and murder, where all their arts are concealed in impervious secrecy,
into abodes of wisdom, chastity, and benevolence to every recess of
which all persons, at every hour, might have unrestricted admission--
that would not change the past; it would leave them indelibly branded
with the emphatical title applied to the nunnery at Charlestown,
"FILTHY, MURDEROUS DENS."

3. _Who are those who deny the truth of the book? Case of Father
Conroy. Father Conroy's deception._

In addition to the objections from improbability, another series of
opposition consists of flat, broad denials of the truth of Maria Monk's
"Awful Disclosures." This mode of vanquishing direct charges is even
more invalid than the former futile cavilling. It is also remarkable,
when we remember who are the persons that deny the statements made by
Maria Monk. Are they the Roman Priests implicated? Not at all. They are
too crafty. The only persons who attempt to hint even a suspicion of the
truth of the secrets divulged in the "Awful Disclosures," are editors of
Newspapers: some of whom are ever found on the side of infidelity and
vice; men always reproaching religion; and directly calumniating, or
scornfully ridiculing the best Christians in the land; and profoundly
ignorant of Popery and Jesuitism, and the monastic system.

It is true that Priest Conroy of New York, has contradicted in general
terms the truth of the statement respecting himself, and his attempt to
abduct Maria Monk from the Almshouse. But what does he deny? He is
plainly charged, in the "Awful Disclosures," with a protracted endeavor,
_by fraud or by force to remove Maria Monk from that institution_.
Now that charge involves a flagrant misdemeanor, or it is a wicked and
gross libel. Let him answer the following questions:

Did he not frequently visit the house, and lurk about at various times,
for longer and shorter periods, expressly to have an interview with
Maria Monk?

Did he not state that he was acquainted with her by the name she bore in
the nunnery, _Sainte Eustace_.

Did he not declare that he was commissioned by Lartigue, Phelan,
Dufresne, Kelly, and the Abbess of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery at Montreal,
to obtain a possession of her, that she might be sent back to the abode
of the Furies?

Did he not offer her any thing she pleased to demand, provided she would
reside with the Ursulines of this city?

Did he not also declare that he would have her at all risks, and that
she could not escape him?

Did he not persevere in this course of action, until he was positively
assured that she would not see him, and that the Priest Conroy should
not have access to Maria Monk?

Was not the priest Kelly, from Canada, in New York at that period,
prompting Conroy; and did not that same Kelly come on here expressly to
obtain possession of Maria Monk, that he might carry her back to the
Hotel Dieu Nunnery, there to murder her, as his accomplices have
smothered, poisoned, and bled to death other victims of their beastly
licentiousness?

All these questions are implied in Maria Monk's statement, and they
involve the highest degree of crime against the liberty, rights, and
life of Maria Monk, and the laws of New York, and the charge is either
true or false. Why does not the Priest Conroy try it? Why does he not
demonstrate that he is calumniated, by confronting the Authoress and
Publishers of the book before an impartial jury. We are assured that the
Executive committee of the New York Protestant Association will give ten
dollars to any Lawyer, whom Mr. Conroy will authorize to institute a
civil suit for libel, payable at the termination of the process. Will he
subject the question to that scrutiny? _Never_. He would rather
follow the example of his fellow priests, and depart from New York. Many
of the Maynooth Jesuits, after having fled from Ireland for their
crimes, to this country, to avoid the punishments due to them for the
repetition of them in the United States, and to elude discovery, have
assumed false names and gone to France; or in disguise have joined their
dissolute companions in Canada.

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.

When Lartigue, Bonin, Dufresne, Phelan, Richards, and their fellows,
accede to this proposition, we shall hesitate respecting Maria Monk's
veracity; until then, by all impartial and intelligent judges, and by
enlightened Protestants and Christians, the "Awful Disclosures" will be
pronounced undeniable facts. The scrutiny, however, respecting Maria
Monk's credibility comprises two general questions, to which we shall
succinctly reply.

1. _Was Maria Monk a Nun in the Hotel Dieu Convent at Montreal?_--
In ordinary cases, to dispute respecting a circumstance of that kind
would be deemed a most strange absurdity; and almost similar to an
inquiry into a man's personal identity when his living form is before
your eyes. Maria Monk says she was a nun, presents you a book
descriptive of the Convent in which she resided, and leaves the fact of
her abode there to be verified by the minute accuracy of her
delineations of arcana, with which only the visiting Roman Priests and
the imprisoned nuns are acquainted. That test, neither Lartigue nor the
Priests will permit to be applied; and therefore, so far, Maria Monk's
testimony cannot directly be corroborated. It is however not a little
remarkable, that no one of all the persons so boldly impeached by her of
the most atrocious crimes, has, even whispered a hint that she was not a
nun; while the priest Conroy has confirmed that fact far more certainly
than if he had openly asserted its truth.

5. _The Testimony of Mrs. Monk considered._--The only evidence
against that fact is her mother. Now it is undeniable, that her mother
is a totally incompetent witness. She is known in Montreal to be a woman
of but little principle; and her oath in her daughter's favour would be
injurious to her; for she is so habitually intemperate, that it is
questionable whether she is ever truly competent to explain any matters
which come under her notice. Truth requires this declaration, although
Maria, with commendable filial feelings, did not hint at the fact.
Besides, during a number of years past, she has exhibited a most
unnatural aversion, or rather animosity, to her daughter; so that to her
barbarous usage of Maria when a child, may be imputed the subsequent
scenes through which she has passed. When appealed to respecting her
daughter, her uniform language was such as this--"I do not care what
becomes of her, or who takes her, or where she goes, or what is done to
her, provided she keeps away from me." It is also testified by the most
unexceptionable witnesses in Montreal, that when Maria Monk went to that
city in August, 1835, and first made known her case, that Mrs. Monk
repeatedly declared, that her daughter had been a Nun; and that she had
been in the Nunneries at Montreal a large portion of her life. She also
avowed, that the offer of bribery that had been made unto her, had been
made, not by Protestants, to testify that her daughter Maria had been an
inmate of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery; but by the Roman Priests, who had
promised her one hundred dollars, if she would make an affidavit that
Maria had not been in that nunnery at all; and would also swear to any
other matters which they dictated. Now there is little room for doubt,
that the affidavit to the truth of which she finally swore was thus
obtained; for she has not capacity to compose such a narrative, nor has
she been in a state of mind, for a number of years past, to understand
the details which have thus craftily been imposed upon the public in her
name. When she had no known inducement to falsify the fact in August,
1835, before the Priests became alarmed, then she constantly affirmed
that her daughter had been a Nun; but after Lartigue and his companions
were assured that her daughter's narrative would appear, then the mother
was probably bribed, formally to swear to a wilful falsehood; for it is
most probable, that she either did not see, or from intoxication could
not comprehend, the contents of the paper to which her signature is
affixed. Her habitual intemperance, her coarse impiety, her long-
indulged hatred and cruelty towards her daughter, and her flat self-
contradictions, with her repeated and public declarations, that she had
been offered a large sum of money by the Montreal Priests, thus to
depreciate her daughter's allegations, and to attest upon oath precisely
the contrary to that which she had previously declared, to persons whose
sole object was to ascertain the truth--all those things demonstrate
that Mrs. Monk's evidence is of no worth; and yet that is all the
opposite evidence which can be adduced.

6. _Testimony in favour of the book_.--Mr. Miller the son of Adam
Miller, a well known teacher at St. John's, who has known Maria Monk
from her childhood, and who is now a resident of New York, solemnly
attests, that in the month of August, 1833, he made inquiries of Mrs.
Monk respecting her daughter Maria, and that Mrs. Monk informed him that
Maria was then a _Nun!_ that she had taken the veil previous to
that conversation, and that she had been in the nunnery for a number of
years. Mr. Miller voluntarily attests to that fact. He was totally
ignorant of Maria Monk's being out of the Nunnery at Montreal, until he
saw her book, and finally by searching out her place of abode, renewed
the acquaintance with her which had existed between them from the period
when she attended his father's school in her childhood. See the
affidavit of William Miller.

When Maria Monk made her escape, as she states, from the Hotel Dieu
Nunnery, she took refuge in the house of a woman named Lavalliere in
Elizabeth street, Montreal, the second or third door from the corner of
what is commonly called "the Bishop's Church." Madame Lavalliere
afterward admitted, that Maria Monk did arrive at her house at the time
specified, in the usual habiliments of a Nun, and made herself known as
an eloped Nun; that she provided her with other clothing; and that she
afterward carried the Nun's garments to the Hotel Dieu Nunnery.

After her escape, Maria Monk narrates that she went on board a steamboat
for Quebec, intending thereby to avoid being seized and again
transferred to the Nunnery, that she was recognised by the Captain, was
kept under close watch during the whole period of the stay of that boat
at Quebec, and merely by accident escaped the hands of the Priests, by
watching for an unexpected opportunity to gain the shore during the
absence of the Captain, and the momentary negligence of the female
attendant in the cabin. The woman was called Margaret ----, the other
name is forgotten. The name of the Master of the steamboat is probably
known and he has never pretended to deny that statement, that he did
thus detain Maria Monk, would not permit her to go on shore at Quebec,
and that he also conducted her back to Montreal; having suspected or
ascertained that she was a Nun who had clandestinely escaped from a
Convent.

7. _Corroborative evidence unintentionally furnished by the opponents
of the book_.--After her flight from the steamboat, she was found
early in the morning, in a very perilous situation, either on the banks,
or partly in Lachine Canal, and was committed to the public prison by
Dr. Robertson, whence she was speedily released through the intervention
of Mr. Esson, one of the Presbyterian ministers of Montreal. Upon this
topic, her statement coincides exactly with that of Dr. Robertson.

But he also states--"Although incredulous as to the truth of Maria
Monk's story, I thought it incumbent upon me to make some inquiry
concerning it, and have ascertained where she has been residing a great
part of the time she states having been an inmate of the Nunnery. During
the summer of 1832, she was at service at William Henry; the winters of
1832-3, she passed in this neighborhood at St. Ours and St. Denis."

That is most remarkable testimony, because, although Papists may justly
be admitted to know nothing of times and dates, unless by their
Carnivals, their Festivals, their Lent, or their Penance--yet Protestant
Magistrates might be more precise. Especially, as it is a certain fact,
that no person at Sorel can be discovered, who is at all acquainted with
such a young woman in service in the summer of 1832. It is true, she did
reside at St. Denis or St. Ours, as the _Roman Priests can
testify_; but not at the period specified by Dr. Robertson.

For the testimony of a decisive witness in favour of Maria Monk, see the
statement of an old schoolmate in Appendix.

8. _Summary view of the evidence_.--Let us sum up this
contradictory evidence respecting the simple fact, whether Maria Monk
was a resident of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery or not?

Her mother says--"I denied that my daughter had ever been in a Nunnery."
Dr. Robertson informed us--"I have ascertained where she has been
residing a great part of the time she states having been an inmate of
the Nunnery." That is all which can be adduced to contradict Maria
Monk's statement.

This is a most extraordinary affair, that a young woman's place of abode
cannot be accurately discovered during several years, when all the
controversy depends upon the fact of that residence. Why did not Dr.
Robertson specify minutely with whom Maria Monk lived at service at
William Henry, in the summer of 1832?--Why did not Dr. Robertson exactly
designate where, and with whom, she resided at St. Denis and St. Ours,
in the winters of 1832 and 1833? The only answer to these questions is
this--_Dr. Robertson cannot_. He obtained his contradictory
information most probably from her mother, or from the Priest Kelly, and
then embodied it in his affidavit to regain that favour and popularity
with the Montreal Papists which he has so long lost. We are convinced
that neither the evidence of Mrs. Monk, nor Dr. Robertson, would be of a
feather's weight in a court of justice against the other witnesses, Mrs.
----, and Mr. William Miller.

Maria Monk asserts, that she was a resident of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery
during the period designated by Dr. Robertson, which is familiarly
denominated the Cholera summer. In her narrative she develops a variety
of minute and characteristic details of proceedings in that Institution,
connected with things which all persons in Montreal know to have
actually occurred, and of events which it is equally certain did happen,
and which did not transpire anywhere else; and which is impossible could
have taken place at Sorel or William Henry; because there is no Nunnery
there; and consequently her descriptions would be purely fabricated and
fictitious.

But the things asserted are not inventions of imagination. No person
could thus delineate scenes which he had not beheld; and therefore Maria
Monk witnessed them; consequently, she was a member of that family
community; for the circumstances which she narrates nowhere else
occurred. At all events, it seems more reasonable to suppose that an
individual can more certainly tell what had been his own course of life,
than persons who, by their own admission, know nothing of the subject;
and especially when her statements are confirmed by such unexceptionable
witnesses. There are, however, two collateral points of evidence which
strongly confirm Maria Monk's direct statements. One is derived from the
very character of the acknowledgments which she made, and the period
when they were first disclosed. "A death-bed," says the Poet, "is a
detector of the heart." Now it is certain, that the appalling facts
which she states, were not primarily made in a season of hilarity, or
with any design to "make money" by them, or with any expectation that
they would be known to any other person than Mr. Hilliker, Mr. Tappan,
and a few others at Bellevue; but when there was no anticipation that
her life would be prolonged, and when agonized with the most dreadful
retrospection and prospects.

It is not possible to believe, that any woman would confess those facts
which are divulged by Maria Monk, unless from dread of death and the
judgment to come, or from the effect of profound Christian penitence.
Feminine repugnance would be invincible. Thus, the alarm of eternity,
her entrance upon which appeared to be so immediate, was the only cause
of those communications; which incontestably prove, that Nunneries are
the very nurseries of the most nefarious crimes, and the most abandoned
transgressors.

The other consideration is this--that admitting the statements to be
true, Maria Monk could not be unconscious of the malignity of Roman
Priests, and of her own danger; and if her statements were fictitious,
she was doubly involving herself in irreparable disgrace and ruin. In
either case, as long as she was in New York she was personally safe; and
as her disclosures had been restricted to very few persons, she might
have withdrawn from the public institution, and in privacy have passed
away her life, "alike unknowing and unknown." Lunacy itself could only
have instigated a woman situated as she was, to visit Montreal, and
there defy the power, and malice, and fury of the Roman Priests, and
their myrmidons; by accumulating upon them charges of rape, infanticide,
the affliction of the tortures of the Inquisition, and murders of cold-
blooded ferocity in the highest degree, with all the atrocious
concomitant iniquities which those prolific sins include.

Now it is certain, that she was not deranged; and she was not forced.
She went deliberately, and of her own accord, to meet the Popish Priests
upon the spot where their crimes are perpetrated, and the stronghold of
their power. Whether that measure was the most prudent and politic for
herself, and the most wise and efficient for the acquisition of the
avowed object, may be disputed; but the exemplary openness and the
magnanimous daring of that act cannot be controverted.

The narrative, pages 116 to l27, respecting the cholera and the election
riots at Montreal, both which scenes happened at the period when Dr.
Robertson says Maria Monk was at William Henry, or St. Denis, or St.
Ours; could not have been described, at least that part of it respecting
the wax candles, and the preparation for defence, except by a resident
of the Nunnery.

It is a public, notorious fact, that "blessed candles" were made, and
sold by the Nuns, and used at Montreal under the pretext to preserve the
houses from the Cholera, and to drive it away; that those candles were
directed so to be kept burning by the pretended injunction of the Pope;
and that large quantities of the Nunnery candles were dispersed about
Montreal and its vicinity, which were fixed at a high price; and whoever
suffered by the Cholera, the Nuns and their Masters, the Priests, could
truly say--"By this craft we have our wealth." Acts 19:25. It is
obvious, that a young Papist woman at service at William Henry, could
know no more of those matters, than if she had been at Labrador; for the
incidental remark with which that part of the narrative commences, is
one of those apparently superfluous intimations, which it is evident a
person who was writing a fiction would not introduce; and yet it is so
profoundly characteristic of a Canadian Convent, that its very simple
artlessness at once obliterates Dr. Robertson's affidavit. "There were a
few instances, and only a few, in which we knew any thing that was
happening in the world; and even then our knowledge did not extend out
of the city." We cannot be infallibly certain of Maria Monk's
description of the interior of the Nunnery; but that unpremeditated
remark, so minutely descriptive of the predominating ignorance among the
Nuns of all terrestrial concerns exterior of the Convent, is
satisfactory proof that the narrator was not sketching from fancy, but
depicting from actual life.

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