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a celebrated Irish preacher, descended from an ancient Roman catholic

, a celebrated Irish preacher, descended from an ancient Roman catholic family, was born in Galway, about 1754. He was sent in early youth to the college of the English'Jesuits at St. Omer’s; and at the age of seventeen embarked for the Danish island of St. Croix, in the West Indies, under the protection of his father’s cousin-german, who had large possessions there; but after enduring for six years a climate pernicious to his delicate constitution, and spectacles of oppression and cruelty shocking to his feelings, he returned to Europe in disgust. He then went to the university of Louvain, where he received priest’s orders, and was soon after honoured with the chair of natural and moral philosophy. In 177$ he was appointed chaplain to tfye Neapolitan ambassador at the British court, and at this time attained some fame as a preacher, and published some sermons, of which, however, we find no notice in any literary journal, and as his family could not discover any copies, we suspect his biographer has been mistaken in this point. In 1787 he resolved to conform to the established religion, for what reason we are not told, unless “a conviction that he should thus obtain more extensive opportunities of doing good.” He was accordingly introduced by the rev. Dr. Hastings, archdeacon of Dublin, to his first protestant congregation, in St. Peter’s church, where he preached on June 24th of that year. His audience was impatient to hear the causes of his conversion, but neither at this time, nor any other, either in the pulpit, or in his most confidential communications, did he “breathe a syllable of contempt or reproach against any religious persuasion whatever.