Requests were immediately made to some of them to listen to evidence, which were not accepted. The editors of the Courier and Enquirer were requested, in a note from the publishers, to mention in their paper what parts of my book they intended to pronounce false, and what was their evidence. But they took no notice of it, although desired to publish the note. Many other editors were invited to publish communications or extracts, but most of them refused from the first, and all the papers were soon closed against my cause.
In the country, the newspapers generally, I believe, followed the example set in this city, though in Albany, Boston, and one or two other places, a solitary one or two appeared disposed to examine the subject.
At length appeared the long-threatened Montreal affidavits, which are here inserted. They were published in several Roman Catholic, and one or two Protestant papers in New York, with this introduction--
_"Maria Monk's 'Awful Disclosures.' Villany exposed!!_
"Of all the curious pranks and fanatical schemes which the foes of Catholicity have been playing for some years past, there is not one that fills the mind with greater disgust than the scandalous tale given to the public by Maria Monk and her wicked associate.
"By the evidence which covers the following pages, the reader will see the man himself clearly convinced of being a base calumniator, and arch-hypocrite. He, and his associate prostitute, will be seen, with brazen impudence, attempting to fix on the virtuous Catholic Ladies and Catholic Priests of Montreal, the shameless character which belongs only to themselves."
_From the Montreal Courier,_ Nov. 16, 1835.
"The _New York Protestant Vindicator_ of the 4th November, reiterates its calumnies concerning the Roman Catholic Clergy and Nuns of this city. We cherished the hope that, after the simultaneous and unanimous expressions of disbelief and reprehension with which its extravagant assertions had been met by the Canadian press, both Protestant and Catholic, the conductors of that journal would have been slow to repeat, without better evidence of their truth, the same disgraceful charges. We have been deceived in our calculation. The fanatical print demands _counter evidence_ before it will withdraw, or acknowledge the falsehood of its previous statements. We believe that _counter_ evidence has already been adduced, of a nature far surpassing, in weight, the claims to credibility which the accusations themselves could offer. The impure fabrication trumped up by a woman of immoral character and insane mind, in conjunction with a man of equally depraved habits, can never be weighed in the balance with the testimony of Protestants, living in the same community as the accused, and, therefore, possessing the means of judging of the truth or falsehood of what was advanced. By any persons of less interested credulity, and of more discriminating and moral honesty, than what the conductors of the _Protestant Vindicator_ appear to possess, counter evidence of the above nature would have been deemed sufficient.