E. H. ADDINGTON

8 APPENDIX—REPORT OP COMMITTEE
to receive in a particular Lodge. Whether that is a wise provision
that necessitates this is apart from our consideration. It is a situation
that we face.
Brother Smith says that Hacquet, who was the head of the Accepted
Eite of France, refused to recognize the A. and A. Eite as identical
with his. We do not deny it. We admit it to this extent—that
the latter had eight degrees in its system that the former had not. But
while Hacquet may have done as Brother Smith says he did, yet his
Body accepted it 'at a subsequent time, and the Supreme Council of
France and the Supreme Council of the Southern States of America came
to do the same work, and extended mutual recognition. All that can
be said is that it was recognized that Hacquet had made a mistake and
that mistake was rectified.
We have had similar experience in the York Eite. American Masons
received certain degrees in the Capitular Department of that Bite; concocted
another degree and reorganized the Department. Any Grand
Principal of England can say that the American Capitular Masonry is
not identical with the Mark Masonry and the Capitular Masonry of
England. And it would not be denied by anybody that knew the facts.
But Capitular Masonry in the United States did not cease to be Masonic
because of the working in it of the Most Excellent Master's Degree,
and mutual recognition exists between the English and the American
members of that Department of the Fraternity.
The Grand Lodge of England, the Mother Grand Lodge of the World,
we take it knows pretty well what true Freemasonry is. We wish indeed
that Brother Smith would take her word for it, and come to understand
that the A. and A. Eite is quite as legitimate as the York Eite.
Brother Smith tells us that what he calls the twenty-five degree
system, that is the Modern Eite, did not claim the authority to establish
Craft Lodges, and that the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Eite did
not claim it, or at least did not exercise it until 1818. Brother Smith,
listen to the facts of history. On the 27th December, 1798, Etoile
Polaire Lodge was established in New Orleans under the French Eite.
This Lodge exists now under the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. The authority
for the charter was the Provincial Lodge of Marseilles, the Grand
Orient of France being suspended owing to political troubles. But the
latter resumed labor in 1803, and among its first acts was sending of
a charter to the New Orleans Lodge. This in ratification of aforementioned
act of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Marseilles.
In 1806 there was moved to New Orleans Lodge la Eeunion Desiree,
which had received a charter from the Grand Orient of France, April
16, 1783, for Port au Prince, San Domingo. A duplicate charter authorizing
and ratifying the transfer of domicile to New Orleans was granted
March 3, 1807. This Lodge was also registered in the General Grand
Chapter of the Modern Eite, March 4, 1807, which signified that a Chapter
of Eose Croix was attached to it.