ciously take. I know it; perhaps I may grant by lord Somers, and approved by the united So. Listen then to his sentiments on the very identical case now before you. He had been consulted by the late king concerning the repeal of the laws against the catholics: and what was his answer? He tells us that "he declared his thoughts very freely. He liked the motion of repealing them, which might have satisfied all those of that communion, as it did the most moderate of them. He did not indeed, think it adviseable to repeal those other laws, that excluded them from sitting in parliament, and from offices of trust. This proposition, if closed with, would have made the Roman catholic subjects safe and easy;" and in his estimation, ought to have made their protestant fellow-subjects also safe and easy. [Lord Somers's Tracts, 1st. collection, vol. 1. page 401, &c.] Even with the despotic and bigoted James on the throne, he would have deemed our civil and religious liberties sufficiently secured against the catholics by the two principal of the restrictions (for there still are many more) under which they at this day labour. He would immediately have advanced them to a better condition in society, than that, in which the benignity and justice of his present majesty, and the more en lightened and more generous policy of the present times, have at length tardily placed them, after more than a century of oppression, more especially severe in Ireland under a code devised with wicked ability to extinguish an ancient nobility and gentry, to sow discord among all the relations of civil society, to poison all the domestic charities, to beggar and barbarise the great mass of the population; a code, of which a faint resemblance can only be found in the persecution, which was begun against the Christian religion by its most subtle and dangerous enemy, Julian the Apostate. But would the liberal clemency of William and his ministers have stopped there? No; for he adds, "if they had behaved themselves so well upon such a favour, as to put an end to the jealousies of the nation, they might after that have pretended to further degrees of confidence with a better grace." To what further degrees of confidence? None would have remained to bestow, but to have admitted them into parliament, and the great offices of state; none, but to have removed what my right hon. and learned friend, considers as strong barriers erected by our ancestors to protect the constitution, as stupendous monuments of their industry and wisdom never to be broken down, never to be weakened and impaired : yet this would William and his ministers have done. Here then is an irrefragable answer to all the objections drawn from the principles of the revolution. We, who support the motion, have with us the explicit authority of those who planned, who conducted, who settled the revolution: and as my deceased friend once said that he did not wish to be thought a better Whig than lord Somers, so do I now say that I shall never affect to understand the principles of the revolution better than King William, lord Somers, and that band of eminent statesmen his colleagues, whose counsels laid the firm foundation of all which we have since enjoyed of power and glory abroad, or freedom and happiness at home. In truth, all the topics taken from the distinguishing character of our religious establishment, as applicable to the present question, come much too late. This house, the other house of parliament, his majesty, all have long since and in repeated instances, decided against them. A learned member, who last night led the opposition to the motion of my honourable friend, repre. sented the catholics as guilty of a sort of treason, because they refused to take the VOL. IV., old test oaths! But if so, we are accom→ plices of their treason; for, in compliance with their scruples, we have remodelled those oaths and substituted others, which we consider as satisfactory pledges of their loyalty, except where we chuse to retain the old oaths in two or three particular cases, not as tests of their allegiance, but as the means of their exclusion. Much to our honour, we gave them the opportunity of publicly disclaiming the principles, dangerous to liberty and civil society, which had been attributed to them so long; and they availed themselves of it. They took, their clergy as well as laity took, the oath which we proposed. We bore fresh testimony to their good conduct by granting new favours, but accompanied by new and more complete tests; which, the house will be satisfied, were not carelessly or ignorantly framed, nor worded with too partial an indulgence to the catholics, when I mention, that the bill was introduced here by the present lord chancellor of Ireland. They conformed to this additional demand upon them. They did not shrink from these amended and enlarged tests. Whatever we held forth to them on terms which did not touch any point of their religious faith, they have ever chearfully accepted; and on questions merely spiritual, I am sure, this house will never subscribe to the principle of forcing men's consciences. If then the catholics have satisfied us by every proof, which we have sought to obtain from them with a sincere desire of being satisfied, that they are attached, as we are to the happy constitution of our common country, is not that a powerful argument for giving them a more valuable interest in that constitution? Will you not for that reason think them capable of being admitted sooner or later to the full participation of all the rights and privileges of British subjects? No; says my hon, and learned friend, the attorney-general; never. Too much has been conceded to them already. If that be his opinion, why does he not act upon it? Why does he not move for the repeal of all the measures for relieving the catholics from disabilities, and for the re-enactment of all the restrictive statutes? In consistency he is bound to do so; for the argument he uses against the present claims of the catholics, will equally apply in support of a motien for renewing all the former disqualifications. But he is too discreet to make the experi ment. He is well aware that the good sense of the house and the country will not go 3 R with him. From the reign of Elizabeth | mighty mischief has been in consequence down to the present moment, whatever ri- sustained. Nevertheless, sir, the first rude gorous measures have from time to time shock which the protestant monarchy and been adopted against the catholics, none of church of England had to encounter, came them have been considered as fixed, per- from that description of protestants. My manent, immutable, fundamental laws, but right hon. and learned friend has been as temporary securities against some im- pleased to anticipate the entertainment which mediate danger of the crisis either real or he and all of us may hereafter receive supposed. Now a practicable breach is from an imaginary chapter in the history made in all of them. Not one is entire. which is believed to employ the pen of Some part of each has been taken away; my hon. friend who made this motion; and the last act of liberality, which the but I am a little surprised that he did not catholics on the recommendation of the lord- rather point out to our notice an imporlieutenant obtained from the parliament of tant chapter in every history of England, Ireland, acknowledged their general right which he seldom overlooks: I mean the to every thing; whatever was not actually reign of Charles the 1st. In consequence granted, it with-held only as an exception, of the sad experience of those times, the from the same supposed motive, which has test laws, in the beginning of his son's been the declared ground of every relaxation, reign, were directly opposed to the protestant that of political expediency alone. My dissenters. The catholics had a breathing right hon. and learned friend, however, not time. They were considered as inclined to trusting altogether to his high doctrines of the royal cause. But towards the end of the the constitution, endeavours to excite a per- Long Parliament, jealousies and fears, not sonal feeling for the situation, in which a unwise, if they had not been carried beyond compliance with the petition might place the bounds of reason and justice, were enhis majesty: He tells us, that we should tertained of the catholics, and the protessoon witness, what he denominates a so- tant dissenters were zealous and active in lecism in fact as well as in law, a protestant the defence of civil and religious liberty. king surrounded by catholic counsellors. I New regulations, therefore, of disabilities confess I am at a loss to discover the justice and incapacities were introduced to strip the or the validity of such an argument. When former of the power of doing evil; and the we unfetter the royal prerogative, does, it latter, when success had crowned their exfollow that we force upon his majesty ertions, were relieved and favoured. From catholics for his ministers and counsellors? whatever quarter the danger menaced, to Does it follow, that by extending the sphere that our ancestors turned. And certainly of his majesty's choice, in the selection of to our mixed constitution there are peculiar his confidential ministers, or the appoint-and characteristic dangers from each of the ment to places of power and trust, to so opposite description of dissenters. The canumerous a class of our fellow-subjects, we tholics, from the scheme of their ecclesiforce any description of persons upon the astical discipline and their habits of obethrone? There is another class of dissen-dience to those who are set over them, inters, to which I had supposed that my right hon. and learned friend feels the same objection; I mean the presbyterians. Them, I had imagined, he looks upon as at least equally dangerous with the catholics, if dangerous they be. Now, sir, all the test laws in Ireland. which affected them, have been long since repealed. Yet while that island had an independent parliament and government of her own, how many of the great offices of state were filled by protestant dissenters? The noble lord (lord Castlereagh) whom I see near my right hon. and learned friend, can inform him how few: and if one or two have found the way into his majesty's councils, my right hon. and learned friend, while sitting there, is too polite, whatever I may be, to say that any cline more to attach themselves to the monarchy; the protestant dissenters from their mode of discipline, and their corresponding habits, are more ready and strenuous in the maintenance of popular rights and privileges; yet I am sure that they may be equally serviceable, and each upon occasion eminently so, in their proper and well-balanced proportions of political weight and influence in this house, and in the state.-An invidious distinction, however, has been taken to the prejudice of the petitioners, because the catholics of this country have not preferred any claims. The situation of the catholics in Ireland is widely different from that of the members of the same communion in this country; and, even if it were not, will it be contended, that if the catholics of this country should never bring forward any | principles of a very respectable member of elaims, their brethen in Ireland should for the catholic body now living, whom I name ever abandon their equitable rights and just to honour, the Rev. Dr. Milner; and the pretensions; or that these, in preferring charge of that learned gent. is wholly untheir claims with moderation and submis- warranted either by the letter or spirit of sion to the legislature, should be suspected the passage of the publication upon which for improper motives, and charged with ex- he commented.* I perfectly concur in the travagance in their demands, because another position there laid down, that every body of catholics had not come forward with human law and every promise or other a similar application? Permit me, sir, most engagement, however confirmed by oath, earnestly to caution you and the house must necessarily turn upon the cardinal against giving any sanction to the sort of virtue of prudence, which implies that practical dilemma, in which gentlemen are it depends as to the obligation of fulfilling it, are too apt to place great bodies of men, in such and such circumstances, upon the for the sake of a turn in debate. Are they question of expediency:" but this prudence, silent? Do they leave their case wholly in the acceptation of Dr. Milner, and of to parliament without petitioning? Oh! ethical writers in general, is not a selfish then there is the old trite maxim, not to principle which employs itself in weighing disturb what is quiet. There can be no real interest against duty, but a virtuous princigrievance, or the sufferers would complain. ple which weighs one duty with another Do they complain? Do they address us in when they seem to be opposite, and decides the natural language of men who feel an which of them, in this place and at this time, injury or an indignity? Oh! then they are is to be fulfilled: a principle not variable disaffected, they are factious, they are se- with the caprice or interest of a sect, or of ditious, they are traitors; they mean by the individual, but unchangeably founded their numbers to overawe the legislature. upon the eternal basis of truth and justice. Our own honour will not permit us to hear The false and wicked deductions drawn by them. Oh! sir, there is nothing which so the revolutionary jacobins of France, from irritates men, which so embitters a refusal, the maxim of considering "the immutable as this sort of treatment, which leaves them laws of nature and of God as paramount to no conduct to pursue with a hope of de- all subsequent obligations," forin no arguserving redress. In the present instance, ment against the maxim itself; as in fact there are enough to shew, that there is among the conscientious obligation of every human them a sense of the grievances, which law must rest upon this eternal and immuthey state, and enough to be objects of our table law of nature and of God, or it can voluntary liberality, always the most gra- rest upon no principle at all. Suppose, for cious; for in public, as in private life, instance, in the case of a man having bound himself by oath to deliver a sword or other destructive weapon to his friend, he should, at the moment when he is about to presei t it, prudently judge that his friend intends to make a fatal use it, either for his own destruction or that of some other innocent person.-[The attorney-general across the table, "I admit that in such a case an oath would not be obligatory."] But I must tell the hon. and learned gent. that, this is not a case of my own imagination, but the identical case which Dr. Milner has proposed, by way of illustrating his doctrine concerning the prudence to be adopted in considering the obligations of oaths; to "Sweet is the love that comes with willingness." However if my right hon. and learned friend is desirous of having petitions from the catholics of England, let him move to adjourn the debate for that purpose, and I doubt not your table will soon be covered with them. -I proceed now to the set of objections, which my right hon. and learned friend, was too well-informed, too candid, and too judicious, to touch upon; I allude to what, for the sake of distinction, may be called the polemical objections. These have been left altogether, I think, to the impression made by the speech of the learned member, who first opposed the motion. And here I cannot help first taking notice of what fell from him, in commenting on a passage from a late publication. It is the more necessary to animadvert upon this part of the learned gentleman's speech, because his observations were calculated to cast a reflexion on the character and moral "The Case of Consience solved, or Catholic Emancipation proved to be conspatible with the Coronation Oath;" published about four years since, when de difficulty which is understood to agitate the royal mind was first impressed upon it. here nodded a marked assent to the position.] If I do not inisinterpret some indications which I perceive, I flatter myself, sir, I have fully succeeded in satisfying the house that the learned gent. took an unfair advantage of their confidence in his character; and that the passage, when considered with the context, means only, what no moralist can deny, that any obligation of a mere human nature, is not binding when contrary to the fixed and immutable laws of God.—The learned gentleman, sir, has also used the same measure of candour and impartiality in his quotations from the writings of other living characters, Dr. Troy and Mr. Plow: den, whose assertions, in their respective productions concerning the unchangeable nature of their church, apply merely to her doctrine and not to her discipline. In fact, truth, which is the subject of doctrines, is ever immutable; whereas rules for men's conduct in certain situations, which are the subject of discipline, must vary with such situations and circumstances. But he was eager to get, and therefore he little regard which so much objection has been made. This is the expediency (it is his own word. in stating the case) of which Dr. Milner speaks. The misrepresentation, however, does not rest here. There follows in the pamphlet a reference to a passage, where the reverend author before had regularly discussed the whole doctrine of promissory oaths and accurately stated the four cases in which canonists deny their validity. And what are they? Why, when the object of the oath is unlawful-when the object obstructs any good evidently greater :—when it is impossible to be obtained :—and, lastly, when it relates to some ridculous idle thing which tends neither to the honour of God nor to the benefit of man. Now, will the learned member dispute the principle of any of these exceptions? If he will, I must forewarn him that he will find himself in opposition to some of the brightest lumninaries of our church. For bishop Jewell is not the only one who has written huge volumes on that branch of moral science called casuistry, than which, in my judgement, no part of ethics is more impor-ed how he got, to his old and favourite tant as none is more delicate, though perhaps he is the best man who, where his own good faith and his own interests are concerned, is least ready to have recourse to distinctions in his own favour, and most ready to allow them in estimating the conduct of others towards himself. At present, however, we are to consider the rules themselves and not the application of them; and the propriety of the general rules on which the exceptions proceed, I do not believe that the learned member himself will controvert. What then ought he not to feel of shame and confusion for the unfounded slander, which he conveyed to the apprehension of a great majority of the house, by a false To harrow up our souls; freeze our warm blood; emphasis laid upon one equivocal word, a Make our two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, Our knotty and combined locks to part, marked pause after another of the same And each particular hair to stand on end kind to fix it more deep in the memory of Like quills upon the fretful porcupine;" his hearers, and a suppression of all the It is to diffuse public and universal dismay; most material explanation, which the author" And fright our isle from its propriety." cautiously added to preclude the possibility of mistake? What, let me also ask, of displeasure and indignation ought not to be felt against the learned gent. by those, who were betrayed by these unworthy tricks of debate, into acclamations, and cries of assent to the calumny of his misconstruction; and how guarded ought they not to be in future, that they may not again suffer their judgments to be led astray on these subjects y garbled and partial extracts from any pamphlets or works whatever. [Mr. Pitt topics, the fourth council of Lateran, and Yet really, sir, if we could but calmly look around us for one moment, we should discover that we may very quietly pursue our own course as we will, without fear of harm either from the council of Lateran or the council of Constance. With regard to the former it might be sufficient to remark, that it took place some centuries before the reformation; and consequently, that its regulations, which were almost exclusively framed for the discipline of the church in those days cannot afford any authority on a |