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this country; for, in the ecclefiaftical courts, where divorces only could be obtained, no permiffion could be granted to the parties to marry, after having been feparated by the fentence of thofe courts. The party, therefore, who had not offended, had no other means of being relieved from the difability he laboured under, than that of applying to parliament for a fpecial act to enable him to marry. The very wording of fuch an act, therefore, proved, that no perfon could law fully marry but the individual who applied for it; and there would have been no occafion for fuch a measure as that which he meant to bring forward, had not permifion been latterly given to the offending parties to intermarry. Such a practice had been obtained for fome years paft; and he really believed it was, in a great measure, the caule of the numerous adulteries that now prevailed in this country. From the period of the reformation, until about the commencement of the eighteenth century, there were, as he could collect, only four cafes of parliamentary divorce: [this circumflance was noticed in a speech made, on the occafion of the duke of Norfolk's divorce, about the year 1700.] For the next fifty years they increated in no inconfiderable degree; but, within the last fifty years, divorces were most scandaloufly multiplied, and the circumftance loudly called for the interference of the legiflature. Imprefied with this idea, a noble duke (Athol) produced a bill, in 1771, to the effect of that now produced, which palled with the almost unanimous concurrence of their lordships; but, in the other houfe, it was contefted, and thrown out by a fmall majority. A fimilar bill, brought in by a moft

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worthy and refpectable prelate then prefent (Durham), in 1799, met with the like fate, though it had but a fmall majority against it in the other houfe. He had, however, every reafon to hope, that the bill he was about to offer would not meet the fame fate; and his ground for that hope was, the general feeling of every man, that the prefent times were fuch as loudly called for the measure, and that nothing could tend fo much to fave. this country from the fhocks and calamities that brought other nations to ruin, as the prefervation of religion and morality. It was now univerfally felt and acknowledged, that adulteries were committed with a view, that the adulterer might af terwards obtain the adulterefs in marriage; but let them be cut off from this hope, and the adultery might not take place. It had originally been his intention to bring forward this regulation in the manner of a ftanding order; but he fince found that this method, although the houfe was fully competent to adopt it, would not be fo effectual as an act of parliament.It was his intention, fhould the bill be received, to move that it fhould be printed, and that the farther proceedings on it should be postponed till after the Eafter recefs, in order that the noble lords might have an opportunity of giving it the fulleft confideration; and, in order that nobody might be taken by furprife, it was his intention to propofe that it fhould not take effect till the end of the feilions of parlia ment. His lordship then prefented a bill, which was read by the clerk, intituled, " An Act for the more effectual Prevention of the Crime of Adultery," which was ordered to be printed. Its principal provifion [L9]

was,

was, that the adulterer fhould not marry the adulterefs.

This bill was one of the moft ftrongly-contefted in this feflion. The opponents, as well as the fupporters of the bill, were friends to religion and morality, and regretted and deplored the prevalence of adultery; a crime which certainly tended to cut up fociety, as it were, by the roots: but they did not think that crimes, in general, were to be prevented by the exceffive feverity of punishment.The punishment intended by this bill, against the adulterefs, was too fevere; it would drive her to defperation and unreftrained licentioufnefs: nor would it act as a difcouragement to purfue the vice, but furnish new materials to the dexterity of an accomplished feducer. The peer who took the lead in an oppofition to this bill was the duke of Clarence, who, on the fourth of April, the day of the fecond read ing, reafoned against it with great perfpicuity of judgement and fluency of diction, chiefly from its inhuman tendency to aggravate the horrors of the weaker and feduced party, and from its inefficacy to prevent the crime againft which it was levelled. His royal highness concluded with moving that the bill be read again" that day four months."

The bifhop of London, complimented the illuftrious duke on the honourable and eloquent manner in which he had ftated his reafons for objecting to the bill. This, however, in bithop Porteous's opinion, though it would not put a ftop to the career of adultery, would do good to a certain extent. The biftop of London was joined in opinion by the bishops of Durham and Rochester, and the other bifhops prefent: and lord Auckland's

motion was fupported, not only by the bishops but by lord Eldon, the earl of Carnarvon, lord Grenville, and the lord chancellor. The duke of Clarence was fupported in his oppofition to the bill, and with great ability, by the lords Guilford and Mulgrave. The bishop of Rochefter expatiated at great length on the former practice of punishing adultery with death. Yet he declared that it was not his wish to rettore the punifliment of adultery by death.

The Scripture, in one part, fanctioned that doctrine; though, in another, it allowed that in fome cafes a man might put away his wife. The bishop, however, contended that there were ftrong arguments to be found in Scripture for not allowing in any cafe the unloofing of the marriage vow. It was no light matter to violate a solemn contract at the altar.

He

Lord Guildford said, he had read in a certain book of a Magdalen, an adulterefs, receiving favour and pardon on due repentance. did not admire thofe doctrines that cut off the poffibility of all return to virtue and to fociety. Lord Grenville declared that he confidered appeals to the compaffion of the legiflature, in favour of the adulterefs, would be equally applicable in favour of the convicted murderer, highwayman, houfebreaker, and all the perpetrators of crimes of the most bafe and vile defcription. On a divifion of the house, the question, for the second reading of the bill, was carried by 30 against 11.

On the fixteenth of May, the order of the day, respecting the commitment of the adultery-bill, being read, lord Auckland said, that the bill, on confideration, was found to be very defective, and

therefore,

therefore, it was his intention to abandon it, in order to introduce another bill more effectual. He moved to have this new bill read a firft time and printed. It was a bill for punishing, and alfo for more effectually preventing the crime of adultery. It differed from the former bill, by having a new claufe, "to make perfons, guilty of adultery, liable to be punished by fine and imprisonment, as in cafes of mifdemeanor." On the motion for the new bill being printed, a very long debate arofe on its general merits, in which the duke of Clarence, the earl of Moira, the earl of Guildford, the earl of Carlifle, the earl of Kinnoull, lord Bulkeley, and the earl of Mulgrave were arranged in oppofition to the bill; lord Auckland, lord Eldon, the bishop of Rochefter, the bishop of Durham, the bishop of London, lord Hobart, and lord Grenville, in its defence. Lord Moira and other lords deprecated all farther proceedings on the bill, which was not calculated to produce any good, but would be heaping coals of fire on the head of the unhappy woman who might be come the victim of the feducing arts of her betrayer, and alfo bring much mifery and difgrace on innocent female children.

The only objection the bishop of London had to the bill was, that it was not severe enough. Bishop Porteus deprecated all fentiments of an irrational humanity and tendernels; which, if indulged, might obftruct, on many occafions, the falutary, though fevere, execution of juftice.

Lord Grenville faid, that the only argument of any weight that he had heard urged, of prohibiting the intermarriage of the adulterefs with

her feducer, was, that one bar would be removed from men of gallantry pursuing their unlawful defigns, as, at prefent, they were afraid left they thould be obliged to choose, as their companions for life, thofe women whom they had polluted and difgraced; but, though more difpofed to form the citadel of virtue, they would find conqueft much more difficult. But the propriety of the bill was argued, not only on the ground of morality and policy, but, more keenly, on that of religion.

The bishop of Rochefter afferted, and infifted, that a woman divorced, a vinculo matrimonii, committed adultery, let her marry whomfoever fhe would, whether her feducer, or any other man.

The reverend and learned prelate was vigorously attacked, as it were, in his own camp, by the duke of Clarence and the earl of Mulgrave. They reafoned from particular texts of Scripture, from the tenour and fpirit of the Chriftian religion, and the fathers and doctors of the church. Had lord Mulgrave been bred to the church, he would have been an incomparable cafuift. Both the duke and the earl confidered the bill as not only contrary to the law of the Chriftian religion, but as adverfe to found policy and the interefts of morality.

The duke of Clarence, with a degree of waggishness, teazed biflop Horley, with reading extracts from a fermon of the late bishop of Rochefter's, which he preached at the Magdalen about five years ago, and which were in direct oppofition to the fentiments and doctrines of the prefent bishop of Rochefter's. One. of thefe extracts, which the duke read with great feeling, was, as follows: "As imperfection attends on [L4]

all

all things human, this practice, however generally conducive to its end, hath its inconveniences, I might fay, its mischiefs.

"It is one great defect, that, by the confent of the world, for the thing ftands upon no other ground, the whole infamy is made to light upon one party only in the crime of the two! and the man who is, for the most part, the author, not the mere accomplice, of the woman's guilt, is left unpunished and uncenfured! This mode of partial punishment affords not to the weaker fex the protection which, in juftice and found policy, is their due, against the arts of the feducer. The Jewish law fet an example of a better policy, and more equal juftice, when, in the cafe of adultery, it condemned both parties to an equal punishment, which indeed was nothing lefs than death!

"A worfe evil, a mifchief attending the feverity, the falutary feverity, upon the whole, of our dealing with the lapfed female, is this, that it proves an obftacle, almoft infurmountable, to her return into the paths of virtue and fobriety, from which he hath once deviated! The fift thing that happens, upon the detection of her fhame, is, that fhe is abandoned by her friends, in refentment of the difgrace he hath brought upon her family. She is driven from the thelter of her father's (or her husband's) houfe! She finds no refuge even in the arms of herteducer! His fated appetite loaths the charm he has enjoyed! She gains admittance to no hofpitable door! She is caft a wanderer upon the ftreets! without money, without lodging, without food! In this hopeless fituation, fuicide or proftitution is the alternative to which

fhe is reduced! Thus the very posfibility of repentance is cut off, unlefs it be fuch repentance as may be exerciled by the terrified finner in her laft agonies! Perishing in the open fireets! Under the merciless pelting of the elements! Of cold and hunger, and a broken heart! And yet the youth, the inexperience, the gentle manners, once, of many of thefe miferable victims of man's feduction, plead hard for mercy, if mercy might be confiftent with the fafety of the treafure we fo fternly guard. We have high authority to fay, that these fallen women are not, of all finners, the moft incapable of penitence, nor the moft unlikely to be touched with their fenfe of guilt! nor the most unfufceptible of religious improvement. They are not, of all finners, the moft without hope, if timely opportunity of repentance were afforded them! Sinners, fuch as these, upon John the Baptift firft preaching, found their way into the kingdom of heaven before the Pharifees, with all their outward fhew of fanctity and felf-denial."

His royal highnefs afterwards gave, from the bishop's fermon, the following very fine portrait of the feducer:

"Happier far their lot than that of their bafe feducers! who, not checked like thefe, in their career of guilty pleafure, by any frowns or cenfures of the world, have rejoiced themfelves in their youth without reftraint! have walked without fear and without thought in the ways of their heart, and in the fight of their eyes! and, at laft, perhaps folace, the wretched decripitude of a vicious old age, with a proud recollection of the triumphs of their early manhood over unfufpecting woman's frailty

frailty! nor have once paused to re-
collet, that God, for thefe hings,
will bring them into judgement."
The reafon his royal highnefs af-
figned for quoting the above paf-
fages was, to afcertain the opinions
of the right reverend prelate on the
condition of the feducer and the fe-
duced, and to oppose them to the
arguments recently ufed, and ftill
retained, by that reverend and learn-
ed prelate, who had fucceeded him
in his office. He complimented the
ftyle and compofition, which, he
faid, was truly fublime, and which
did honour to the writer's head and
heart. On thofe arguments he would
repole now for fupport, and hoped
that their due application would be
made in behalf of the unhappy fe-
male, who might be beguiled by
the feductive arts of an infidious and
defigning villain. On the cafe of the
adulterer, his royal highnefs expa-
tiated with warmth and indignation:
fuch a character difgraced fociety.
He knew no man, he faid, fo bad
as he, who, entering the houfe of
a man, his friend, as his guest,
fhould requite him by the feduction
of his wife; fuch a man was and
would be ever held in difgrace and
abhorrence by an enlightened and
civilized fociety: but the cafe of
the unfortunate female, who fell un-
der thofe arts, was an object of
compaflion and humane confidera-
tion. The laws already punished
her delinquency, by judgement of
divorce, by depriving her of her
dower, and by the difgrace infepa-
rably attached to fuch a conduct.
He admitted, that the laws fhould
be vindicatory on fuch occafions,
but, in their punidiments, that they
fhould be juft. He gave his pega.
Live to the bill.

The bishop of Rochefter faid,

un

that, in religion there was, doubtedly, Chriftian charity; but that it would be wrong to depart from the rigour of the law in the punishment of fo dangerous a crime as adultery. The unfortunate women in the Magdalen were not adultereffes.

Lord Auckland complained much of the number of divorces, which feemed ftill to be increafing. In the laft feffion, their lordships, he obferved, had been fummoned forty times, in the order of their proceeding, on twelve bills of divorce. He lamented, alfo, the general relaxation of mind and morals. On the fyftem of modern focieties and manners, his lordship quoted the poet, Cowper, who, in the third book of his Task, lays—

Virtue and vice had bound'ries in old time
Not to be paffed. And he that had re-
nounced

Her fex's honour, was renounced herself,
By all that prized it; not for prudery's

fake,

But dignity's, refentful of the wrong.
Twas hard, perhaps, one here and there

a waif,

Defirous to return, and not received;
But was an wholesome rigour in the main,
And taught th' unblemished to preferve,
with care,

yes, now,

That purity, whofe lofs is lofs of all.
Men too were nice in honour in thofe days,
And judged offenders well. But now-
We are become fo candid and so fair,
So liberal in conftruction, and fo rich
In Chriftian charity, (good-natured age!)
That they are fafe: finners of either fex,
Tranfgrefs what laws they may.,

Lord Auckland ftated the subjec before their lordfhips, in the form of the following question: was it to be tolerated, that whenever a woman fhould think proper to prefer. another man to her husband, their lordships, the hereditary guardians of the well-being of the people,

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