upon persons convicted as Popish recusants. Such was the law. What has become of it? First, all the laws against recusancy have been repealed, there is one member of this immortal law lopped off; and second, the clause which forbid the access of such persons to the king, is also re-pealed; so there is a second member of this immortal law also hacked off, and sent to follow its companion. And it is this mutilated part of Titus Oates which we are now called on to venerate as the statute of the great king William, and which forms the foundation of all our rights, as settled at the glorious period of the Revolution.

loyal gallantry of lord Howard of Effingham, leading the fleets of his excommunicated Protestant sovereign, against the consecrated banner of the Pope. James the 1st, as Mr. Hume informs us, appointed indifferently Roman Catholics and Protestants to office. It is undoubtedly true, my lords, that the policy of queen Elizabeth was interrupted and disappointed by political intrigues, set on foot by foreign emissaries, and fomented by seminary priests and jesuits; but it is equally true, that this disappointment arose, not from religious, but from political motives. My lords, it is well known, that in the latter part of the reign of Charles 1st, and after the Restoration, the Roman Catholics be- My lords, I do not mean to say that this came suspected, when the throne became act of Charles 2nd, however disgraceful the suspected; certainly not suspected of dis- circumstances which accompanied it, was loyalty, but deservedly suspected of ad- not necessary, or that the Roman Catholics hering to the Crown in its designs, first, were not at that time a body dangerous to against the liberties, and latterly, against the state, or that there was any intention the religion of the people-still they were of repealing it at the period of the Revolegally admissible to the House of Com-lution; on the contrary, many additional mons, although the spirit of the times was such, that in point of fact, very few were admitted. Still those who got admission on taking the Oath of Supremacy, could not be directly excluded, and the Protestant leaders were under the necessity of recurring to this device; the laws against recusancy were in force, and one of the penalties attaching on conviction, was a disability to come within ten miles of London or Westminster. A person under such a disability could not perform his duties as a member of the House of Commons, and they accordingly proceeded against him for recusancy, and then, on producing the record of the conviction, a new writ was moved for-all this appears on the Journals of the Commons.

Such, my lords, clearly, was the state of the law as to parliament, from the Reformation to the 30th Charles 2nd-and so much for the assertion, that Roman Catholics were excluded by the principles of the Reformation. Now as to the statute of 30 Charles 2nd, it recites the dangers which had arisen from Popish recusants having free access to the king, and it contains two enactments; first, that no person shall sit in either House of parliament without taking the Oath of Supremacy and subscribing the declaration; and second, that persons refusing to do so shall not have access to the king: and it subjects the parties offending to the same penalties (amongst others) which attach

and severely penal laws were enacted against the Roman Catholics immediately before and after the period of the Bill of Rights; but I call for the proof of any intention expressed in the Bill of Rights, or to be inferred from it, that any of those penal laws were to have perpetual continuance, or were to be considered as incorporated into, or forming part of, that glorious transaction. Does the Bill of Rights concern itself with the doctrine of transubstantiation, or the sacrifice of the mass, or the invocation of saints?—No, my lords, the wise men who were actors in that great event, had no lumber room in their heads for such trumpery. They state the various points in which the rights of the subject had been invaded-they do not profess to be systemmongers, or grinders of theories-they give no abstract dogmas on the constitution-even in the statement of the invasion of the right of petitioning they do not state generally the right of petitioning, but merely that of petitioning the Throne, because that was the right which had been invaded in the case of the Seven Bishops; and then, having distinctly stated the rights which had been actually attacked, and insisted on them as their birthright, they proceed to remedy the great grievance which had been derived from the religion of the king being different from that of the state, and for this they provide a remedy which they declare to be intended to endure for ever, and they declare the Crown

unalterably Protestant. But how, my lords, I to the obtaining commissions in the army has been done away, has been fully stated by the noble duke, and by my noble and learned friend on the wool-sack. I shall therefore only make an observation upon it-by the law of 25th Charles 2nd it was not necessary that the oath or declaration should be taken or made previous to the obtaining the commission; this was not thought a sufficient security, and therefore expressly for the purpose of curing this mischief, the act of 1st William, cap. 8, was passed, making it necessary to do those acts, previously to obtaining the commission. The act, therefore, of the noble and learned lord is a precise repeal of the statute of William, and a restoration of the act of 25th Charles 2nd, which the act of William was expressly introduced to repeal; and observe, no statement in the act of 1817, that any law of king William was in existence or intended to be touched.

do they effect this great object? not by laying down any pedantic maxim or abstract dogma, but recurring to those lights by which common sense and true philosophy apply the experience of the past to the circumstances of the present; they say, "whereas it has been found by experience, that it is inconsistent with the safety of this Protestant kingdom to be governed by a Popish prince, or by any king or queen marrying a Papist, therefore they enact, &c." They call it, it is true, "this Protestant kingdom;" and I hear it repeatedly asked, “is not this a Protestant kingdom, and a Protestant parliament, and a Protestant government?"-I say yes, and that ours is a Protestant parliament and government, exactly in the same sense in which it is a Protestant kingdom, that is not exclusively Protestant, but with the great majority of the population, and of the wealth and of the knowledge of the empire Protestant, possessing that character of ascendant but not exclusive Protestantism which must always belong to it. The position then that there is any thing in the Bill of Rights, or in the Settlement at the Revolution, directly, or by implication, establishing the principle of exclusion, cannot be maintained. Does the assertion then mean, that the restrictive laws which were in force at the time, or which were enacted shortly after it, are to be considered as partaking of the same fundamental character? Never was a more untenable proposition uttered.

I do not mean to take up your lordships time by again going over the ground which has been so fully occupied by my noble friends, but I would beg to call your attention to one or two particular statutes. An act was passed in the 1st year of William 3rd, forbidding Papists to carry arms; and that being the state of the law when the Bill of Rights was enacted, the grievance stated in the Bill of Rights is, that Protestants have been deprived of arms whilst Papists have been allowed to carry them. Now it is worthy of observation, that this only point in which it might, with any degree of plausibility, be contended that the Bill of Rights contained any principle of exclusion against Roman Catholics has been absolutely repealed. My lords, the act of 1817, sanctioned by the noble and learned lord, by which the necessity of taking the oath and declaration previous VOL. XXI.

My lords, it would be unpardonable in me to go into any discussion on the acts of union with Scotland and with Ireland; they have been so fully observed upon, and the demonstration of my noble friends having been so complete, that the acts of Charles 2nd were not intended to be perpetuated by them; to one document only on that subject, I shall beg to call the attention of your lordships. In the Journals of this House of the 3rd July 1706, on the bill for Securing the Church of England, which was afterwards inserted as one of the fundamental articles of the Union, there is this entry-"Question put, that it be an instruction to the committee of the whole House, to whom the bill for Securing the Church of England is referred, that there be inserted in the said bill, as a fundamental condition of the intended Union, particular express words, declaring perpetual and unalterable an act of parlia ment made in the 25th of Charles 2nd, entitled An Act for preventing Dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants.' It was resolved in the negative.—I have other entries of a similar character, but I shall not now detain your lordships by referring to them. I will merely state, with reference to observations that have been made on the Act for regulating the Election of the Sixteen Peers and Forty-five Members for Scotland, and which is declared as valid as if it had been part of the act of Union, that that act is not, like the two acts for Securing the Churches of England and Scotland, made a fundamental part of

the Catholics were sincere Catholics; that they professed a religion in which they believed; and he looked for their tenets, not in their individual creeds, but in the doctrines of the church itself, as expressed in decrees of councils. They sanctioned the monstrous notions of the sacrifice of the mass and transubstantiation; which, under the definition of the right rev. the regius professor of divinity of Oxford, was idolatry. Was not the worship of a creature, as the very body of Christ, an act of idolatry? Did they believe or not the invocation of saints? or did they only pretend to believe it? It might be true, that a great number of Catholics did not profess to believe in these things; but they were not sincere and true Catholics. In arguing the question, it was difficult to make a distinction between these two denominations. He should not prolong his observations, as he should have another opportunity of speaking in the committee on the bill.

considered it his duty to propose to parliament, in the first instance, a measure to put down the Catholic Association, and which had so far answered its object, that now there had been, for some time, complete tranquillity in Ireland.-Another point to which it was necessary for him to refer, was the repeated assertion of some noble lords, supported by the opinion of some of the right reverend bench, that the measure was dangerous to the church of England in Ireland: he called upon those who apprehended any degree of danger in that quarter, to state whether it resulted from legislation or from violence. If from legislation, their apprehension was clearly puerile; for it was impossible to suppose that the small number of persons which this measure would admit into this House, and the few who might possibly obtain seats in the other House, considering that we had a Protestant sovereign on the throne, could afford any ground for apprehending danger from legislation to the church of England in Ireland. He begged further to observe on this point, that a fundamental article of the union of the two countries was the union of the two churches, which then became the united church of England and Ireland; and it was impossible that any mischief could happen to the Irish branch of this united church, without destroying the union of the two countries.-Another point to which he begged to advert was this: that although it was true that we did admit Roman Catholics to parliament, yet, at the same time, no other measure had been brought forward, upon which an equal degree of reliance was placed, as upon the other, by which a provision was made for obviating the effects of the influence of the priesthood in elections.-The noble duke then proceeded as follows:-We have carefully examined the measure, and we expect that it will give additional security to all the interests of the state. Another subject to which I wish to advert, is a charge brought against several of my colleagues, and also against myself, by the noble

The Duke of Wellington said, he would trouble their lordships with only a few words, principally in answer to the objections which had been made to the conduct pursued by his colleagues and himself. He did not intend to detain their lordships longer than was absolutely necessary to explain those parts of their conduct which required some explanation, after what had fallen from noble lords on the other side. The first point of explanation, in reference, in particular, to what had fallen from a most reverend prelate, was this, that most reverend prelate had averred, that the laws were not executed against the Catholic Association. He must remind their lordships, that he had stated last year, as well as upon other occasions, his feelings on this subject-that it was extremely desirable, before any thing was done for the Roman Catholics, that a period of tranquillity should be obtained. But although that was his opinion, and he believed that opinion to be just, and although he endeavoured to find the means of proceeding against the Association for their conduct, yet being of opinion, that it was essential to the in-earl on the cross bench, of a want of terests of the country to bring forward this measure, it would not have been his duty to refrain from so doing, whatever might have been the conduct of the Catholic Association; not that that conduct was what he had wished it had been. He also reminded their lordships, that he had

consistency in our conduct. My lords, I admit that many of my colleagues, as well as myself, did on former occasions vote against a measure of a similar description with this; and, my lords, I must say, that my colleagues and myself felt, when we adopted this measure, that we