ftatutes was conceived to be an object too big for the time. The penal ftatute therefore which was chofen for repeal (chofen to fhew our difpofition to conciliate, not to perfect a toleration) was this act of ludicrous cruelty, of which I have just given you the history. It is an act, which, though not by a great deal fo fierce and bloody as fome of the reft, was infinitely more ready in the execution. It was the act which gave the greatest encouragement to those pests of fociety, mercenary informers, and interested disturbers of houfhold peace; and it was observed with truth, that the profecutions, either carried to conviction or compounded, for many years, had been all commenced upon that act. It was faid, that whilst we were deliberating on a more perfect fcheme, the spirit of the age would never come up to the execution of the ftatutes which remained; efpecially as more steps, and a co-operation of more minds and powers, were required towards a mischievous use of them, than for the execution of the act to be repealed: that it was better to unravel this texture from below than from above, beginning with the latest, which, in general practice, is the fevereft evil. It was alledged, that this flow proceeding would be attended with the advantage of a progreffive experience; and that the people would grow reconciled to toleration, when they should find by the effects, that juftice was not fo irreconcileable an enemy to convenience as they had imagined. These, Gentlemen, were the reasons why we left this good work in the rude unfinished state, in which which good works are commonly left, through the tame circumfpection with which a timid prudence fo frequently enervates beneficence. In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and fluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But the works of malice and injuftice are quite in another ftyle. They are finished with a bold masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of thofe vehement paffions that call forth all our energies whenever we opprefs and perfecute. Thus this matter was left for the time, with a full determination in Parliament, not to fuffer other and worse ftatutes to remain for the purpose of counteracting the benefits proposed by the repeal of one penal law; for nobody then dreamed of defending what was done as a benefit, on the ground of its being no benefit at all. We were not then ripe for fo mean a fubterfuge. I do not wish to go over the horrid scene that was afterwards acted. Would to God it could be expunged for ever from the annals of this country! But fince it must fubfift for our fhame, let it fubfift for our instruction. In the year 1780 there were found in this nation men deluded enough (for I give the whole to their delufion) on pretences of zeal and piety, without any fort of provocation whatsoever, real or pretended, to make a desperate attempt, which would have confumed all the glory and power of this country in the flames of London; and buried all law, order, and religion, under the ruins of the metropolis of the Proteftant world. Whether all this mischief done, or in the direct train of doing, was in their original scheme, I cannot fay; I hope it was not; but this would have been the unavoidable confequence of their proceedings, had not the flames they had lighted up in their fury been extinguished in their blood. All the time that this horrid fcene was acting, or avenging, as well as for fome time before, and ever fince, the wicked inftigators of this unhappy multitude, guilty, with every aggravation, of all their crimes, and screened in a cowardly darkness from their punishment, continued, without interruption, pity, or remorfe, to blow up the blind rage of the populace, with a continued blast of peftilential libels, which infected and poifoned the very air we breathed in. The main drift of all the libels, and all the riots, was, to force Parliament (to perfuade us was hopeless) into an act of national perfidy, which has no example. For, Gentlemen, it is proper you fhould all know what infamy we escaped by refufing that repeal, for a refufal of which, it feems, I, among others, ftand fomewhere or other accufed. When we took away, on the motives which I had the honour of ftating to you, a few of the innumerable penalties upon an oppreffed and injured people, the relief was not absolute, but given on a ftipulation and compact between them and us; for we bound down the Roman Catholics with the most folemn oaths, to bear true allegiance to this government; to abjure all fort of temporal temporal power in any other; and to renounce, under the fame folemn obligations, the doctrines of fyftematic perfidy, with which they stood (I conceive very unjustly) charged. Now our modest petitioners came up to us, moft humbly praying nothing more, than that we should break our faith without any one cause whatsoever of forfeiture affigned; and when the subjects of this kingdom had, on their part, fully performed their engagement, we should refufe, on our part, the benefit we had stipulated on the performance of those very conditions that were prefcribed by our own authority, and taken on the fanction of our public faith-That is to fay, when we had inveigled them with fair promifes within our door, we were to fhut it on them; and, adding mockery to outrage-to tell them, "Now we have got you faft-your confciences are bound to a power refolved on your deftruc❝tion. We have made you fwear, that your religion obliges you to keep your faith; fools as 66 you are! we will now let you fee, that our reli gion enjoins us to keep no faith with you." They who would advisedly call upon us to do fuch things, must certainly have thought us not only a convention of treacherous tyrants, but a gang of the lowest and dirtieft wretches that ever disgraced humanity. Had we done this, we should have indeed proved, that there were fome in the world whom no faith could bind; and we should have convicted ourselves of that odious principle of which Papists stood accufed by thofe very favages, who wifhed us, on that accufation, to deliver them over to their fury. In this audacious tumult, when our very name and character, as gentlemen, was to be cancelled for ever along with the faith and honour of the nation, I, who had exerted myself very little on the quiet paffing of the bill, thought it neceffary then to come forward. I was not alone; but though some distinguished members on all fides, and particularly on ours, added much to their high reputation by the part they took on that day, (a part which will be remembered as long as honour, fpirit, and eloquence have estimation in the world) I may and will value myself fo far, that yielding in abilities to many, I yielded in zeal to none. With warmth, and with vigour, and animated with a just and natural indignation, I called forth every faculty that I poffeffed, and I directed it in every way which I could poffibly employ it. I laboured night and day. I laboured in Parliament: I laboured out of Parliament. If therefore the refolution of the Houfe of Commons, refufing to commit this act of unmatched turpitude, be a crime, I am guilty among the foremost. But indeed, whatever the faults of that Houfe may have been, no one member was found hardy enough to propose fo infamous a thing; and on full debate we paffed the refolution against the petitions with as much unanimity, as we had formerly paffed the law of which these petitions demanded the repeal. There was a circumstance (justice will not fuffer me |