Notwithstanding the House feemed well difpofed to adopt the bill, yet it was not carried through, and from fome events which afterwards turned up, it does not appear improbable, that the fecret interpofition of the minister proved fatal to it, although he openly fupported it. The fevere laws which are in force against Roman catholics, diftinguish this country from every other Proteftant ftate in Europe, whilft the inoffenfive conduct of that body, for a series of years, had entitled them to fome relief from government. In the perilous fituation into which the nation was now brought, when an immediate invafion from France was threatened, and which we were very ill prepared to refift, a petition from the body of Roman Catholics, figned by almost every gentleman of that perfuafion, of note or property in England, was prefented to the King, ftrongly expreffive of their loyalty and attachment to his person and government. Nothing, therefore, could more directly meet fpeech to the electors, fraught with true dignity and strong argument, he defended his conduct in this bufinefs, as follows: "It was a painful but neceffary part of my duty, to read what was approaching in Ireland, in the black and bloody characters of the American war. I did not obey your inftructions: No. I conformed to the inftructions of truth and nature, and maintained your interests against your opinions, with a conftancy that became me. A reprefentative worthy of you, ought to be a perfon of stability. I am to look indeed to your opinions; but to fuch opinions as you and I must have five years hence. I was not to look to the flash of the day. I knew that you chose me, in my place, along with others, to be a pillar of the state, and not a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted for my levity and versatility, and of no use but t● indicate the shiftings of every fashionable gale. Would to God the value of my fentiments on Ireland and on America, had been at this day a fubject of doubt and difcuffion! No matter what my fufferings had been, fo that this kingdom had kept the authority I wished it to maintain, by a grave forefight, and by an equitable temperance in the ufe of its power.” the the wishes of the court, than to fhew a proper fenfe of this attachment; but the dread of incurring popular refentment, would, most probably, have prevented the fmalleft exertion in their behalf. It must be confidered as a piece of fubtile policy, for government to effect fo defirable an object by means of the members who compofed the oppofition; a fet of men whom venal pens and tongues had branded with the moft opprobrious epithets, because they held opinions on great political points, effential to the well-being of the state, which were repugnant to the minifterial creed. It appears, however, from their conduct in this inftance, that their zeal to ferve the caufe of humanity, rendered them indifferent to the fuggeftions of felf-intereft, or to the clamours of men under the influence of an intolerant spirit: it even fubjected them to the imputation of being made the dupes of crafty ftatefmen. On the 14th of May, 1778, Sir George Savile brought a bill into the Houfe of Commons, for the repeal of the act The following character of this Baronet deferves a place here.He is a true genius; with an understanding vigorous, acute, refined; diftinguishing even to excefs; and illuminated with a most unbounded, peculiar, and original caft of imagination. With these he poffèffes many external and inftrumental advantages; and he makes ufe of them all. His fortune is among the largest; a fortune which, wholly unincumbred as it is, with one fingle charge from luxury,.vanity, or excefs, finks under the benevolence of its difpenfer. This private benevolence, expanding itself into patriotism, renders his whole being the eftate of the public, in which he has not reserved a peculium for himself of profit, diverfion, or relaxation. During the feffion, the first in, and the last out of the Houfe of Commons; he paffes from the fenate to the camp; and, feldom seeing the feat of his ancestors, he is always in Parliament to ferve his country, or in the field to defend it. But in all well-wrought compofitions, fome particulars stand out more eminently than the reft; and the things which will carry his name to posterity, are his act of 10 and 11 W. III. entitled, "An Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery;" which to the many pains and penalties before inflicted, by a variety of acts of parliament, added, a prohibition to popifh priests officiating in the service of that church; foreigners so offending were made guilty of felony, and natives of this kingdom, of high treafon. Popish heirs, educated in foreign countries, incurred a forfeiture of their eftates, which defcended to the next proteftant heir: a fon, being a proteftant, was empowered to difpoffefs his father, being a papift, of his eftate, and members of that communion were incapacitated from purchafing landt. The his two bills; I mean that for a limitation of the claims of the crown upon landed eftates; and this for the relief of the Roman Catholics. By the former, he has emancipated property; by the latter, he has quieted conscience; and by both, he has taught that grand leffon to government and fubject,—no longer to regard each other as adverse parties. Such was the mover of the act that is complained of hy men, who are not quite fo good as he is; an act, moft affuredly not brought in by him from any partiality to that fect which is the object of it. For, among his faults, may be reckoned a greater degree of prejudice against that people, than becomes fo wife a man. He inclines to a fort of disgust, mixed with a confiderable degree of afperity to the system; and he has few, or rather no habits with any of its profeffors. What he did, was on quite other motives. The motives were thefe, which he declared in his excellent fpeech on his motion for the bill; namely, his extreme zeal to the Proteftant religion, which he thought utterly difgraced by the act of 1699; and his rooted hatred to all kind of oppreffion, under any colour or upon any pretence whatfoever. † Bishop Burnet, in the Hiftory of his own Times, 8vo, Edition III. 316, 317, informs us, that after the peace of Ryfwick (1697), a great fwarm of priests came over to England, not only thofe whom the revolution had frightened away, but many new men, who were faid to boaft the favour and protection of which they were affured. Some enemies of government gave it out, that the favouring that religion was a fecret article of the peace; and fo abfurd is malice and calumny, that the Jacobites The propriety of granting relief to a body of men who acted conscientiously, appeared fo clearly to the House, that the bill was paffed without a diffenting voice. Whereby the subjects of Great Britain, profeffing the Romish faith, were permitted to perform their rites of worship, were rendered capable of inheriting or purchafing real estates, upon subscribing an oath of allegiance to the King, and folemnly disclaiming the doctrine of the Pope's authority over this realm, or his power of abfolving the fubjects of it from their obligations to the government as by law eftablished”. Doctrines which had prevailed in times of fuperftitious ignorance, but which had long been forgotten by the Apoftolical vicar at Rome, and were no longer held facred either by the priesthood or laity. The fpirit of perfecution is happily extinguifhed in many of the Roman Catholic countries in Europe, even the most rigid kingdoms have relaxed their severity. Such a liberality of fentiment well deserves imitation. The King of Pruffia has long fince Jacobites began to fay, that the King was either of that religion, or at leaft a favourer of it.-Upon this, fome proposed this bill. Those who brought it into the House of Commons, hoped that the court would have opposed it; but the court promoted the bill. So when the party faw their mistake, they seemed willing to let the bill fall; and when that could not be done, they clogged it with many fevere, and fome unreasonable clauses, hoping that the Lords would not pass the act; and it was faid, that if the Lords should make the least alteration in it, they in the House of Commons, who had fet it on, were refolved to let it lie on their table, when it should be fent back to them. Many Lords, who fecretly fayoured papifts, on the Jacobite account, did, for this very reason, move for feveral alterations; fome of these importing a greater severity; but the zeal against popery was fuch in that Houfe, that the bill paffed without any amendinent, and it had the Royal affent. *It is very remarkable, that the original draft of this act of W. III. as first brought into the House, aimed at nothing more than obliging the Roman Catholics to take the oaths of allegiance and fupremacy, and the teft, the two first of which are now enjoined them. See Burnet ut fupra. led led the way, by caufing a popish church to be built at Berlin, the foundation ftone of which was laid in his own name. In an enlightened age, it is not poffible, that the tenets of popery fhould gain ground in a proteftant country. A committee of enquiry into the ftate of the nation, was appointed in each Houfe of Parliament, which fat early in the month of February, 1778. This was proposed in the upper House by the Duke of Richmond, and in the lower by his nephew, the Hon. Mr. Fox, Colonel Barré diftinguifhed himself greatly, in his attempts to correct the abuses which prevailed in the expenditure of the public money, and Sir Philip Jennings Clerke endeavoured to obtain an act, to reftrain any person, being a member of the House of Commons, from being concerned himfelf, or any person in truft for him, in any contract made by the Commiffioners of his Majefty's Treafury, or Navy, the Board of Ordnance, or by any other perfon or perfons, for the public service, unless the faid contract fhall be made at a public bidding. Mr. Alderman Harley was the principal speaker against the bill, which however was fupported by a great number of independent members, and was at length loft by only two votes *. The enquiries into the ftate of the nation were pursued for upwards of two months. The vaft fums voted for the fervice of the navy, during the laft eight years, and the bad condition in which that national defence was fuppofed to be, notwithstanding fuch ample provifion, were urged as proofs of great negligence or peculation in that department, but the minifterial party had the addrefs to counteract every attempt to bring before the Houfes fuch evidence as was requifite to establish facts, and thereby to warrant a refolution 115 to 113. May 4, 1778. |