bolder attempts than ever to undermine the vitals of Christianity. Still, by these literary efforts, the question was kept alive in the country; and being again brought before parliament by Sir Henry Houghton, in 1779, it passed both houses with very little opposition. 10 Thus dissenters were excused from any further liability to a call for subscription to any of the thirtynine articles. § 22. When the question of subscription first gained legislative notice, the old project of a Comprehension was again under discussion. Hopes of accomplishing it had been entertained both among churchmen and dissenters, under the primacy of archbishop Herring, several years before; and Doddridge was among those who thought it feasible and desirable.1 It was revived in 1772, some clergymen who subsequently rose high in their profession, being among its abettors.2 A petition, stating their views, was presented to archbishop Cornwallis, who then held the see of Canterbury, and he returned an answer to it, on the 11th of February, 1773. This stated, that after consultations with various members of the episcopal bench, it had been decided, that any attempt to revise the liturgy and articles would be imprudent.3 Such an attempt must obviously have been attended with great delicacy and difficulty, especially under the practical abeyance to which Convocation had been so long reduced. It would have been certain, also, to disappoint its friends, both by the multiplicity of demands made, and the impossibility that must soon have manifested itself, of annihilating dissent by almost any latitude of con cession. § 23. But although the dissenters gained relief from a liability to a call for subscription, they were not able, within the eighteenth century, to accomplish the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. The attempt was first made in 1787, but both Lord North and Mr. Pitt resisted it; hence it failed. The petitioners were generally spoken of in very respectful terms, but it was denied that they lay under any practical hardship, nothing more being done in their disfavour by the State, than a 6 declaration on its part of certain terms on which it thought offices of honour and trust might be safely laid open. Undiscouraged by this refusal, a similar application was made in 1789, and though unsuccessful, the majority unfavourable to it was much smaller than on the former occasion. This was hailed as a favourable omen by the dissenting body; and it now called upon its members in the country to join in those applications for relief, which had hitherto come chiefly from London: a circumstance that gave rise to some remarks prejudicial to the motion. But this appeal to rural nonconformity proved injurious to the immediate fulfilment of dissenting expectations, however it might have ultimately tended to realize them, by giving to the body a compact political form. A considerable degree of intemperance made its appearance, and had immediately the natural effect of producing exasperation on the other side. Acrimonious pamphlets kept up the strife; so that men became less capable of taking a calm view of the question than they had been for many years. Hence, when it came again before the house of Commons, in 1790, one of the fullest assembled for a long time, it was rejected by an overwhelming majority. Two years later, Mr. Fox would have placed those who denied the divinity of Christ as completely within the Toleration Act, as other dissenters. But Mr. Pitt opposed the extension, as really unnecessary; the parties to be benefited by it receiving practically the same exemption that all other religionists enjoyed, however the letter of the law might place them in a different situation. He urged also, particularly, the irritation generally prevalent, as a reason why a concession, which had little more than a theoretical importance, should not be forced upon an unwilling nation. The public mind was violently excited by French revolutionary politics; and as these were daily losing popularity, yet were very much in favour with Socinians, it seemed far from prudent to encourage their sect by any needless indulgence. The motion, accordingly, was lost.8 § 24. During all the earlier years of the eighteenth century, the English Romanists were in a situation precarious indeed, from the rigour of persecuting statutes, but endurable, from the Ayes 102, noes 122. Bogue and Bennett. • Ibid. 479. 7 Ayes 105, noes 294. Ibid. 480. 8 By 79 votes. Ibid. ii. 482. increasing liberality of the times. They entered upon the century with a most uncomfortable prospect; an Act having been passed in the year 1699, which each party in parliament would have gladly seen thrown out by its opponents, and which rendered Romish landlords, refusing to take the test, liable to forfeit their estates to the next protestant heir, besides providing intolerable hardships for their priests. This act, however, served for little else than to disgrace the statute-book, and make the proscribed religionists tremble for their possessions, or if priests, for their personal liberties. These evils were, however, aggravated by an act passed in the first year of George I., which authorized any two justices to tender the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, to persons suspected of disaffection to the government, visiting a refusal to take them with all the penalties of recusancy. This new offence was called constructive recusancy; and if the government had not been desirous of overlooking the offenders, Romanists would have found themselves in a worse condition than ever. Yet, for all this practical lenity, Walpole, in 1722, raised one hundred thousand pounds, by act of parliament, on the estates of papists and non-jurors: the liberal connivance of his government not being proof against the temptation of an important pecuniary relief from a gross extortion upon parties utterly defenceless, because generally unpopular. Under George II. no new law was enacted against Romanists; his being the first reign since the Reformation so advantageously distinguished. George the Third's reign opened upon them under auspices still more favourable. The principles of toleration had been advocated by several master-minds; the disciples of Hoadly universally admitted its justice; Blackburne, although intolerant towards Romanists, on the ground of their own intolerance towards all other Christians, yet raised a controversy that, however contemptible it might be on many accounts, filled men's minds with speculations upon religious liberty. The sovereign, too, possessed advantages which were altogether above those of his Hanoverian predecessors. He was no foreigner, ignorant of the English language, like George I.; or speaking it like one who learnt it late and imperfectly, like George II.; his prepossessions were not all German, and Hanover was not the constant scene of his regrets, the engrossing object for aggrandisement; he was not constantly disquieted by fears of a popish pretender to his throne; on the contrary, the unfortunate prince who had made an alarming descent upon Scotland in the time of his grandfather, was now known to be personally contemptible; and hence hardly any ever dreamt of seeing him invested with British royalty. Thus English Romanism was placed in a much more promising position than it had ever occupied since the expulsion of James II. It gained also something of a favourable hearing in the royal family, through the noble house of Norfolk, which judiciously improved opportunities of ingratiating itself with Frederic, prince of Wales, during his disagreement with George II. No sooner, too, had Lord Mansfield become chief-justice, than he discouraged, by every possible means, any prosecution that might occasionally come before him under the penal laws, giving to the party brought in question the utmost benefit that his legal knowledge could suggest, and speaking on all occasions most advantageously of religious toleration. The immediate cause, however, of a solid improvement in the condition of Romish families, was of a private nature. A lady had a jointure rent-charge on an estate, possessed by a person to whom she had shown great kindness; he refused to pay it, alleging her disability to retain any interest in land, as being a Roman catholic. Every lawyer told her, that this infamous refusal must stand good, unless a private act were passed for her relief. This was done; and men were naturally driven by such a transaction to think upon the iniquity of suffering acts even to slumber any longer in the statute-book, which might be so shamefully awakened at any time by avarice or malice. Hence a motion made by Sir George Saville, on the 14th of May, 1778, for the repeal of the disabilities so strangely and unexpectedly enacted against Romanists, near the conclusion of William's reign', passed both houses without a division. This "Butler's Hist. Mem. of the Engl. Cath. ii. 72. "By the act in question, popish priests or Jesuits, found to officiate in the service of the Romish church, incurred the penalties of felony, if foreigners; and of high treason, if natives: the successions of popish heirs educated abroad were forfeited, and their estates descended to the next protestant heir: a son, or other nearest protestant relation, might take possession of the estate of a father, or other next kinsman of the popish persuasion, during the life of the real proprietor: papists were prevented from acquiring any legal property by purchase, a term which in law included every mode of acquiring property but descent; and thus the various sources of acquisition were shut up from the Roman catholics. The mildness of the government had softened the rigour of the law; but it was to be remembered, that popish priests constantly lay at the mercy of the basest of mankind, common informers. On the act did not extend to Scotland 2; but a wide prevailing wish that it should, and some movements for that purpose, awakened a violent spirit of intolerance; and some serious riots in Edinburgh, with others less important in Glasgow, were the result, These were the precursors of similar excesses, but upon a much broader scale, in London, in 1780. Lord George Gordon, a junior of the ducal house of that name, but otherwise personally insignificant in every point of view, had connected himself with the violent anti-Romish party in his own country; and being a member of the house of Commons, he was easily enabled to arouse a kindred spirit in the populace of London. The infuriate mob commenced with assaults upon property of every description that could be connected with popery; but it soon manifested all the features essential to such assemblages, whatever be the object of their meeting — wanton destruction, lust of plunder, and sympathy for criminals. London continued several days in a state of extreme danger and alarm, every inhabitant trembling who had any thing to lose: no sooner however did the military act, than peace was restored. Hence it was plainly shown that religious fanaticism was rather a pretext for the outrage, than really a cause of it, there being nothing solid to sustain the rioters: had not, accordingly, the civic authorities been bewildered by an unmanly panic, there is every reason to believe, that the popular violence might have been curbed, without any great difficulty, and before any very extensive damage had been done. § 25. The English Romanists having obtained relief from some of the most iniquitous penalties by which they were menaced in the statute-book, naturally looked forward to further improvements in their condition. They did not, however, long trust to the gradual amelioration of public opinion, and its necessary effect upon the legislature. They formed a committee, in 1787, for the furtherance of their objects: a measure that might aid success, but certainly tended to make their body something of a political party. In February, 1788, this committee presented to the celebrated William Pitt, then prime minister, a memorial detailing the hardships of themselves and their friends, as a preliminary to an application for parliament evidence of any of these wretches, the magisterial and judicial powers were necessitated to enforce all the shameful penalties of the act."-Bisset's George III. ii. 397. * Butler, ii. 447. |