clergy of this realm, and of the churches committed to their charge. These are institutions which must ever be held sacred in this Protestant kingdom, and which it is the duty and determination of his Majesty to preserve inviolate. His Majesty most earnestly recommends to you to enter upon the consideration of a subject of such paramount importance, deeply interesting to the best feelings of his people, and involving the tranquillity and concord of the United Kingdoms, with the temper and the moderation which will best ensure the successful issue of your deliberations. (Annual Register, 1829, p. v. 71, 5.) 211. Speech of the Attorney-General against the Catholic Annual Register The opponents of the Emancipation Bill were not entirely influenced by religious intolerance. The relation of Church and State was considered by many a very buckler of English independence, and any measure likely to weaken the influence of the Church of England was thought by them to be dangerous to the welfare of the realm. The following speech, though intemperate in its language, well sums up the main arguments of the opponents of the Bill. ... When he, the Attorney-general of the king, was called on to frame an act of parliament, it was not unnatural that he should look, as a lawyer, to a higher authority than himself, namely the lord Chancellor. How could the Attorneygeneral prepare a bill, which the lord Chancellor had declared would subvert the Protestant church of England? and he thought he was placing himself under a strong shield, when he took his position behind the buckler of lord Chancellor Lyndhurst. "When my attention was drawn to the framing of this bill, I felt it my duty to look over the oath taken by the lord Chancellor, as well as that taken by the Attorneygeneral; and it was my judgment, right or wrong, that, when desired to frame this bill, I was called to draw a bill subversive of the Protestant church, which his Majesty was bound by his coronation oath to support. If his Majesty chose to dispense with the obligations of the coronation oath, he might do so, but I would do no act to put him in jeopardy. These are the grounds on which I refused, and would refuse a hundred times over, to put one line to paper of what constitutes the atrocious bill now before the House. Hundreds of those who now listen to me must remember the Am I, then, to be twit able, valuable, and impressive speech delivered two years ago by the present lord Chancellor, then Master of the Rolls, and a member of this House. It will also be in the recollection of hundreds that that eminent individual, than whom none is more acute in reasoning, more classical in language, and more powerful in delivery, then Master of the Rolls, but now lord Chancellor, quarrelled with the late Mr. Canning on this very subject. Am I then to blame for refusing to do that in the subordinate office of Attorney-general, which a more eminent adviser of the Crown, only two years ago, declared, he would not consent to do? ted, taunted, and attacked? I dare them to attack me. I have no speech to eat up. I have no apostacy disgracefully to explain. I have no paltry subterfuge to resort to. I have not to say that a thing is black one day, and white another. I have not been in one year a Protestant Master of the Rolls, and in the next a Catholic lord Chancellor. I would rather remain as I am, the humble member for Plympton, than be guilty of such apostacy such contradiction such unexplainable conversion such miserable, contemptible apostacy." The Attorney-general then entered into an examination of the bill itself, which, he said, he was doubtful whether members understood. It contained an oath to be taken, instead of the present oaths of abjuration and supremacy which had excluded the Catholics. But there was no provision in the bill which confined this oath to Catholics. It was an oath which any man might take, whether Catholic or not. A person, who was not a Catholic, might, by taking it, enjoy the privilege of a Catholic. The oath ought to have stated, “I am a Catholic, and swear so and so." But the bill did not require any such declaration. He supposed that this was an imitation of James the Second's scheme of liberty and conscience. Peel and Co. were supported on the principles of James II. For the effect of the oath was, that any man might gain admission to office, or to the House of Commons; whereas he understands the object of the alteration to be, that only those, who swore they were Catholics, were to be permitted to take the oath. Another clause supposed that a man, who was a Catholic, might be prime minister; it gave a general capacity to office. All offices, said the bill, are open to Catholics, with one or two exceptions; ecclesiastical appointments, however, were to be separated from the patronage, and vested in commissions. Now, Catholics had never manifested an unambitious temper, and a Catholic prime minister would never be satisfied with this retrenchment of his privileges. And who was to appoint the commissioners? Why, a Protestant lord Chancellor, lord Lyndhurst. The lord Chancellor would have the appointment to ecclesiastical places; but was this sufficient security? Lord Shaftesbury was a Protestant chancellor, and so was lord Jeffries. Was the conduct of Jeffries to the bishops forgotten?- a man who, though a Protestant, was as great an enemy to Protestants, and as adverse to admitting them to power, as Father Peter himself. The protection of the Great Seal was as little to be relied on as in the reign of Charles II., when lord Shaftesbury was chancellor, or in that of James II., when Jeffries filled that office. There might come a time, when no security would be found in the character of a lord Chancellor. And who would the commissioners select? Would they select Protestants who would, or those who would not, apostatize. According to the bill, any Catholic, who took ecclesiastical preferment, was guilty of a misdemeanour, and could hold his office no longer; and again, any Catholic, who advised His Majesty respecting the appointment to an ecclesiastical office, was subject to the same penalty. Might he be permitted to ask who drew that clause? the very clause, which created the offence, contained an absolute prevention of a conviction for that offence. The church of Ireland was protected by a flimsy sort of security in the bill. None of the dignities of the Romish church were to be permitted, co nomine, to hold English titles, as nominees of the pope; but these titles might be held by virtue of a money medium; a 50 l bank note would enable Dr. Doyle, or Dr. Curtis, or any other, to sport Catholic titles. The bill forbade this, except upon the payment of 50 l., which was all the penalty inflicted. There was no penalty in the act higher than 200 l., so that, in fact, the whole protection of the British constitution consisted in penalties of 50 l., 100 l., and 200 l. No control over the see of Rome; none over the nomination of the bishops; nothing after the passing of this bill in the way of security of the Protestant establishment — but those penalties of 50 l., 100 l., and 200 l. This was the declared value of the Protestant constitution of the empire in current coin. When this bill was dissected and anatomized, it destroyed itself. It admitted the danger, and yet provided no security for Protestants. He would not have condescended to stultify him- self by the composition of such a bill. He refused to draw it up. The folly and the contradictions be upon the heads of those who drew it. They might have turned him out of office; but he would not be made such a dirty tool as to draw that bill. Let who would, he would not defile pen, or waste paper, by such an act of folly, and forfeit his character for common sense and honesty. He had, therefore, declined to have anything to do with it. (Annual Register, for 1829, vol. 71, p. 55.) 212. Speech of Lord Plunkett for the Emancipation Bill Annual Register The speeches made in favour of the Emancipation Bill are in general far more dignified and logical than those of its opponents. The supporters of the measure rested their cause upon the argument of the inalienable right of every man to citizenship and equality under the law; and they buttressed their case with historical as well as polemical arguments. The speech which follows is indicative of the general attitude of the friends of emancipation. Lord Plunkett said, that he had reserved himself for the purpose of hearing the unanswerable arguments against the bill, which lord Eldon on former occasions had threatened he would produce when the measure was fairly before the House. As that noble and learned lord, however, had brought forth nothing but the ipse dixit of his own authority, unsustained either by ingenious argument, by historical deduction, or by an appeal to public and authenticated documents, he felt himself so far absolved from the necessity of refuting anticipated arguments for which he had prepared himself, that he would address his observations more particularly to the position that the bill was calculated to subvert the Protestant constitution. According to lord Eldon, the established principle of the Reformation had been to exclude Roman Catholics from Parliament and from offices; and therefore it was that the Oath of Supremacy was framed. Now the 5th of Elizabeth did not go so far as to exclude Roman Catholics from sitting in that House, and not only was there an exception as to the House of Peers, but the reason of the exception was stated. The reason was this - because the queen was otherwise assured, not of the religion, but of the loyalty of such Roman Catholics as were peers of Parliament. Then the Oath of Supremacy was a test, not of religion, but of loyalty. The members of the lower House were called upon to take the oath. It was the policy of Elizabeth to gain the Catholics; and for that purpose she changed the Articles and the Liturgy of the Church of England, as framed by Edward 6th, and adopted the communion service, to suit the Roman Catholics, and to enable them to join in communion with the Protestants. Passages, containing an expressed denial of the real presence, were expunged; and for thirteen years after the Reformation did the Roman Catholics take the Oath of Supremacy, and join in communion with the Church of England. They continued to be admitted to all the offices of the state still towards the latter end of the reign of the Stuarts. The Roman Catholics then became suspected, not on account of their religion, but owing to their supposed adherence to the designs of the throne. The throne became first disaffected to the liberties of the subject; and from the reign of Charles 1st the Roman Catholics came to be considered as enemies to the state through their adherence to the king. In a subsequent reign the king himself was a Catholic; and, the throne being thus a convert to their religion, and making inroads upon the public liberty, the Roman Catholics became more and more suspected; and, in point of fact, though not of law, they were very generally excluded from Parliament in the reign of Charles 2nd because the people were prejudiced against them. Till the 25th Charles 2nd, the Roman Catholics had contrived occasionally to get into Parliament; and how did the Protestant leaders get them out of the House of Commons, as they took the Oath and Declaration? Why, they brought into operation the law against recusancy, which prohibited persons convicted of recusancy from coming within ten miles of the cities of London and Westminster, and thus effectually prevented them from doing duty in Parliament. They therefore got a conviction of recusancy, and then called for a new writ. This was a decisive proof that, before the 30th of Charles 2nd, there was nothing to prevent the Roman Catholics from sitting in Parliament. That statute itself contained two enactments, the first, that Roman Catholics should not sit in Parliament without making the Declaration, and the second that persons not making the Declaration should be excluded from access to the king. There was a third enactment, which banished such persons ten miles from the cities of London and Westminster. This was a law of the land; and what had become of that law? That member of it, which |