The motion was agreed to, and leave asked of the House, and granted, to bring in the bill.

Reported the custom duty bill, and the election bribery oath bill. Ordered to be engroffed.

The Houfe in a Committee on the act of the 42d of the King, for regulating the corn trade between Great Britain and Ireland, and fettling the price under which corn might be exported from each country into the other, reported, and leave given to bring in a bill further to continue, for a time to be limited, the faid act. The bill was accordingly prefented, and read the first time. Ordered for the second reading the next day.

Mr. Wickham obtained leave to bring in a bill for transferring feamen from the Irish militia to the royal navy.

Mr. Alexander reported from the ways and means of the preceding day. Report agreed to, and leave given to bring in bills pursuant thereto.

Colonel Vereker prefented a petition from the tanners of Limerick. Referred to the Committee on the Irish tanners bill.

Read a fecond time the twelve millions loan bill, and the import, export, and tonnage bill-Committed for the next day.

Adjourned.

HOUSE OF LORDS.

FRIDAY, JUNE 17.

Lord Pelham prefented the following message from his Majesty.

"G. R.

"His Majefly thinks it right to inform the House of Lords, that from an anxious defire to prevent the calamities of war being extended to the Batavian Republic, he communicated to that Governinent his difpofition to refpect their neutrality, provided that a similar difpofition was manifefted on the part of the French Government, and that the French. forces were forthwith withdrawn from the territories of the Batavian Republic. This propofition not having been acceded to by the Government of France, and measures having been recently taken by them in direct violation of the independence of the Batavian Republic, his Majefty judged it expedient to direct his Minister to leave the Hague; and he has fince given orders, that letters of marque and general reprifals

reprifals fhould be issued against the Batavian Republic and its fubjects.

"His Majefty has at all times manifefted the deepest and moft lively intereft for the profperity and independence of the United Provinces: he has recourse to these proceedings with the most fincere regret, but the conduct of the French Government has left him no alternative; and in adopting these measures, he is actuated by a fenfe of what is due to his own dignity, and to the fecurity and effential interests of his dominions.

G. R." Lord Pelham moved, "That an humble addrefs be prefented to his Majefty, thanking him for his gracious communication." Ordered.

CLERGY FARMING AND RESIDENCE BILL.

The order of the day, for refuming the Committee on this bill, being moved and read, the House refolved itself into a Committee, when the clerk having read the first line or two of the 14th ftatute,

The Bishop of St. Asaph rose, he said, to oppose the claufe altogether. He objected to it on two grounds, first, that it was unconftitutional, and next, that it interfered with the voluntary jurifdiction of the bishop. It was unconstitutional, because it was a direct violation of the conftitution of the church, and, for the first time, mixed the authority of the archbishop or metropolitan, with the authority of the bishops, than which nothing could be more feparate or distinct. A right rev. and truly learned prelate had on a former night attempted to ftate, that there was an analogy between the archbishop or metropolitan and the bifhops, in like manner as between the bishops and the clergy; but he denied the fact. The metropolitan had no controul over the bishop, except as he had before ftated, viz. with refpect to his vifitatorial powers. The bishop did not derive one atom of his authority from the metropolitan. The metropolitan could not, as he had on a former night obferved, compel him, or any other bishop, to grant ordination or inflitution to any man applying for orders, or to be inftituted. In fact the analogy could not poffibly be made out, nor had the bishop's power been fubject to the controul of the archbishop ever fince the connexion was first formed between church and ftate. A great part of the bishop's privileges was the crea ture of the civil and temporal power. His Lordthip enlarged upon thefe pofitiens, and faid, he confidered himfelt as

bound

bound to pay the metropolitan of the province no other obedience than fo far as regarded the canons of the church; and if the metropolitan were to interfere with the bishops in revoking their licences, or granting licences, where they, for reafons cogent in their conception, had refused them; and the flame of difcord fhould burst forth between the me tropolitan and the bishops, the latter would perhaps refuse to grant any licence or ordination, and tell applicants to go to the metropolitan, and let him take care of all of them. His Lordship faid, he was decidedly adverse to the clause, and the more fo, as the end could be more effectually anfwered by other means, and in his mind better answered. His Lordship then read a provifo, which he had drawn up to fubftitute in the ftead of the claufe, and which obliged the bishop, who refused one or more licences, to affign his reafons for fo doing in writing, and fubmit them to the archbishop of the province, who, if he difapproved them, the perfon fo refused a licence might appeal to the King in Chancery; for it was in the court of Chancery that his Majefty, in virtue of his fupremacy, exercised his ecclefiaftical jurifdiction. The provifo contained a variety of guards and fureties, to operate as checks upon the bishop, if he should abuse the difcretion vefted in him. His Lordship fully ar gued the fubject and fat down.

The Bishop of Oxford began by obferving, that he had been perfonally addreffed by the rev. prelate, and therefore, though but little ufed to public speaking, he felt himself called upon to attempt fome reply to what had fallen from a right rev. Lord, of fo much more experience and authority than himself. In the first place, he must recur to his former argument, and affert, that the analogy, or fcale of relation between the archbishop and the bishop, and between the bishop and his clergy, were fimilar and ftood upon fimilar grounds. That the archbishop had always, from the earliest periods of the church of Chrift, been held to be the head of the church, he could prove from indifputable authorities, which he had collected, and then held in his hand. The first he would refer to, was of fo early a date as the year 303. It was a canon of the council of Nice, which he read to the Committee in the original Latin, and which stated that the archbishop was, according to the ancient ufage, to be confidered as the head of the church in all things, and that the bishops were to be amenable and obedient to the archbishop in all things. The next document he referred to, was at the

time of the Reformation, which he also read to the Committee; and the next in more modern times. His Lordship pointed out the effect of the Pope's affuming the fupremacy over the catholic church, and ftated the mischievous effects of his baneful influence in this kingdom. After dwelling for fome time on the learned authorities which he had referred to, in order to prove that the archbishops, in all times of the church of Chrift, had exerci fed fovereign authority, as far as related to fpiritual affairs, over bishops and their clergy, be faid it was a mistake to confider the cure of fouls as folely under the care of the incumbents of livings, or parcchial clergy. The bishops themfelves were refponfible for the cure of fouls throughout the whole kingdom, and as they could not poffibly do the duties of every parish, they fent their clergy to perform them. With refpect to what other rev. prelates might think the oath they took to the archbishop bound them to, was a matter for them to fettle with their confciences; but he conceived, that having taken an oath to be obedient to the archbishop or metropolitan, he was bound to pay him obedience, and fubmit to his authority in all matters of church difcipline. With refpect to its being an infringement, he would refer the rev. prelate to the Act of the 26th Geo. III. commonly called the curates act, where that act was recognized; and the rev. prelate on that occafion had given his full approbation of the measure'; he had even gone farther, and in a public charge to his clergy, had exprefsly and diftin&tly made that acknowledgment. The learned prelate then referred to feveral ancient cafes, to fhew that the right was vested in the archbishop from time immemorial.

After having fully difcuffed this point, his Lordship proceeded to exprefs his wonder, that any rev. prelate should object to there being, by the enactments of the bill, an appeal to the archbishop. So far from objecting to it, or confidering it as any hardship, it was a great confolation to his mind that the exercife of the difcretion with which he was to be invefted, was to be made fubject to revifion. It fet him at once at reft, and removed all the irksome feelings that would otherwife have goaded him, in the exercife of that difcretion. Nor could he by any means confider it as a difgrace. or a degradation of a bishop, that an appeal would die against his difcretional conduct; indeed, he had ever confidered it to be one of the great beauties of our constitution, that in many cafes, and efpecially in cafes of property, the

decifions

decisions of the courts of law, nay, the decifions of the first law authority in the kingdom (the Lord High Chancellor) could be, and daily were, appealed from, at the bar of that Houfe, and, did any man living imagine that fuch appeals operated as a difgrace or degradation of those high characters? Nay, were not the Lord Chancellor and the judges pleafed and gratified at having their decifions revised; because, if they had fallen into error in forming their judgments, an opportunity was afforded of letting thofe errors right, if they were proved to be errors, on the hearing of an appeal. His Lordship having preffed his argumen's very strongly, *fat down, declaring, that if the Committee divided, he should vote for the claufe ftanding in the bill.

The Lord Chancellor faid, he rofe chiefly to repel a principle mischievous in its tendency, which had been introduced by a rev. prelate (the Bithop of Norwich) the preceding day, and still more mischievously applied by the rev. prelate who opened the debate that day. A rev. prelate the preceding. day had thrown out an idea, that where the legislature vested a difcretion in the bishops, they were to confider it as a legislative intimation of its with. No principle could be more falfe. A difcretional power had been repeatedly delegated by the legislature in cafes in which, from their nature and circumstances, no pofitive rule of conduct could be defined or enacted; but could any man imagine, that when it was left to his difcretion, that he was not freely to exercise that discretion according to the best of his judgment? What was the use of trusting him with the difcretional power, if he did not fo exercife it? He was refponsible for the exercife of it; but if it appeared, that in exercifing it, he had not been influenced by any bad motives, no idea of his having abused his truft could be imputed to him. With regard to the extravagant extent to which the rev. prelate oppofite to him had pushed this falfe principle, he was aftonished that a right rev. bishop, of his great learning and abilities, fhould have conceived fo ftrange an idea, that if the metropolitan exercised that authority, which the conftitution of the church gave him, of exercising his fupremacy, by revoking the licences granted by a bishop, or by granting licences to parish priests to whom a bishop or bithops had refufed licences, that the bishops would be provoked to fuch unfeemly anger, as to refuse afterwards to grant any licence, but fend all who applied for them to the archbishop himself. He could VOL. IV. 1802-3.

Dd

not