out any advantage to the persons at whose suit he was confined. He was satisfied it would be better for all parties, if the debtor was exonerated from arrest on the surrender of his goods and chattels. Mr. D. W. Harvey, seeing a noble lord in his place, begged to ask him, if there was any intention on the part of government of taking up this subject. If there were not, he would himself move for the appointment of a committee, to take into consideration the law as between debtor and creditor. Lord F. L. Gower said, it was the intention of government to take measures for assimilating the laws of the two countries, in reference to arrests on mesne process. EAST INDIA WRITERS' BILL.] On the motion of lord Ashley, the House went into a committee on this bill. Mr. Hume proposed a clause, that all writers going out to India should have an elementary knowledge of at least two of the oriental languages, of which Hindostanee or Persian should be one. He begged to assure the committee, that consequences the most lamentable, and which could only be conceived by persons who had resided in India, had frequently occurred from the want of this qualification; and further, that those who went out ignorant of the language mostly returned without having sufficient practical knowledge of it to hold a conversation with the natives. Lord Ashley replied, that the court of directors, acting in concert with the Board of Control, were ready to devise regulations to insure the competency of their officers upon these points. Mr. Hume expressed himself satisfied, and withdrew his clause. IRISH MISCELLANEOUS ESTIMATES.] The Chancellor of the Exchequer moved the order of the day for the House resolving itself into the Committee of Supply; and also, that the Irish Estimates be referred to the said committee. On the question, that the Speaker do leave the chair, Mr. Spring Rice said, that he meant not to oppose any obstacle to, the consideration of these Estimates; but really they were of so extravagant a nature, that he could not silently hear them proposed. Millions had already been voted for sustaining Protestant charter schools, and for systems of education in Ireland, which were entirely at variance with the wants of the people. There was also the Foundling Hospital: why not suspend the funds which were absorbed by that institution? He strongly complained that these Estimates were not referred to a Select Committee, which could look into the sums thus lavishly voted. Lord F. L. Gower said, he had no objection whatever to the appointment of a Select Committee prospectively, and he would make such a proposition in the course of the session. Mr. Hume expressed himself satisfied with the frank explanation of the noble lord, and, acting upon it, would oppose no resistance to the present resolutions. The several resolutions were then put and agreed to. ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIEF BILLADJOURNED DEBATE.] The Duke of Wellington having moved the order of the day for resuming the adjourned debate on the second reading of this bill, The Earl of Guilford rose and said :My lords; it has ever been an axiom in politics, that the religion of the people deeply affects the welfare of the state; influences national character and institutions; contains the principle of action, and the reason of the subject's allegiance. Therefore, our ancestors gave to a pure Protestant church the protection of the state, and to the state the protection of that church, connecting them by the bond of laws which it is now proposed to dissolve. If these, the only laws effectual for this purpose, excluding an intolerant sect from political power, be repealed; if this union be dissolved, what then becomes an established church? A church with doctrines, forms, discipline, property, grounded upon statutes, canons, customs, which constitute, but do not protect it. I would here wish your lordships to observe a distinction, strongly marked in the Act of Settlement, between the laws that form, and those that secure a church. For we may construct a ship, and turn it adrift without pilot or care for its preservation : it will still be a ship, until it becomes a wreck. The church was as much a church in the reign of king Charles 2nd as it is now: but it was a church rapidly tending to decay. Therefore, it was required that further laws should be enacted for its security. Now, the only laws that can give it security, are those which not only emanate from, but incorporate it with, the power of the state; since nothing can give permanence to any law, but the bias of the lawgiver. For this reason tests of qualification for legislative power were enacted in free states from the earliest ages of the civilized world, and, being essential to the stability of civil and religious institutions, are neither penal nor oppressive. livered by an organ of the popish association, that "power emanates from the people." Although I am of opinion, that a Roman Catholic people, in conferring this power, which they do in more than due proportion, are first acted upon by their priests, and, therefore, that among them power emanates from the pope; I admit the general maxim, adopted both in theory and practice at the Revolution, that, by right, power emanates from the people, and is most beneficially conferred by that portion of the people possessing property, which, in the view of our constitution, comprehends the interests of all persons, whether possessing or dependent upon it. It follows from this maxim, that a people may confer its jurisdiction upon one, upon a few, or upon many; that it is entitled, by the first law of nature, selfpreservation, to exclude those from its government whom it believes to be dangerous to its institutions; that persons so excluded are not aggrieved. Here seems to end the right of papists. This nation, acting upon this maxim at the Revolution, declared that, being Protestant, it would not be governed by Roman Catholics; and then, by a resumption and exercise of original power, reconstituted the social contract upon a purely Protestant basis. This contract is our constitution. Sir William Blackstone says, that in all other countries is implied, in ours express. The justice of religious tests is well described and insisted upon in a letter that the prince of Orange directed pensionary Fagel to write in answer to king James, when consulted by that monarch upon the policy of their removal. For king James was a liberal promoter of religious liberty, and delighted the Protestant Dissenters with his promises, until they found that religious liberty meant the introduction of popery: they were then no longer inclined to erect statues to him for his benevolence. In this letter, the prince makes a just distinction between penal statutes, and tests of qualification for public trust; condemns penalties upon religious faith; but declares tests to be necessary in all 'countries for the protection of religious establishments; that he and the princess could not consent to the removal of those in England, that tended only to the protection of the Protestant religion, importing no punishment, but only an incapacity for public employ-it ment, which could not be complained of as severity. He particularly approves the exclusion of papists from parliament, and from all share in the government and policy of the state. As we have been frequently asked what principle of our constitution this measure would violate, I hope your lordships will allow me to make a few observations upon the formation of this contract, however familiar the subject may be to your lordships' minds; with a view to shew, that it would not merely violate particular This distinction is founded in the first principles of civilized society. Penal statutes are a deprivation of an absolute right, which can only be forfeited by delin-principles, but destroy the whole conquency. Tests exclude from that which is no natural right, which is no right at all until it is bestowed, then only a right contingent upon the public good, and which cannot reasonably be possessed by papists in a Protestant state. They are the watchtowers of the rights and powers of the people, the guardians of their freedom, the only pledge of the duration of any institu tion. As this right of papists is asserted by almost every advocate of their claims, in the terms penal statutes, claims of justice, and of civil and religious liberty, I will say a few words upon it; and will allow it to be decided by a maxim which I heard de stitution. It was founded by an Association, whose declaration, termed the Association, was circulated through the kingdom, and signed by most of its influential and respectable inhabitants. When the lords temporal and spiritual met upon the abdication of king James, they signed this Association. When, by their advice, the prince of Orange called a general council, this Association was laid upon the table of both Houses for signature, although some refused, for verbal and partial objections, to sign it, many of whom afterwards did sign it. mean to shew, that it was considered as the foundation of authority, all other Convention Parliament proceeded to form the new Settlement in accordance with the principles and requisition of the Declaration of Rights; and the king, in his first Speech to the parliament, says,—“ A good settlement at home is necessary for the support of the Protestant interest at home and abroad." New laws were enactednot only a new Coronation Oath, but a new Oath of Supremacy in the precise terms of the Bill of Rights. These terms have been since a little altered, with a view to strengthen them; the spirit has been sustained. There did exist an Act (30 Car. 2.), also excluding papists from parliament-this was re-enacted; and, in conformity with the deliberate intention in which it was re-enacted, as soon as king being dissolved in the absence of a king, whose office is the keystone (but it should be a keystone of proportionate weight, to consolidate, and not destroy the arch) of all legislative and executive functions. By the advice of this council the prince of Orange summoned a Convention, for the purpose, not merely of placing a Protestant king upon the throne, but (as is stated in the preamble to the Bill of Rights) of forming such an establishment as that the religion, laws, and liberties of the people, might not again be in danger of being subverted. One of the earliest debates of the Convention was, whether an original contract between the king and the people had a real or imaginary existence. It was affirmed that even the Conqueror was submitted to upon a promise to main-William's authority was established in tain the laws of king Edward the Confessor-that Magna Charta and its several confirmations were original contracts. It was determined that an original contract did exist; that king James had violated it; and that by that, and by desertion, the throne was vacant. Ireland, a new law, such as did not exist, to exclude them from the Irish parliament, was passed. For the Oath of Supremacy, enacted in the 1st of queen Elizabeth in the English, and in the 2nd of queen Elizabeth in the Irish, parliament, had never been enforced in the latter country I wish your lordships to observe, that on account of its turbulent state; and the Convention here asserted, that from indeed had been taken by papists in the the earliest periods of our history, there English parliament with some double conhave existed certain fundamental laws struction: and, therefore, the Sacramental that kings in succession have been bound Test, and the Declaration against Tranto maintain inviolate; and I believe, that substantiation, had been superadded to it, no minister or parliament would, at any and now a new oath was framed. How, time, have dared to advise a king to then, it can possibly be said, by any noble abrogate Magna Charta. The Convention lord, that the only purpose at the Revoproceeded to reconstruct this broken con-lution, regarding religion, was to place a tract; and the prince in his letter to it, says, "It now lieth with you to lay a foundation of a firm security for your religion, laws, and liberties." It framed the Declaration of Rights, which was read to the prince of Orange-the crown was offered to, and accepted by, him upon the terms contained in it. This Declaration of Rights contains a condemnation of the abuses in the reign of king James 2nd, and certain principles that were to be the basis of a new settlement; and, also, a stipulation for two positive laws: one of which excluding papists from parliament, because they acknowledge the spiritual jurisdiction of a foreign potentate-it is now proposed to abrogate, so far as it affects them, against whom it was enacted. Here is a direct and absolute infraction of the Bill of Rights. After the Declaration -after a Protestant king had been placed on the throne; and after the Convention had been turned into a Parliament, the protestant king upon the throne, I cannot imagine. This species of security had recently been experienced in king Charles 2nd; a king nominally Protestant, secretly turned Papist, and conspiring against the religion and liberties of the people. Therefore now a parliamentary as well as regal security was required; and, although the noble and learned lord upon the woolsack, thinks that king William, upon his accession to the throne, changed his opinion delivered in the letter of Pensionary Fagel, upon this vital question, the exclusion of papists,-and that it had been founded in temporary dangers during the reign of king James, I will undertake to substantiate his consistency in his own words. In his Speech to this House, recommending the abolition of the Sacramental Test, to which this House did not consent, he says, "As I doubt not that you will sufficiently guard against papists, so I trust that you will leave room for all Protestants to serve." The Act of the 30th of king Charles 2nd, has been called by a noble lord Titus Oates's law. But how does that noble lord get rid of Coleman's letters, and other evidences of the corruption and designs of the court? Mr. Hume, sufficiently prone to extenuate Jesuitical conspiracy, speaking of the infamy of Oates, admits that, although the alarm might at that period be disproportionate to the danger, conspiracy was more than usually active; and that, "in que sense, a popish plot is perpetually carrying on against all Protestant, Pagan, and Mahometan states." Against this perpetual plot it was intended to enact a perpetual law; which, together with new laws, formed a part of the settlement at the Revolution. Thus a new contract was framed, the very essence of which is, the conjunction of the Protestant religion with the liberties of the people for their mutual protection and support. rights and liberties of the people." Accordingly, we find this fundamental stipulation complied with in the Act itself. The Act settles the crown upon the Electress Sophia, and her Protestant descendants; and its last clause provides, almost in the very words of the previous resolution, "that all the laws and statutes of this realm, for securing the established religion, and the rights and liberties of the people, and all other laws and statutes of the same now in force, be ratified and confirmed." That this act was conditional, and dependent upon the maintenance of laws for the protection of the Protestant religion, all the proceedings and addresses, at the time of the accession of his majesty king George 1st, abundantly prove. But I will mention one striking evidence of this fact: Upon the death of queen Anne, the Assembly of the States-general passes a resolution, which is transmitted to the elector of Brunswick Lunenburg, at Hanover, acSome noble lords have doubted, whether knowledging its guarantee of his highwe are to date this contract, or con- ness's succession, and readiness to fulfil stitution, from the period of the Revo- it conditionally, in these remarkable lution. But I think I can resolve this words: "according to the laws of Engdoubt by the best evidence, that of the land, et non aliter;" no otherwise did it organ of the House of Commons--the acknowledge the guarantee of the States. Speaker who, in his congratulatory Now, my lords, the States-general were address to their majesties after the coro- interested in no other laws of England nation, says, "May the people no longer than those that protected the Protestant date the establishment of their laws and religion in its strong hold, and thereby in liberties from the days of. St. Edward, the Protestant states of Europe. What, but from the auspicious reign of king then, are these laws? I have excluded William and queen Mary." This con- penal statutes, which were objected to by tract was intended to be strengthened, king William, and evidently of a temand was, in fact, rendered more express porary nature. I have distinguished, as and restrictive, in the Act of Settlement they are distinguished in the act, the laws of the 12th of king William, entitled "An of a church, from the laws for securing a Act for the further Limitation of the church; and this security could not have Crown, and the better securing the Rights been intended to be given solely by a and Liberties of the People." This Act Coronation Oath, because the clause says, does not alter, otherwise than by strength-"all the laws for securing, then in force;" ening the terms of the contract, but declares who is the next Protestant successor to the princess Anne, and upon what conditions. The same course appears here to have been pursued as at the settlement of the Revolution. The House of Commons passed some resolutions corresponding with the Declaration of Rights, intended to be the groundwork of the Act, or stipulations preparatory to the absolute nomination to the Crown. The 8th of these resolutions is, "that further provision be made for confirming all laws and statutes for securing our religion, and the and, when we connect this act with the of the people. When two parties contract, each must judge of the meaning and intention of an oath confirmatory of reciprocal advantages: and when a king pledges himself to his people, that he will, to the utmost of his power, preserve the Protestant religion, your lordships are to consider whether this House can conscientiously advise his majesty to deprive it of the protection of two branches of the legislature, and to leave its sole security in the breast of his successors on the Throne-a security found to be insufficient from the time of the Reformation. As we find in the Coronation Oath, the spirit of the contract, the preservation of the Protestant religion, stated in general terms, and, therefore, in its means liable to difference of opinion; so, I think, we find in the Act of Settlement, more express and restrictive, the very means by which that preservation was intended to be effected; namely, the ratification and confirmation of all the laws then in force for its security. Now, my lords, I do not deny the omnipotence of parliament to make or to repeal laws. But as that omnipotence was constituted by the people with a moral reservation of rights, I deny its moral omnipotence. And unless omnipotence be limited by the same principles that circumscribe the dispensations of God himself, it is a worthless and precarious attribute; and I deny its right and justice in the repeal of fundamental laws secured by contract to the people, to which not only no tacit or implied assent has been obtained, but from which an unequivocal and admitted dissent of numbers has been expressed, and when no appeal has been made to property or intelligence by a dissolution of parliament. I am speaking of the spirit, and am no judge of the bond imposed by the letter of the law; therefore do not know whether this measure would render necessary the repeal of that fundamental clause in the Act of Settlement. But of this I am certain, that previously to the admission of papists to this House, reason would require that that commemorated cause of the settlement should, if possible, be expunged from the Statute-book-that one breath should obliterate the memory, together with the glory of the Revolution -that profane history should be denied to Protestants, as sacred is to Roman Catholics—and that no retrospect of past li berty and happiness should remain to sadden the degraded footsteps of posterity, whom we shall have condemned to return to the bonds of slavery and superstition. And for what is our constitution to be thus broken down? For the sake of peace. Peace, my lords; peace can only breathe the purest air of justice, and dies upon the least alloy of its natural element. Therefore, if any of your lordships care! not for the stability of the church, consider the discord, the miseries that must befal the state;-compassionate your sons and grandsons ;-do not devote them to the horrors of disputed succession, and religious war. It is said, that, by placing the dagger in the hands of these our new friends, by embracing this first, this only reconcilia tion of the see of Rome to any dissentient church upon the face of the earth, we are to add the strength of Ireland to that of England. My lords, if I could believe that the Roman Catholic could be recon ciled to a reformed Protestant church, or that to give strength to our enemies were to acquire it for ourselves, I might be a convert to this bill. But the unions that have taken place have not been reconciliations, but unions of discordant materials, possessing the essential principles of division less harmonious in contact than in separation. I will not attempt to wade through endless matter, to shew that no country, in all its circumstances of extent, population, external independence, internal freedom, past history, and national character, can afford any parallel with the circumstances of Great Britain, or a safe rule of civil or ecclesiastical polity; but will only affirm, that in no country in Europe is the Roman Catholic religion admitted to political power upon the dangerous and unqualified terms proposed in this bill. To these and many other arguments, far more ably urged by other noble lords, one sweeping answer is given, that circumstances are changed; that the Roman Catholic religion is changed. But it behoves noble lords to shew at what period, and by what authority. The joyful intelligence should have been communicated by a general council, sanctioned by a pope. This should have informed us when the Roman Catholic church ceased to be intolerant and ambitious-when it ever shewed mercy when it possessed power. I will speak of this change only as it may affect oaths, an oath being the only se- |