orders, to take shelter in this hospitable land, by the natural generosity of Britons, and the influence of the benevolent principles of the Protestant religion, the universal asylum of the persecuted and distressed. The protection we have given to these miserable fugitives reflects the highest honour upon the country, and upon the Protestant religion, which we profess. At the same time, while we extend this kindness to persons of a different religious persuasion, it certainly becomes the wisdom of the legislature, to look to the consequences that may arise to our own civil constitution and our own ecclesiastical establishment, and to provide for the security of both: But my lords, I contend that the security of both is sufficiently provided for by the existing laws, better provided for by them than by this bill and that any new law for the purpose is altogether unnecessary: and I am always an enemy to the multiplication of statutes without urgent necessity. My lords, before I enter upon the particular dangers which the bill would prevent, and the means of prevention afforded by the existing laws, I believe it will be proper to premise some general observations upon the statutes which relate to persons professing the Roman Catholic religion, as they stand at present. First, my lords, I would observe, that all laws respecting Roman Catholics apply equally, without any difference or discrimination, to the natural-born subjects of his majesty and to aliens. This is the case both of the old penal statutes and of the late statutes of relief: The penalty attaches upon any overt act of popery, whether he who commits it be a naturalborn subject or an alien, without any regard to that difference of condition. On the other hand, the late statutes for the relief of Roman Catholics from some penalties, upon certain conditions,-the benefit, I say, of these extends equally to the alien and natural born subject: these statutes of relief relieve equally, and under the same conditions, all persons on whom the penalties would otherwise attach; the alien is equally with the natural born subject entitled to the relief, if he perform the condition under which the relief is held out. Another observation I have to make upon these laws is this: by the late statutes for the relief of Roman Catholics, not one of the old penal statutes is repealed, except indeed certain clauses [VOL. XXXV.] in a statute of the 11th and 12th of William 3rd, subjecting any Popish bishop, priest or Jesuit, who should say mass, or exercise any part of the function of a popish bishop or priest, and any person professing the popish religion who should keep a school or take youth to board, to perpetual imprisonment: entitling any person who should apprehend and prosecute to conviction any popish bishop, priest, or Jesuit, to a reward of 1007.; and creating certain disabilities of taking lands by descent, devise, or limitation. These odious clauses in the statute of king William are indeed repealed by an act of the 18th of the king; but with the exception of these clauses, not one of the old penal statutes is repealed. It is true a statute was passed, in the 31st of the king, to relieve persons professing the Roman Catholic religion from certain penalties under certain conditions. But this statute without repealing any one of the old penal laws, gives its relief in this manner, and in no other: it requires that the Roman Catholic shall take and subscribe a certain oath and declaration: which, with respect to him, is an oath of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration: then it enacts that no person who has taken and subscribed this oath and declaration shall henceforth be prosecuted, by virtue of any of the penal statutes, for certain overt acts of popery, which it names,—such as not going to church, going to mass, or keeping a popish servant. But as it only stays the prosecution or conviction, without repealing the statute,-if any Roman Catholic refuses or neglects to take and subscribe the oath and declaration, the unrepealed statute is in full force against him or if, having taken the oath, he does any thing forbidden by the old statutes, which is not mentioned in the statute of relief as one of the things for which he is not to be prosecuted, the old statute is in force, and the penalty for such offence still attaches. ; Having made these general observations upon the laws respecting Roman Catholice, as they now stand, I shall now state to your lordships the very sufficient security which I conceive they afford against any danger that may be thought likely to arise from the fugitives from France, the objects of her antichristian prosecution. It is supposed that these ecclesiastics of the church of Rome may have some zeal to propagate the religion to which they are attached, and may take [2 B] advantage of every opportunity they can the world, and of the present state of the find of disseminating the principles of their Christian religion in the world, will church among our common people. My understand, that this zeal, however laudalords, it is very likely; I should expect ble in itself, is a principle that must be that the ecclesiastic of the church of laid under considerable restraint, otherwise Rome would be animated with this zeal; it may do much mischief,-mischief to because, my lords, I conceive that every that which it is its object to serve to reman that has a religion has some zeal for ligion. In the present state of things a propagating that religion,-meaning, by a prudent man, who considers how the inreligion, some particular shape and form terests of churches and of states are conof the Christian religion-a religion affect- nected and blended, will be sensible, that ing the future interests of men, and fur- his zeal for the propagation of the partinishing means for the securing of those cular tenets of his own sect upon many interests. My lords, I say that every occasions must be repressed,-that it is a man that has such a religion has a zeal part of his religious duty to restrain it. for the propagation of it; if he has not But the public safety must not be trusted the zeal he is not in earnest in his profes- to the discretion of individuals: it is fit sions. If indeed a man's religion consists therefore, and necessary, that the laws merely in negatives,-which is the case should lay due restraint upon the irregular with many now-a-days, who would be sallies of an indiscreet zeal; and this inthought good Christians and the best of Pro- terference of the laws is the more necestestants, though they seem to have no ac- sary, because the thing to be restrained is knowledged creed (but a sort, of confession in itself not criminal. But, my lords, I of disbelief, without an avowed assent to say, that the zeal of the Roman Catholic any thing definite; persons who, not ad- is very sufficiently restrained by our subhering to the original principles of the sisting statutes. The statute of the 3rd Reformation, as laid down in the Confes- Jac. cap. 4, is at this day in full force sion of Faith of the churches of Saxony against any person who shall attempt to and the thirty-nine articles of the church draw away any one within his majesty's doof England, think to reform the Reforma- minions to the communion of the church of tion, by expunging, one after another Rome. By the 22nd and 23rd clauses of every article of our belief-the Trinity- that statute, and by an older statute, the the incarnation-the atonement-grace- 23rd of Eliz. cap. 1, which also is still in the virtue of the sacraments as means and force, "it is high treason for any person, instruments of the gifts and graces of either upon the seas, or beyond the seas, or which they are signs.-I can easily suppose in any other place within the king's domithat such persons will have little zeal nions, to reconcile or be reconciled to the about the caput mortuum of religion which pope or see of Rome." To be reconciled remains after this dissipation of the sub-indeed is no longer an offence to be prostance. The man who puts the son of Mary upon a level only with the son of Sophronisca,-who acknowledges in our Lord Jesus Christ nothing more than the Socrates of Jerusalem,-will feel, I suppose, no more zeal for the propagation of the moral of the gospel (which is the whole of such a man's Christianity) than I feel to propagate the dry moral of Socrates or of Marcus Antoninus. But every man that has a religion that deserves the name cannot but have something of a zeal for the propagation of it. I suppose therefore, that the Roman Catholic priest has this zeal; and, my lords, I bear him no ill-will for it,-conscious that I have it too for our common Christianity, and for that form of Christianity, to which I am attached-the doctrine and rites of the reformed church of England. But, my lords, a man that knows any thing of secuted under these or any other statutes; because the statute of the 31st of the king says, "that no one complying with the conditions of that statute shall be liable to impeachment or prosecution simply for being a papist or reputed papist; or for professing or being educated in the popish religion; or for hearing or saying mass; or for being a priest or deacon; or entering or belonging to any ecclesiastical order or community of the church of Rome; or for being present at, or performing, or observing, any rite, ceremony, practice, or observation, of the popish religion; or maintaining or assisting others therein;" provided, &c. But, will any one point out to me the clause in the statute of the 31st of the king, or in any other statute now subsisting, which says that a person having reconciled or attempting to reconcile any other person within the king's dominions to the pope or see of Rome, | rassed; and they have fled into the arms shall not be impeached or prosecuted of their mother-country in the hope of under these statutes of Elizabeth and finding a shelter here from the fury of James as for the offence of high treason; Antichrist in a foreign land. With these, and, if convicted shall not suffer as a some French monastics of both sexes traitor? And, I ask, are not the penal- have made their escape; and they are ties of high treason a sufficient restraint, now all settled in different parts of the are they not all the restraint you can country, in houses in which the remaining lay, upon the zeal of Roman Catho- members of each convent live in common. lics? The monks, as I have said, are few, My lords, I ought to ask pardon of the House for taking up so much of your time upon this subject of the danger of conversion; because, in truth, it has little connexion with the bill; for the bill takes no notice of this danger, and pretends not to provide any security against it. But, my lords, I know that the apprehension of this danger is without doors one of the most popular arguments for the bill, and has procured it any favour that it has with the public. People in general have given themselves no trouble to know more about this bill than that somehow or other it is against popery, and particularly against the propagation of popery by the emigrants from France; And you hear it said every day in commendation of this bill, "Oh! God forbid we should persecute, them! but the laws should take care that they do not pervert our own people." So say I, my lords: but then I say the care is already taken; and I think it right to take this opportunity of setting the public right upon this point-of showing that the supposed merit of the bill, in this particular, rests upon a misconception of the bill itself, and a misunderstanding of the law upon the subject as it actually stands. But now, my lords, I proceed to consider that apprehended danger which is one express and principal object of the bill; a danger apprehended from the impunity given by the statute of the 31st of the king, under conditions, to Roman Catholic tutors and schoolmasters; of which these fugitives from France, it is supposed may avail themselves. My lords, the fact must be admitted, that among the fugitives from France are many regulars of both sexes. The monks, however, are very few; and the far greater proportion both of monks and nuns are the naturalborn subjects of his majesty,-English monks and English nuns, who are settled in convents of their own in France and Flanders, because they could make no such settlement in their own country. Their houses have been demolished, their property plundered, their persons ha English Benedictines settled at Acton Barnell, near Shrewsbury: English Benedictines at Vernon Hall, near Liverpool; English Franciscans, near North Allerton; and English Dominicans at Carshalton, in Surrey. The persons of these four different orders amount to no more than twenty-six ; and these, with the addition of five miserable Cistercians of the order of La Trappe settled near Wareham, and five Carthusians near Wardour Castle, make the sum total of monks, English and French, settled in England. The nuns, my lords, are more numerous; consisting of the surviving members of twenty-two convents in all, of which eighteen were English, and four only French,-the Bernardine dames, from Abbey Desprez at Douay, settled at Pentonville, near Islington: the ladies of the order of St. Francis de Sales, settled near Little Chelsea; the Benedictine Dames of Montargis, at Bodney Hall in Norfolk; and the Hospitalieres of Cambray, at or near Ilford, in Essex. The whole number of these four French convents is, I believe, very small. Of the eighteen English, I could state distinctly the different orders, the settlements, and the numbers of each; for I believe I am possessed of pretty accurate and authenticinformation; but I shall not trouble your lordships with this detail; I shall only say that the gross number certainly exceeds, not three hundred and sixty persons. My lords, all these persons (with the exception of the ten French monks) have qualified themselves to be teachers of youth, according to the statute of the 31st of the king; and they have opened schools at their respective habitations,-the monks for boys, and the nuns for young ladies. My lords, I, for my part, am well pleased that the Roman Catholics of this country are at last furnished with the means of education for their sons and daughters within the kingdom. It was a cruel and a weak policy to compel the Roman Catholics to send their children abroad for that liberal education which | prisoned for one year." ters. No And what are those penalties, my lords-By the 23rd Eliz. (cap. 1. sect. 6). "Any person who shall keep or maintain a schoolmaster which shall not repair to church, or be allowed by the bishop or ordinary of the diocese, shall forfeit 10. for every month; and such schoolmaster or teacher presuming to teach contrary to this, act, shall be disabled from teaching, and shall be. im Such, my lords, are the penalties by the statute of Elizabeth,-upon the person retaining a popish schoolmaster, a forfeit of 10. per month: upon the schoolmaster, disability, and imprisonment for one whole year. But, my lords, these being not enough, by the 1st Jac. cap. 4, "No person shall keep any school, or be a schoolmaster, out of any of the universities or colleges of this realm, except it be in some public or free grammar school, or in some such nobleman's or gentleman's house as are not recusants, or where the same schoolmaster shall be specially licensed thereunto by the archbishop, bishop, or guardian of the spiritualities of that diocese." And the penalty, my lords, for offence against this statute, as well upon the schoolmaster as the party that shall retain or maintain him, is a forfeit upon each of them separately or 40s. a day. Forty shilling a day, my lords, seems a sufficient forfeit to keep any popish schoolmaster or schoolmistress in pretty good order. But it is said these old laws are a mere dead letter, they are so difficult to be enforced. Difficult to be enforced, my lords! I maintain that no law is more easy to be enforced than these penal statutes against popish schoolmasters. My lords, the statute of king James is a business of qui tam; for the forfeit is half to the king and half to the person that sues; and will any man of common information say, that a prosecution by indictment for a misdemeanor under this new bill will be an easier proceeding than a qui tam action? What! my lords, is a pettyfogging attorney no where to be found, who would lend his services in this righteous business of bringing popish schoolmasters and schoolmistresses to condign punishment? But then, it is said, it would be odious to enforce these penal laws. Would it so, my lords?-then I say it is infinitely more odious to be framing new ones. My lords, I now come to the greatest danger of all, in the apprehension of the framers of this bill; which it is the principal object of the bill to prevent, the danger, that, in consequence of the numerous settlements of nuns and monks, but chiefly of nuns, for the monks are so few that they may be very properly overlooked,-that in consequence of these settlements, monastic institutions may gain a permanent establishment in this country. I have stated to your lordships, that English nuns of eighteen different or- | women,-that they will profess new nuns ders besides four sets of French nuns, are settled in different parts of the country,each order in a house of its own; where the persons of the same order live together (but apart from those of other orders), and, otherwise than in the business of education, mix not with the world. Now my lords, if any ten or twenty, or a larger number of these ladies, should choose to take a great house where they may live together as they have been used to do all their lives, and lead their lives according to their old habits; getting up in the morning and retiring at night at stated hours, dining upon fish on some days of the week, upon eggs on others,-I profess I can discover no crime, no harm, no danger, in all this; and I cannot imagine why we should be anxious to prevent it. My lords, I say it would be great cruelty to attempt to prevent it; for these women could find no comfort in any society but their own, nor in any other way of life. They cannot mix with the lower order of the people they are ladies well born (many of them indeed of high extraction), and of cultivated minds. And yet they are not prepared to mix in the politer circles. Enamoured, by long habit, of the quiet and solitude of their cells,-ab. sorbed in the pleasures of what they call the interior life,-these women would have no relish for the exterior life of fashionable ladies. My lords, it would be martyrdom to these retired, sober women, to be compelled to lay aside the cowl and simple habit of their order, to besmear their cheeks with vermillion, and plaster their throats with litharge,-to clap upon their heads an ugly lump of manufactured hair, in shape and colour as different as possible from the natural covering,-and then, with elbows bared to the shoulder, to sally forth to the pleasures of the midnight rout, to distribute the cards at loo, or soaring to sublimer joys, to rattle the dice box at the games of hazard! Exquisite, ravishing, as these delights must be confessed to be to those who have a wellformed taste, these stupid women my lords, have not that taste; and if you will not permit them to live in their own dull way, you should have strangled them when they first landed. "Who ever thought of strangling them?" say the friends of the bill; or who would hinder them from living quietly among themselves in their own habitations? But what we fear is that they will enveigle our own young in this country,-that so a succession will be provided, and monastic institutions established, not only for a time, but rendered perpetual; and that is the danger which this bill is intended to prevent." My lords, I confess my mind is not much alarmed with apprehensions of this danger. I think we have a pretty good security against it for the present, in the general inclination of the minds of my fair countrywomen; which, I am persuaded, is not bent towards retirement and seclusion: but the fancies, to be sure, as well as the fashions of English ladies are liable to change; and therefore I agree, that small as the danger seems to be at present, the laws ought to provide against it. But, I ask, upon this point as upon the former, have not the laws provided? Will your lordships take the trouble once more to turn to the 31st of the king: how do your lordships read the 17th section ?" Provided also, and be it farther enacted, that nothing in this act contained shall make it lawful to found, endow, or establish (lawful to found, to endow if founded, or if founded and endowed, to establish-domicile in this country) any religious order or society of persons bound by monastic or religious vows; or to found, endow, or establish any school, academy, or college, by persons professing the Roman Catholic religion, within these realms or the dominions thereunto belonging: and that all uses, trusts, and dispositions, whether of real or personal property, which immediately before the said 24th day of June 1791 might be deemed to be superstitious or unlawful shall continue to be so deemed and taken; any thing in this act contained notwithstanding." Nothing, your lordships see, in this act contained, is to make it lawful to found, endow, or establish any monastic society in this country. If nothing in this act of the 31st of the king makes it lawful, I am sure it is not made lawful by any other act; it is completely unlawful: and if any of the religious ladies settled here attempt to establish and perpetuate their order in this country by professing new sisters here, they are guilty in every such instance of a gross overt act of popery; and the whole park of the artillery of the penal code points at them its dreadful thunders. And not only so, my lords, but no monastic society can take any property real or personal: property of any kind, or granted in any way, "de |