all sense of shame, and, relying on the subtlety of his contrivance, he was not startled with enterprizes the most hazardous and most criminal." It is unnecessary here to enter into a detailed view of this horrid conspiracy, the reader is referred to my "Historical Narrative," selected from the most authentic protestant historians, where he will find a minute elucidation of the unparalleled deeds which arose out of it; suffice it to say, that, notwithstanding the gross absurdities, the utter impossibilities, and endless contradictions, contained in the depositions of Oates before the parliamentary committees and criminal courts, he was not only credited in his unsupported tales, but a guard of honour was placed over his person, a pension of 1200l. was granted for his maintenance, and he was dignified with the title of "The Saviour of the Nation!”— But this is not all: proclamations were issued, and rewards were of fered for other miscreants to come forward and display their talents in the science of false swearing, and the lives of innocent men were at the mercy of every abandoned wretch who sought revenge for a supposed injury, or wished to raise himself from a state of indigence to one of plenty. Thus protestant indulgences were granted to commit sins, and those too of the most horrid nature. That the picture I have drawn may not be thought exaggerated from the prejudices of education, I shall here quote an extract from the pen of an eminent protestant statesman, whose memory is still fresh in the mind of every intelligent reader.'The late Mr. Fox, in his history of the earlier part of the reign of James II. p. 36, speaking of this nefarious transaction, says, "Witnesses of such a character as not to deserve credit in the most trifling cause, upon the most material facts, gave evidence so incredible, or, to speak more properly, so impossible to be true, that it ought not to have been believed if it had come from the mouth of Cato; and upon such evidence, from such witnesses, were innocent men condemned to death and executed. Prosecutors, whether attornies and solicitors general, or managers of impeachment, acted with the fury which in such circumstances might be expected; juries partook naturally enough of the national ferment, and judges, whose duty it was to guard them against such impressions, were scandalously active in confirming them in their prejudices, and inflaming their pas sions. The king, who is supposed to have disbelieved the whole of the plot, never once exercised his glorious prerogative of mercy....It is said, that he dare not. His throne, perhaps his life, was at stake." Such is the representation given by one of the greatest statesmen and politicians this country has to boast, of the means pursued by protestant judges, juries, prosecutors, and witnesses, to convict innocent men of treason, which had no existence, and of engaging in a plot invented for the ruin of the catholic religion, but which the then houses of parliament solemnly and unanimously decreed, on the evidence of Oates alone, was "contrived and carried on by the popish recusants, for assassinating the king, for subverting the govern ment, and for rooting out and destroying the protestant religion."{ CATHOLICS EXCLUDED FROM PAR LIAMENT AND CIVIL OFFICES. For the space of two years did the credulous nation labour under this delirium, and the first use which Shaftesbury and his faction made of the circumstance was to exclude the catholics from sitting in parliament, which privilege they enjoyed up to this epoch, and had zealously exerted it in defending the prerogatives ry," says, that sixty-five statutes were found insufficient in 1791 to preserve the freedom and independ bribery, frauds, &c. The reader will mark the contrast. of their protestant sovereigns, and the true principles of the constitution. This laudable and loyal conduct, so contrary to the repub-ence of parliament, and to prevent lican principles of the then intolerant faction, of which Shaftesbury was the leader, proved so harrassing to all the measures which they proposed for retrenching the just influence of the crown, that they resolved to get rid of the evil at once by framing an act which should effectually prevent the catholic from entering in future the threshold of the senate. Notwithstanding the judges were at that moment sending forth the most groundless invectives against the religious principles of catholics from the bench, barefacedly asserting that these principles taught them to lie and practice all sorts of equivocations; that the doctrines of their church were so false and pernicious, so destructive and bloody, and the way they took to come off from all vows, oaths, and sacraments, by dispensations before hand, or indulgences and pardons afterwards, was so much worse, that they were really unfit for human society. Notwithstanding these Coarse falsehoods were delivered by lord chief justice Scroggs on the trials of the victims in this diabolical case, the faction were so well aware of the groundlessness of the charge, and of the punctilious integrity of catholics in their oaths and engagements, that they deemed the simple enactment of a declaration against two of the principal articles of their faith, a sufficient barrier to any further intrusion on their part among the members of either house. Nor were the opponents of popery disappointed in their estimation; this single act has efficaciously excluded the catholics from the enjoyment of their parliamentary privileges, since it became a law of the land, although a small work now before me, called "The Tablet of Memo It should here be observed, that this act of parliamentary exclusion, which passed in the 30th year of Charles II. was preceded by another in the 25th of the same monarch, called the Test act, for the purpose of excluding catholics from all offices under government. By this act it was provided that all persons holding any office, civil, military, or naval, or receiving any fee or wages from the king, at the next term or quarter sessions after his admission, must take the oaths of allegiance or supremacy, in open court, in the chancery or king's bench, or at the quarter sessions, and, within three months, must receive the sacrament in some open church on a Sunday. Of their compliance with this latter provision, they are required to deliver a certificate into court, signed by the minister, church-warden, and two respectable witnesses, In addition to this, they are commanded to make and subscribe, at the same time, a declaration against transubstantiation. It is further required by this act, that a register of those persons who have complied with these provisions should be publicly exhibited at the different courts, to which all persons may refer without fee or reward.→ Those who refused or neglected to comply with these conditions, and yet remained in office, were liable to a penalty of five hundred pounds, to be recovered by whoever might think proper to sue for it. "Were this act (exclaims Mr. Brown, in his History of the Penal Laws) to be shewn to any individual totally unacquainted with the mutual jealousies of protestants and catholics, which for so many years have pre | clusively in the hands of protestants, with the exception of the short-lived rule of the unfortunate James. CAUSES WHICH PRODUCED THE EXCLUSION. This plain statement of facts incontestibly prove, that during the space of a century and a half from the commencement of protestantism, the catholics were in possession of those privileges which they claim at the present day, without any real danger to the national church, in spite of the idle apprehensions of "No-popery" bigots; for, to their great credit, they were always found, as I have hitherto observed, coalescing with the true friends of the constitution in church and state, and opposing the encroachments of factious innovators. In the reign of James I. religious and party dissensions began to distract the country; the monarch, sensible of the fidelity and fealty which swayed the conduct of his catholic subjects, employ. vented the growth and even the existence of christian charity in these kingdoms, would he not naturally ask with the utmost surprise, what connexion there could possibly exist between a speculative belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation, and an actual incapacity to serve our country in the cabinet, or to defend her cause in the field? We should find great difficulty in persuading a man thus unprejudiced, that, because some furious bigots holding among others this doctrine, had wielded without mercy the twoedged sword of persecution, whilst others, by the exercise of a proscription little less rigorous on the professors of their faith, had been driven into acts of treason and rebellion, it was therefore highly necessary that no person entertaining such an opinion (innocent as every one must admit it to be, however apparently ridiculous) should enjoy any civil office, even that of the lowest clerk in the treasury, or be enabled to bear the standard of his countryed many of them in places of trust; in the field of battle." The passing this aroused the jealous and intoof this act caused the immediate re- lerant spirit of the various hordes signation of Thomas, first baron of puritan reformers, who assailed Clifford of Chudleigh, who, after the throne with clamourous repre signalizing himself in the house of sentations against the increase of commons, as member for Totness, by popery and the consequent dangers several remarkable speeches in fa- which threatened the liberties of the vour of the royal prerogative, and country, by the employment of its evincing his courage and abilities adherents.-James thought to paunder the duke of York, afterwards cify them with promises, but withJames II. in a number of desperate out effect. Discontent and dissatisnaval engagements, was raised to faction continued to increase, which the peerage, and advanced to the at length, in the reign of his son and dignity of lord high treasurer. Pre- successor, broke out into open re ferring, however, the rectitude of bellion and civil war. A reference conscience to the emoluments and to the recorded proceedings of those rank of office, he retired in conse- turbulent times will shew, that every quence of the operation of the act to complaint of the "puritan" faction a private station on his patrimonial then, like those of the "intolerants" estates, in which example he was now, was grounded on the supposed followed by all the other catholics danger which threatened the constitu who held situations under govern- tion, from the relaxation of the penal ment, leaving the reins of power laws against the papists, whom they and patronage from this period ex-represented as the abettors of arbi ed all the unreasonable fears and jea- trary power and the enemies of liberty. But the test of experience proved, that those who were most vociferous in proclaiming their apprehensions for the fate of the constitution, were the most active in their endeavours to subvert it, and raising upon its ruins an odious oligarchy, afterwards moulded into a protectorate, during which the nation was tyrannized over by a set of upstart demagogues, and canting hypocrites. Every semblance of the constitution, as derived from their catholic forefathers, under which parent to the throne, this circumthe people enjoyed happiness and stance added fuel to the already infreedom, was abolished, and a sys- flamed prejudices of the people tem of rule was substituted, if a sys- against popery, and favoured the tem it could be called, without jus- malignant designs of the republican tice, without law, and without mer- leaders to revenge themselves on the cy. To prevent these disasters, and catholics, whom they considered the to preserve the monarchal and ec- king's steadiest friends. The duke clesiastical establishments, the ca avowed his abjuration of protestanttholics patriotically offered their ism in 1671, and in 1673 he married property and their lives, but their a catholic princess of the Modena efforts, united to those of their pro- family In the interval of these two testant brethren who espoused the events, namely in 1672, the king issame cause, proved unavailing, and sued out a proclamation, wherein he they became the joint victims of re- granted an indulgence for liberty of publican fury. Tired with the op- conscience to all who dissented from pressions and injustice of the Crom- the established church, which still ellian sway, the people returned to further increased the malignancy of a sense of duty, and the son of their the intolerants, and moved them to former monarch was recalled to fill strong measures of opposition to the the throne of his ancestors, and re- monarch's benevolent intentions. store the constitution to an oppress- Accordingly, addresses were sent ed nation. It must here up to him by both houses protesting noticed, that Charles owed his against the lenity shewn by his malife, after the fatal battle of Wor-jesty to papists as fraught with imcester, to the fidelity of his catholic subjects, and he also found an asylum in the dominions of catholic sovereigns, when Lanished from his rightful estate by his protestant people; it was therefore na-recalling his proclamation of indultural, on his restoration, that he should feel a bias towards those who had so faithfully served him, and honour them with a share of his confidence and favours. This inclination of the monarch, however, proved fatal to his repose, for it awaken be minent danger to the protestant religion, and so well did the houses play their part by refusing the supplies required, that Charles at last found himself under the necessity of gence, notwithstanding he was at one time warmly bent upon its execution. From this time the easy monarch resigned up his tried friends to be vilified and persecuted by their enemies, without making any further effort to stem the torrent which was rashing on them. The first fruit off who transgressed against and violated these statutes. A CATHOLIC KING CANNOT DIS- Twelve years after the test act was passed, and seven after the enactment of the declaration against popery, the nation found a popish sovereign on the throne, who, conceiving himself authorised, by virtue of his kingly prerogative, as head of the church and state, to exercise the dispensing power, very naturally used it in favour of some of his own religion, and gave commissions in the army to several catholics, without, of course, their qualifying themselves under the former statute, or complying with the conditions of the latter. Such proceedings soon attracted the notice of the protestants, and several noblemen and gentlemen of that persuasion highly resented them. This induced the king on the first meeting of parlia ment after the rebellion of the duke of Monmouth, to notice the appoint→ this victory was the passing of the Test act, in which the papist and dissenter were each involved in its penal and disqualifying operations. This took place in 1673, but not having the effect which its framers and abettors anticipated, a plot was devised, as the surest expedient of inflaming the people, and it was not long before one was found, which for the absurdity and inconsistencies of its ramifications, can only be exceeded by the infamy of those by whom it was supported, and the stupidity of the people who gave credence to it. In August, 1678, the conspiracy of Oates was announced by means of a deposition before a magistrate, so little did the king and privy council believe the existence of the tale, and care having been taken to make the most of it among the people, the nation was presently in a state of delirium, from the dread of popery, during which phrensy, that is, in the November following, the act to disqualify papists from sitting in parliament of catholic officers in his ment, by enacting a declaration against transubstantiation and the invocation of saints, to be made by every member previous to the taking his seat, received the royal assent. This concise detail of occurrences will enable the reader to form a just conclusion of the causes and motives which produced the Test act and Declaration against Popery, both which now form a part of the statute law of the land, and are considered by many as the pillars and bulwark of the constitution.---It is not my design here to enter into the merit of these two productions of protestant legislation; this part of the subject must stand over for another opportunity, that I may proceed to shew how short a period elapsed before our protestant lawgivers found it necessary to grant indulgences and absolutions to those speech, in the following words :"Let no man take exception, that there are some officers in the army not qualified according to the late tests for their employment. The gentlement I must tell you, are most of them well known to me; and, having formerly served me on seve ral occasions, and always approved the loyalty of their principles by their practice, I think them fit now to be employed under me, and will deal plainly with you, that after having had the benefit of their services in time of such need and dan ger. I will neither expose them to disgrace nor myself to the want of them, if there should be another rebellion, to make them necessary to me." This intimation of James did not please the members, and warm debates arose upon the subject; an address, however, was at |