described by the Courier? And, again I ask; if that description be not true; if seats in the House of Commons be not bought and sold, why are not these writers and publishers punished, by that law, which, as to matters of libel, is so watchful, so jealous, and so severe ?

I now come to the proposed subject of my letter. I said, that I thought myself able to prove, "that Lord Howick's bill, if passed into a law, would not have tended "to re-exalt the Roman Catholic Church,

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general, have exceeded our priests in political sycophancy and election jobbing; we should have been assured, that an instance, of which I myself was a witness, of a Doctor of Divinity offering for sale two seats in parliament, if not previously disposed of, as the price of some dignity in the church, is only a specimen of what we should have seen in gross under the re-exaltation of the Romish church; we should have been reminded of a time, when, under a Romish hierarchy, a state of parliamentary representation would have been justly described in something worse than the "Hog or Horse" article of the Courier; we should have been brought back to Romish times, and shewn, that then men like Mr. Sheridan were members of parliament; something should have been said, some effort should have been made, to prove to us, either from experience or from reason, that, under a Romish hierarchy, Englishmen would have experienced something more than the income tax, than the seven-years suspension of the habeas corpus act, than the introduction of foreign troops, something more than what, for these twenty-three years past, they have experienced; it should, if possible, have been shewn, that, at some time or other, when England was under a Roman Catholic church, England was in greater peril from without, or in greater misery within, than she is at this moment. All this, Sir, or some of it, at least, should have been shewn, previous to the raising of an outcry against Lord Howick's bill, as a source of danger to the church; because, to put reasonable men on your side, it was necessary to convince them, that the thing, said to be in danger, was a thing the protecting and preserving of which was of some importance to the good of the nation.

and thereby sap the predominance of the "Church of England;" and this I shall now endeavour to do. But, first of all, let me observe, that there is one question, very material in this discussion, which seems to have been entirely overlooked, namely, whether the sapping of the predominance of the Church of England would be a national evil? I, for my own part, should regret to see it sapped, and overthrown, because I am persuaded, that it might easily be restored to its former purity and utility; but, when we see in what manner its benefices are but too generally bestowed; when we look at the endless list of non-resident incumbents; when we see the fruits enjoyed by those of its ministers who perform none, or very little of the labour; when we compare the solemn promises of the incumbents with their subsequent practice; when we see more than half of the people, who frequent any place of worship at all, turning from the church to the meeting-house: when we see all this, we must not be very much surprized, if there should be found many persons, who entertain doubts, at least, upon the question above stated; and, therefore, previous to the clamour against Lord Howick's bill, as tending to sap the predominance of the church, those doubts should have been removed. Viewing the church, establishment as connected with the political state of the country, it should, in like manner, have been previously shown, that this establishment has been, and is, conducive to the greatness of the nation, the permanence of the throne, and the freedom and happiness of the people. It should have been shewn,, that the several persons embodied under the church establishment, are more jealous of the national character, than a Roman Catholic clergy would have been; we should have been referred to a time when the Roman Catholic clergy taught political doctrine more slavish than that which has been, and is, taught by the Dicone present day; we should have if the Ramish church (its priests would, in

Taking it for granted, 'however, that the church establishment, even as it now stands, with all its pluralities and absentees, is a thing worth contending for, I cannot see how that establishment could possibly have been affected by Lord Howick's bill, if that bill had passed into a law. It is now matter of general notoriety, and it is matter of fact not to be denied, Ist, that in 1793, the power of granting commissions to catholics, in the Irish army, was, by law, given to the king, and that this law was passed with the approbation of Mr. Pitt, and of almost the whole of those who are now in the ministry with you; 2d, that, in 1801, Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas went out of office, being followed by Mr. Canning, Mr. Rose, and others now in the ministry with you, because the king would not consent to the bringing

in of a bill, intended to give the Roman Catholics even seats in parliament, upon the bench, and in the privy council; 3d, that in 1804, a law, brought in by Mr. Pitt, was passed, authorizing the king to raise regiments of Roman Catholic foreigners, to grant commissions to foreign Roman Catholic officers, to dispense with all oaths from them, except a simple oath of fidelity, and to quarter and station these regiments in the heart of our country; 4th, that all this the king had done without any act of parliament to sanction it, and that the act of 1804, was, in part, an act to indemnify those who had advised him so to do; 5th, that, at the time when this bill passed, every person now in the ministry was in power, and that you, as attorney general, must have examined, if not actually have drawn up, that bill. Greatly puzzled, therefore, must the world be to discover any thing in the bill of Lord Howick more dangerous to the church than what was contained in the bill actually passed with your and your present colleagues' approbation. Am I told, that, to admit Roman catholic foreigners was not dangerous, because they could have no connec tion, or community of interests, with the Roman Catholics, whether priests or laity, in this country? My answer is, that this distinction is done away by the act of 1793, which authorised the king to grant commissions to Roman Catholics serving in the -Irish army; so that, if the acts of you and your colleagues were not hostile to the established church, it is impossible that the bill of Lord Howick could have been so.

But, waiving all argument drawn from the example of Pitt and of yourself, what did Lord Howick's bill propose to do? To render it lauful for the king to grant, if he pleased, commissions to English and Irish catholics, through the whole of the several ranks of the army and the navy, and to insure, by law, the free exercise of his worship, to every Roman catholic soldier or sailor. It is, Sir, beyond my powers of penetration to discover any danger, even the most remote, that could, from such a law, have arisen to the church of England; and, especially when I take into view the well-known facts, that the king, without any such law, has long granted commissions to his Roman catholic subjects, and that the Roman catholic soldiers and sailors are, and long have been, freed from all restraint as to the exercise of their worship. Besides, suppose the bounds to have been extended by this law, it rested wholly with the king to appoint or not appoint, to promote or not promote, to cashier'or not cashier, any,

and every, Roman catholic, either in the army or the navy; so that, if there was any danger at all in the extension, it must have consisted solely in the possibility of the king's not being guided by wisdom in the choice and promotion of his officers. But, even in this case, where shall we look for the source of danger to the church? In what way could this bill, a bill intended merely to extend the operation of the king's pleasure, as to promotions in the army and navy, or rather, to render the operation of that pleasure legal; in what way could such a law endanger the safety of the church establishment? It gave nothing to the Roman catholic priests or bishops, either in authority, in name, or in money. It took nothing, either of power or emolument, from the church of England. It left both churches just as they were before; and, if the church of England has experienced any danger from it, or does experience any danger from it, it is that danger which a false and hypocritical clamour seldom fails, first or last, to bring down upon the heads of its inventors and promoters.

What, then," some one will say, "in"duced so many of the clergy of the church "of England to send addresses against Lord "Howick's bill " That, Sir, which induces the crowds, that beset Whitehall, to address letters to the minister of the day: a desire to obtain money for doing nothing. If the motive had been other than this; if any thing but the goal of preferment had been in view, the clergy would not have been so tardy in their opposition to the bill. If they had been animated by an anxiety for the preservation of the church, and had regarded the bill as dangerous to it, how came they not to petition the parliament the moment the bill was brought in? They never thought of any such thing. They let the bill go quietly on; nor was it until the bill had been withdrawn, that they began to issue their godly fulminations against it. Nay, Sir, even this was not enough to overcome their propensity to be cautious; for they saw the ministry safely turned out, and even after that they waited to see you with majority on your side, before they ventured to address their gracious and pious sovereign for his care in preventing the overthrow of the church. It would be curious enough to see the list of those, who took the lead in these addresses; but, there needs no such list to make their motives evident to the world.

Hypocrisy, de estable in any man, is peculiarly so when met with under the garb of a minister of religion; and, therefore,

the cry of NO POPERY," set up, or propagated, by too many of the clergy, must, first or last, receive its just reward, in the natural consequences of general detestation. This is not the first set of priests, who have kindled a flame in the multitude; and, as the usual consequence has, heretofore, been the destruction of the kindlers, let them beware. It is, upon this occasion especially, well worthy of remark, that there has been no savage, no mischief-doing mobs, in this country, for many years, except those who have been led by a cry of "church" or

king," or both together. Amongst all the hundreds of thousands of persons, who have, at different times, and at some times under circumstances extremely irritating, assembled round Sir Francis Burdeit, not one man, or woman, has ever committed an act of violence. Upon several occasions what mischief has been anticipated! What preparations have been made for resistance! And what disappointment has been felt at perceiving that all these preparations were unneccssary!" Church and king" mobs have assalted and killed many people; have rescued prisoners from jail; have burnt and otherwise destroyed houses and goods; and many acts of violence, including one breaking open of a jail, have been committed by loyal volunteers" But, amongst all the assemblages of the people, the cause of which has been their attachment, real or expressed, to the cause of freedom, not a single act of violence, that I remember, has ever been committed. Is it, Sir, that the latter are less brutish than the former; or is it, that the former think themselves sure of impunity? Nevertheless, John Bowles and his clamorous comrades cease not to cry Jacobin and Leveller against every man who is too wise and too just to join them in the cry of "No Popery!" Every man, who wishes to see the burdens of the people lightened; every man who wishes to see the public money fairly and fully accounted for; every man who wishes to enjoy, whether in body or estate, the same degree of freedom that his father enjoyed; every man who wishes the church to be supported by the piety and diligence of its pastors, and who, therefore, expresses his dissatisfaction at seeing one half of the churches left to the care of those who receive not the revenues arising from them; every such man is sure to be marked out, by loyal" crew, as a Jacobin and Levelas an enemy to the church and the

the "

jer ; king.

It is, however, pleasing to perceive, that this outcry has, on the present occasion, pro

duced little effect, and, upon the whole, no effect at all in favour of those, by whom it was set up. Here and there a set of brutish, or hired, ruffians have made the streets resound with the hypocritical cry; but, in most other places, as in Westminster, it has been regarded as the cry of the crocodile; and, though the selfish Whigs have been humbled in the dust, their not less selfish adversaries have made little progress, except in the hatred of the nation. Praised without ceasing be the king for dissolving the parliament; for this his recurrence to the sense of the "people;" than which nothing could possibly be more advantageous to the country, unless, indeed, it were another dissolution, another " recurrence to the sense of the "people," in two or three months' time. What light, through the yawning cracks made by this sudden and delightful shake, has broken in upon those who were before in comparative darkness! The idiot now begins to perceive, and those who were half fools, as to questions of politics, are now men of understanding. All the slang of party, all the trickery of debate, all that amused, lulled, deluded, or defrauded, is now laid bare, is now exposed to the criticism of returning good sense, and excites, by turns, hatred and contempt.

That these feelings, thus directed, may live and gather strength in the minds of Englishmen, and that the consequence may be the restoration of the honour and happiness of England, is the constant prayer of, Sir,

Being civis's 2d Letter. SIR,When history, the faithful interpreter between distant ages and nations, shall have recorded the transactions of the last three months, posterity will learn with astonishment and regret, that an age of science and philosophy, of cultivated reason and rational religion, has been disfigured and disgraced, by the existence and avowal of prejudices and bigotry, so rank, that they would be a reproach even to the darkest periods of superstition and barbarism. In the progress of the human mind, individuals of extraordinary genius have sometimes outstripped the tardy advances of general reason, and anticipated the result of centuries of gradual improvement; but this is the first instance, in which, amidst the general progress of cultivation, individuals of enlightened minds have started back from the actual

state of the public intellect, to retrace the steps of reason, and revive the errors of less cultivated times The melancholy, though perhaps inevitable, ignorance of the great mass of the inhabitants, of every nation, has at all times rendered them most prone to error, and least capable of resisting the artifices of men interested in imposing upon them. It will, however, be recorded, to the everlasting honour of the people of this country, that, whilst statesmen and legislators have adopted the language of prejudice and bigotry, and sought to rekindle the flames of religious animosities and intole rance, the steady and enlightened reason of the British public has shrunk from the illiberil contagion; and, except in a very few instances, triumphantly resisted the attempted delusion. This remarkable instance of

public liberality and popular moderation will be contemplated by future generations, as a most auspicious epoch in the progress of public opinion and national reason. Too long has the legislature of this country, been slowly following the progress of reason, hu manity and justice, and suffered itself to be led by the coarse of events, which it was its proper province either to anticipate or to controul. It is a deplorable condition of a state, when any considerable portion of its subjects is justified by experience, in forming the unhappy association between the alleviation of their grievances and the distress of the whole state. Yet, it is no less true than lamentable, that every relaxation of the penal statutes, against the Catholics of Ireland, was opposed with the same arguments, and on the same grounds, as the late bill, though the urgency of the crisis successively stiffed the voice of conscience, and precluded all reasoning against the question. Folly, or a too fatal security may, perhaps, consider the present circumstances of the country less urgent; but, it does not require much political sagacity to perceive, that, whatever may be the termination of tlie war on the Continent, such an order of things has arisen in Europe, as will require the immediate and complete union and consolidation of all the energies of this empire, in order to enable it to cope, or keep pace, with the strength and establishments of the other nations of Europe. Though the French army were annihilated, the French nation revolutionised, aggrandised,, and, what is still more formidable, familiarised with the military conscription, it would not descend from its commanding rank in the scale of nations. But, if the fortune of war should prove favourable to the arms of the French chief,, if victory shold a_ain attend

his career, the difficulties of this country would be so greatly multiplied and enhanced that it might be reasonably questioned, whether concessions would not then come too late, and the project of effecting a consolidation of the whole physical force of the empire prove unavailing. It is a melancholy defect in the administration of our public affairs, that the factions of public men, who are successively entrusted with the government, uniformly profess principles of patrictism, but ever act as partisans. They temporise with their opponents to keep them out, and they temporise with their own professed principles to keep themselves in. They become invariably ministers of expedients, and govern according to events, which, upon every principle of sound policy, they ought to guide. The man, who neglects to provide against the hour of peril and distress, abandons his prospective security for his present enjoyment. An administration that does not adopt every obviously wise precaution to secure the future prosperity of the nation, may govern with less danger to its own continuance in office, but sacrifices the permanent interest of the state to that most selfish and unworthy object. Ministers should divest themselves, on entering upon office, of all selfish, party, or partial feelings. The executive power of a great empire never appears to more advantage, than when imitating the universal and indiscriminating bounty of Providence to all its creatures. It is not matter of reproach against a public man, that he is attached to his religion; but it is a subject of just complaint, that he should make the rule of his faith the standard of kis public administration. The man who studies creeds and polemical theology, not maxims of wise government and the science of legislation, may make a good recluse, but must be a bad politician. Very different talents and qualifications are necessary for the government of a fraternity of monks, and the administration of the affairs of a great nation. The system that would be wise for a body of men, associated upon principles subversive of every natural and social duty, would be ill suited to the government of a great nation, where it is so much the interest of the state to strength.en the one and enhance the other. Indeed, in a political point of view, it would be much more desireable, that a minister of a great empire should have too little, than too much, of a religious bias. The father, who feels alike towards all his children, shares his paternal solicitude impartially amongst them, and provides equally for them all; but he that suffers himself to be influenced by a

predilection for one, is guilty of perpetual injustice to all the rest; and, too often sacrifices the interests of the whole family to the capricious gratifications of his favourite. Considerations of religion never interfere with our system of relations with foreign powers; as, otherwise, we should not have been at the same time, the allies of Protestants, Pagans, Greeks, Papists, Turks, and even of the Pope himself. Intimate alliances with foreign states, no less than the internal and perfect union of all descriptions of its subjects, constitute the strength and security of a great empire; and, when the objcct is the same, it may well seem extraordinary, that the means should be so different, for the external and internal accomplishment of it. I am aware, that to this it may be answered, in the idle cant of the day, that the preservation of our church establishment depends upon the continuance of that internal policy, which excludes papists and dissenters from the possession of political power. But, if the undisturbed and undisputed possession for a century and a half, and the certain and decided protection of the legislature, were not a sufficient security for cur national establishments, they would find a most effectual shield in the insensible but accumulated improvement of the human mind. The materials of which the intole. rance and fanaticism of former times were made up, no longer exist and it would be to belie the evidence of science, philosophy, and reason, to deny the civil, moral, and religious amelioration of the nation; to reverse the order of intellectual progress, and reascend the current of time and experience, for a moment to suppose a British public of the present day, capable of renewing the scenes of phrenzy, folly, and enormity, which darken so many of the pages of our past history. It is the invariable character of imbecility to neglect measures of precaution or defence, till overtaken by danger, and to augment its efforts in proportion as it recedes from the peril that rendered them necessary. If we regard the subject with the eyes of reason, not through the medium of bigotry, it will be incontestibly obvious, that the policy of penal statutes on the subjeet of religion, had survived the necessity of forming them, and that the penalties have outlived even the semblance of policy, for continuing them. The fluctuating state of the national religion pending the reformation, and the unsteady maxims of government both in church and state, for some time after, produced those convulsions and revolutions, that rendered the enactment of the penal statutes indispensible. The zeal of

the sectarists, that sprung up from the ruins of the old religion, was goaded on by mutual opposition to fury and fanaticism. But the acrimony of the contending parties has long since subsided, and the bitterness of their contests, and the religious animosity, with which they prosecuted them, are now lost in the mild spirit of the gospel, and the devout exercise of all the social and religious charities. The confluence of many streams is inevitably the scene of great agitation, but as their respective waters advance from the point of concussion, they insensibly subside into the same smooth and unruffled surface. The code of penal laws was something more than a century, from the reign of Elizabeth to that of George I. in progress; it has now been near a century on the decline; and, as a new æra has arisen in the political system of Europe, let us hope, that we may date from its commencement the total abolition of all religious distinctions, so far as regards the indiscriminate employment of all classes of subjects in the service and defence of the state. When the last penal laws were enacted, there was a popish pretender to the throne, whose claims and avowed designs rendered the establishment of such distinctions indispensible to the quiet, if not to the safety of the state. That danger is now long past, but there exists another and more formidable danger, in the person of an implacable enemy, whose gigantic pretensions are to be defeated, not by the distinctions, but by the complete union of all classes of the subjects of this realm. When the ves-, sel is in danger, every body on board should share in the peril and glory of preserving her. It is idle, it is wanton, it is wicked, to reject or relax those efforts that can be given, and are necessary, to the great purpose of present preservation. How bitter would be the pangs of reflection, how severe the stings of remorse, in the moment of common ruin, to those who should look back upon their own headstrong folly, and tootoo late become sensible, that the catastrophe might have been prevented, if they had not stifled the voice of reason by the clamours of prejudice, and spurned at security, that was to be purchased by the practice of justice and humanity towards their fellow subjects and sufferers? But the church would thereby be endangered! Whence, and from whom is the danger to arise? What danger has arisen from the relaxations that have already taken place? Is it not a gross perver sion of reason and common sense, to suppose, that any body of rational beings will be more discontented with less cause, or less loyal and attached to the existing constitution