joyed, however the letter of the law might place them in a different situation. He urged also, particularly, the irritation generally prevalent, as a reason why a concession, which had little more than a theoretical importance, should not be forced upon an unwilling nation. The public mind was violently excited by French revolutionary politics; and as these were daily losing popularity, yet very much in favour with Socinians, it seemed far from prudent to encourage their sect by any needless indulgence. The motion, accordingly, was lost.

§ 23. During all the earlier years of the eighteenth century, the English Romanists were in a situation precarious indeed, from the rigour of persecuting statutes, but endurable, from the increasing liberality of the times. They entered upon the century with a most uncomfortable prospect; an Act having been passed in the year 1699, which each party in parliament would have gladly seen thrown out by its opponents, and which rendered Romish landlords, refusing to take the test, liable to forfeit their estates to the next protestant heir, besides providing intolerable hardships for their priests. This act, however, served for little else than to disgrace the statute-book, and make the proscribed religionists tremble for their possessions, or if priests, for their personal liberties. These evils were, however, aggravated by an act passed in the first year of George I., which authorized any two justices to tender the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, to persons suspected of disaffection to the government, visiting a refusal to take them with all the penalties of recusancy. This new offence was called constructive recusancy; and if the government had not been desirous of overlooking the offenders, Romanists would have found themselves in a worse condition than ever. Yet, for all this practical lenity, Walpole, in 1722, raised one hundred thousand pounds, by act of parliament, on the estates of papists and non-jurors; the liberal connivance of his government not being proof against the temptation of an important pecuniary relief from a gross extortion upon parties utterly defenceless, because generally unpopular. Under George II. no new law was enacted against Romanists; his being the first reign since

8 By 79 votes. Bogue and Bennett, ii. 482.

the Reformation so advantageously distinguished. George the Third's reign opened upon them under auspices still more favourable. The principles of toleration had been advocated by several master-minds; the disciples of Hoadley universally admitted its justice; Blackburne, although intolerant towards Romanists, on the ground of their own intolerance towards all other Christians, yet raised a controversy that, however contemptible it might be on many accounts, filled men's minds with speculations upon religious liberty. The sovereign, too, possessed advantages which were altogether above those of his Hanoverian predecessors. He was no foreigner, ignorant of the English language, like George I.; or speaking it like one who learnt it late and imperfectly, like George II.; his prepossessions were not all German, and Hanover was not the constant scene of his regrets, the engrossing object for aggrandisement ; he was not constantly disquieted by fears of a popish pretender to his throne; on the contrary, the unfortunate prince who had made an alarming descent upon Scotland, in the time of his grandfather, was now known to be personally contemptible; and hence hardly any ever dreamt of seeing him invested with British royalty. Thus English Romanism was placed in a much more promising position than it had ever occupied since the expulsion of James II. It gained also something of a favourable hearing in the royal family, through the noble house of Norfolk, which judiciously improved opportunities of ingratiating itself with Frederick, prince of Wales, during his disagreement with George II. No sooner, too, had Lord Mansfield become chief-justice, than he discouraged, by every possible means, any prosecution that might occasionally come before him under the penal laws, giving to the party brought in question the utmost benefit that his legal knowledge could suggest, and speaking on all occasions most advantageously of religious toleration. The immediate cause, however, of a solid improvement in the condition of Romish families, was of a private nature. A lady had a jointure rent-charge on an estate, possessed by a person to whom she had shown great kindness; he refused to pay it, alleging her disability to retain any interest in land, as being a Roman catholic. Every lawyer told her, that this infamous refusal must stand good, unless a private act were passed for

her relief'. This was done; and men were naturally driven by such a transaction to think upon the iniquity of suffering acts even to slumber any longer in the statute-book, which might be so shamefully awakened at any time by avarice or malice. Hence a motion made by Sir George Saville, on the 14th of May, 1778, for the repeal of the disabilities so strangely and unexpectedly enacted against Romanists, near the conclusion of William's reign', passed both houses without a division. This act did not extend to Scotland'; but a wide-prevailing wish that it should, and some movements for that purpose, awakened a violent spirit of intolerance; and some serious riots in Edinburgh, with others less important in Glasgow, were the result. These were the precursors of similar excesses, but upon a much broader scale, in London, in 1780. Lord George Gordon, a junior of the ducal house of that name, but otherwise personally insignificant in every point of view, had connected himself with the violent anti-Romish party in his own country; and being a member of the house of Commons, he was easily enabled to arouse a kindred spirit in the populace of London. The infuriate mob commenced with assaults upon property of every description that could be connected with popery; but it soon manifested all the features essential to such assemblages, whatever be the object of their meeting, wanton destruction, lust of plunder, and sympathy for criminals. London continued several days in a state of extreme danger and alarm, every inhabitant trembling who had anything to lose: no sooner, however, did the military act, than peace was restored. Hence it was plainly

Butler's Hist. Mem. of the Engl. Cath. ii. 72.

"By the act in question, popish priests or Jesuits, found to officiate in the service of the Romish church, incurred the penaltles of felony, if foreigners; and of high treason, if natives: the successions of popish heirs educated abroad were forfeited, and their estates descended to the next protestant heir: a son, or other nearest protestant relation, might take possession of the estate of a father, or other next kinsman of the popish persuasion, during the life of the real proprietor: papists were prevented from acquiring

any legal property by purchase, a term which in law included every mode of acquiring property but descent; and thus the various sources of acquisition were shut up from the Roman catholics. The mildness of the government had softened the rigour of the law; but it was to be remembered, that popish priests constantly lay at the mercy of the basest of mankind, common informers. On the evidence of any of these wretches, the magisterial and judicial powers were necessitated to enforce all the shameful penalties of the act."-Bisset's George III. ii. 397. 2 Butler, ii. 447.

shown, that religious fanaticism was rather a pretext for the outrage, than really a cause of it, there being nothing solid to sustain the rioters: had not, accordingly, the civic authorities been bewildered by an unmanly panic, there is every reason to believe, that the popular violence might have been curbed without any great difficulty, and before any very extensive damage had been done.

§ 24. The English Romanists having obtained relief from some of the most iniquitous penalties by which they were menaced in the statute-book, naturally looked forward to farther improvements in their condition. They did not, however, long trust to the gradual amelioration of public opinion, and its necessary effect upon the legislature. They formed a committee, in 1787, for the furtherance of their objects; a measure that might aid success, but certainly tended to make their body something of a political party. In February, 1788, this committee presented to the celebrated William Pitt, then prime minister, a memorial detailing the hardships of themselves and their friends, as a preliminary to an application for parliamentary relief. The premier was found highly favourable, but expressed fears as to the pope's presumed power of deposing princes, and other anti-social principles, popularly fastened upon Romanism. In consequence, inquiries were transmitted to the universities of Paris, Louvain, Douay, Alcalà, and Salamanca, to know whether these exceptionable doctrines really were integral portions of the Romish faith'. Negative answers were returned, as might have been foreseen; it being impossible to find these obnoxious articles among the main landmarks of papal theology, though easy to find such authority for them as would reconcile most minds to their use in confession, and in private society; the English Romanists, however, solemnly renounced them in a long protestation, prepared about the close of 1788, and which was signed by nearly all their body of any note, both clerical and lay, throughout England. At a general meeting in London, in 1789, every person present signed it. In the very words of this protestation, an oath was framed, when Romish

The queries and answers may be Mr. Butler's Historical Memoirs. P scen in the first volume of the late 402, et seq.

claims for relief again came before parliament; but the ministry made some alterations in it, and these were at first deemed admissible, even by the ecclesiastical members of the Romish committee. Subsequently, objections were made to them, and, to meet these, it was eventually altered. All who took it were to be relieved from certain penal statutes. This wise and just relaxation received parliamentary sanction in 1791; numbering amongst its most active supporters the illustrious bishop Horsley. It abrogated the statutes of recusancy, tolerated Romish chapels and schools, removed liability to be called upon to take the oath of supremacy, or to make the declaration against transubstantiation, allowed Romanists to practise as barristers or attorneys, and freed them from several vexatious restrictions of less importance. At the same time, they were exempted from another grievance, in the omission of a clause making them pay double land-tax, in the bill annually imposing that tax. They were, in fact, now placed, as to religious toleration, and as to fiscal contributions, though not as to political rights, very much upon a level with all other Englishmen.

§ 25. The Irish Romanists had been reduced, by various acts of confiscation and of intolerance to protect the new proprietors, to a state of abject vassalage and degradation. In the reign of James I. the whole province of Ulster was confiscated. When Cromwell's power was consolidated by victory, the native Irish received orders to remove into Connaught, and were forbidden to repass the Shannon, under pain of death. Their estates were divided among the conquerors, as were those of every one who had been engaged in the rebellion, or who had acted as a partizan of the exiled royal family. This immense mass of landed property was partly assigned, in satisfaction of arrears of pay, to Cromwell's officers and soldiers; partly to certain monied men, who had advanced funds for the prosecution of the war. Such assignments received parliamentary sanction, after the Restoration; and thus two millions seven hundred thousand acres were legally conveyed from their late hereditary owners to a new class of proprietors. It was

4 Bisset, iv. 325.

Butler, ii. 135.