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the claims of the dissenters; but yielding to the opinion of the bishops,1 he was constrained to oppose the motion. speech betrayed the embarrassment of his situation. accustomed force and clearness forsook him. He drew distinctions between political and civil liberty: maintained the right of the state to distribute political power to whom it pleased; and dwelt upon the duty of upholding the established church. Mr. Fox supported the cause of the dissenters; and promised them success if they persevered in demanding the redress of their grievances. The motion was lost by a majority of seventy-eight.2

In 1789, Mr. Beaufoy renewed his motion; and to a reof his previous arguments added some Corporation capitulation and Test striking illustrations of the operation of the law. Acts, May 8th, 1789. The incapacity of dissenters extended not only to government employments, but to the direction of the Bank of England, the East India Company, and other chartered companies. When the Pretender had marched to the very centre of England, the dissenters had taken up arms in defence of the king's government; but instead of earning rewards for their loyalty, they were obliged to shelter themselves from penalties, under the Act of Grace, intended for the protection of rebels.

Mr. Fox supported the motion with all his ability. Men were to be tried, he said, not by their opinions, but by their actions. Yet the dissenters were discountenanced by the state, not for their actions, which were good and loyal, but for their religious opinions, of which the state disapproved. No one could impute to them opinions or conduct dangerous to the state; and Parliament had practically admitted the injustice of the disqualifying laws, by passing annual acts of indemnity. To one remarkable observation later times have given unexpected significance. He said: "It would per

1 See Tomline's Life of Pitt, ii. 255; Lord Stanhope's Life of Pitt, i.. 337; Life of Bishop Watson, written by himself, i. 261.

2 Ayes, 98; Noes, 176. Parl. Hist. xxvi. 780-832.

haps be contended that the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts might enable the dissenters to obtain a majority. This he scarcely thought probable; but it appeared fully sufficient to answer, that, if the majority of the people of England should ever be for the abolition of the established church, in such a case the abolition ought immediately to follow." 1

Mr. Pitt opposed the motion in a temperate speech. "Allowing that there is no natural right to interfere with religious opinions," he contended that "when they are such as may produce a civil inconvenience, the government has a right to guard against the probability of the civil inconvenience being produced." He admitted the improved intelligence and loyalty of Roman Catholics, whose opinions had formerly been dangerous to the state; and did justice to the character of the dissenters: while he justified the maintenance of disqualifying laws, as a precautionary measure, in the interests of the established church. The motion was lost by the small majority of twenty.2

and Test

March 2d,

Encouraged by so near an approach to success, the dissenters continued to press their claims; and at Corporation their urgent solicitation, Mr. Fox himself under- Acts. Mr. took to advocate their cause. In March, 1790, he Fox's motion, moved the consideration of the Test and Corpora- 1790. tion Acts, in a committee of the whole House. He referred to the distinguished loyalty of the dissenters, in 1715 and 1745, when the high church party, who now opposed their claims, had been "hostile to the reigning family, and active in exciting tumults, insurrections, and rebellions." He urged the repeal of the test laws, with a view to allay the jealousies of dissenters against the church; and went so far as to affirm that "if this barrier of partition were removed, the very name of dissenter would be no more."

1 "If the dissenters from the establishment become a majority of the people, the establishment itself ought to be altered or qualified." - Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy, book vi. c. x.

2 Ayes, 102; Noes, 122. Parl. Hist., xxviii. 1-41. See Tomline's Life of Pitt, iii. 18.

Mr. Pitt's resistance to concession was now more decided than on any previous occasion. Again he maintained the distinction between religious toleration and the defensive policy of excluding from office those who were likely to prejudice the established church. No one had a right to demand public offices, which were distributed by the government for the benefit of the state; and which might properly be withheld from persons opposed to the constitution. The establishment would be endangered by the repeal of the test laws, as dissenters, honestly disapproving of the church, would use all legal means for its subversion.

Mr. Beaufoy replied to Mr. Pitt in a speech of singular force. If the test laws were to be maintained, he said, as part of a defensive policy, in deference to the fears of the church, the same fears might justify the exclusion of dissenters from Parliament, their disqualification to vote at elections, their right to possess property, or even their residence within the realm. If political fears were to be the measure of justice and public policy, what extremities might not be justified?

Mr. Burke, who on previous occasions had absented himself from the House when this question was discussed, and who even now confessed "that he had not been able to satisfy himself altogether" on the subject, spoke with characteristic warmth against the motion. His main arguments were founded upon the hostility of the dissenters to the established church, of which he adduced evidence from the writings of Dr. Priestley and Dr. Price, and from two nonconformist catechisms. If such men had the power, they undoubtedly had the will to overthrow the church of England, as the church of France had just been overthrown. Mr. Fox, in reply, deplored the opposition of Mr. Burke, which he referred to its true cause, a horror of the French Revolution, which was no less fatal to the claims of dissenters than to the general progress of a liberal policy. Mr. Fox's motion, which, in the previous year, had been lost by a nar

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row majority, was now defeated by a majority of nearly three to one.1

Catholic

The further discussion of the test laws was not resumed for nearly forty years; but other questions affect- Protesting ing religious liberty were not overlooked. In Dissenters, 1791, Mr. Mitford brought in a bill for the relief 1791. of "Protesting Catholic Dissenters," a sect of Catholics who protested against the pope's temporal authority, and his right to excommunicate kings and absolve subjects from their allegiance, as well as the right alleged to be assumed by Roman Catholics of not keeping faith with heretics. It was proposed to relieve this particular sect from the penal statutes, upon their taking an oath to this effect. The proposal was approved by all but Mr. Fox, who, in accepting the measure, contended that the relief should be extended generally to Roman Catholics. Mr. Pitt also avowed his wish that many of the penal statutes against the Catholics should be repealed.2

The bill was open to grave objections. It imputed to the Catholics, as a body, opinions repudiated by the most enlightened professors of their faith. Mr. Pitt received an explicit assurance from several foreign universities that Catholics claimed for the pope no civil jurisdiction in England, nor any power to absolve British subjects from their allegiance; and that there was no tenet by which they were justified in not keeping faith with heretics. Again, this proposed oath required Catholics to renounce doctrines, in no sense affecting

1 294 to 105. Parl Hist., xxviii. 387-452; Lord Sidmouth's Life, i. 73; Tomline's Life of Pitt, iii. 99; Fox's Mem., ii. 361, 362. The subject gave rise, at this time, to much written controversy. Tracts by Bishops Sherlock and Hoadley were republished. One of the best pamphlets on the side of the dissenters was 66 The Rights of Protestant Dissenters, by a Layman, 1789." The Bishop of Oxford, writing to Mr. Peel in 1828, speaks of fourteen volumes on the subject, written in 1789 and 1790. — Peel's Mem.. i. 65.

2 Parl. Hist., xxviii. 1262, 1364; Tomline's Life of Pitt, iii. 249; Lord Stanhope's Life of Pitt, ii. 100.

3 See his questions and the answers, Plowden's Hist., ii. 199, App. No. 91; Butler's Hist. Mem., iv. 10.

the state.

In the House of Lords, these objections were forcibly urged by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Dr. Horsley, bishop of St. David's; and to the credit of the episcopal bench, the latter succeeded in giving to the measure a more liberal and comprehensive character, according to the views of Mr. Fox. An oath was framed, not obnoxious to the general body of Catholics, the taking of which secured them complete freedom of worship and education; exempted their property from invidious regulations; opened to them. the practice of the law in all its branches; and restored to peers their ancient privilege of intercourse with the

king.1

Test Act
(Scotland),
1791.

1791.

In the debates upon the Test Act, the peculiarity of the law, as affecting members of the church of Scotland, had often been alluded to; and in 1791, a April 18th, petition was presented from the General Assembly, praying for relief. On the 10th of May, Sir Gilbert Elliot, moved for a committee of the whole House upon the subject. To treat the member of an established church as a dissenter, was an anomaly too monstrous to be defended. Mr. Dundas admitted that, in order to qualify himself for office, he had communicated with the church of England, a ceremony to which members of his church had no objection. It would have been whimsical indeed to contend that the Scotch were excluded from office by any law, as their undue share in the patronage of the state had been a popular subject of complaint and satire; but whether they enjoyed office by receiving the most solemn rites of a church of which they were not members, or by the operation of acts of indemnity, their position was equally anomalous. But as their case formed part of the general law affecting dissenters, which Parliament was in no humor to entertain, the motion was defeated by a large majority.2

1 Parl. Hist., xxix. 113-115, 664; 31 Geo. III. c. 32; Butler's Hist. Mem. iv. 44, 52; Quarterly Rev., Oct. 1852, p. 555.

Ayes, 62; Noes, 149. Parl. Hist., xxix. 488-510.

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