Penal stat

(Unitarians),

1792.

In 1792, Scotch Episcopalians were relieved from restraints which had been provoked by the disaffec- Restraints tion of the Episcopalian clergy in the reigns of on Scotch Episcopalians Anne and George II. As they no longer pro- repealed. fessed allegiance to the Stuarts, or refused to pray for the reigning king, there was no pretext for these invidious laws; and they were repealed with the concurrence of all parties.1 In the same year Mr. Fox, despairing, for the present, of any relaxation of the test laws, endeavored to obtain the repeal of certain penal statutes affecting utes respecting religious religious opinions. His bill proposed to repeal opinions several Acts of this nature; 2 but his main object May 11th, was to exempt the Unitarians, who had petitioned for relief, from the penalties specially affecting their particular persuasion. They did not pray for civil enfranchisement, but simply for religious freedom. In deprecating the prejudices excited against this sect, he said, "Dr. South had traced their pedigree from wretch to wretch, back to the devil himself. These descendants of the devil were his clients." He attributed the late riots at Birmingham, and the attack upon Dr. Priestley, to religious bigotry and persecution; and claimed for this unpopular sect, at least the same toleration as other dissenting bodies. Mr. Burke, in opposing the motion, made a fierce onslaught upon the Unitarians. They were hostile to the church, he said, and had combined to effect its ruin: they had adopted the doctrines of Paine, and approved of the revolutionary excesses of the French Jacobins. The Unitarians were boldly defended by Mr. William Smith, a constant advocate of religious liberty, who, growing old and honored in that cause, lived to be the Father of the House of Commons. Mr. Pitt declared his reprobation of the Unitarians, and opposed the motion, which was lost by a majority of seventy-nine. Mr. Pitt and other 1 Parl. Hist., xxix. 1372.

2 Viz. 9 & 10 Will. c. 32 (for suppressing blasphemy and profaneness); 1 Edw. VI. c. 1; 1 Mary, c. 3; 13 Eliz. c. 2.

8 Ayes, 63; Noes, 142. Parl. Hist., xxix. 1372; Tomline's Life of Pitt, iii. 317.

statesmen, in withholding civil rights from dissenters, had been careful to admit their title to religious freedom; but this vote unequivocally declared that doctrines and opinions might justly be punished as an offence.

Catholic relief, Ireland, 1792.

Meanwhile the perilous distractions of Ireland, and a formidable combination of the Catholic body, forced upon the attention of the government the wrongs of Irish Catholics. The great body of the Irish people were denied all the rights of citizens. Their public worship was still proscribed: their property, their social and domestic relations, and their civil liberties, were under interdict they were excluded from all offices civil and military, and even from the professions of law and medicine.1 Already the penal code affecting the exercise of their religion had been partially relaxed: 2 but they still labored under all the civil disqualifications which the jealousy of ages had imposed. Mr. Pitt not only condemned the injustice of such disabilities; but hoped, by a policy of conciliation, to heal some of the unhappy feuds by which society was divided. Ireland could no longer be safely governed upon the exclusive principles of Protestant ascendency. Its people must not claim in vain the franchises of British subjects. And accordingly in 1792, some of the most galling disabilities were removed by the Irish Parliament. Catholics were admitted to the legal profession on taking the oath of allegiance, and allowed to become clerks to attorneys. Restrictions on the education of their children and on their intermarriages with Protestants were also removed.3

In the next year more important privileges were conceded. All remaining restraints on Catholic worship and education,

1 Some restrictions had been added even in this reign. Butler's Hist. Mem., iii. 367, et seq.; 467-477, 484; O'Conor's Hist. of the Irish Catholics; Sydney Smith's Works, i. 269; Goldwin Smith's Irish Hist., &c., 124.

2 Viz. in 1774, 1778, and 1782; 13 & 14 Geo. III. c. 35; 17 & 18 Geo. III. c. 49; 22 Geo. III. c. 24 (Irish); Parnell's Hist. of the Penal Laws. 84, &c.; Butler's Hist. Mem., iii. 486.

3 32 Geo. III. c. 21 (Irish); Debates (Ireland), xii. 39, &c.; Life of Grattan, ii. 53.

and the disposition of property, were removed. Catholics were admitted to vote at elections, on taking the Catholic oaths of allegiance and abjuration; to all but the relief, Ireland, 1793. higher civil and military offices, and to the honors and emoluments of Dublin University. In the law they could not rise to the rank of king's counsel; nor in the army beyond the rank of colonel: nor, in their own counties, could they aspire to the offices of sheriff and sub-sheriff:1 their highest ambition was still curbed; but they received a wide enfranchisement, beyond their former hopes.

In this year tardy justice was also rendered to the Roman Catholics of Scotland. All excitement upon the Catholic subject having passed away, a bill was brought in relief, Scotland, 1793. and passed without opposition, to relieve them, like their English brethren, from many grievous penalties to which they were exposed. In proposing the measure, the lord-advocate stated that the obnoxious statutes were not so obsolete as might be expected. At that very time a Roman Catholic gentleman was in danger of being stripped of his estate, which had been in his family for at least a century and a half, by a relation having no other claim to it, than that which he derived, as a Protestant, from the cruel provisions of the law.2

1796.

The Quakers next appealed to Parliament for relief. In 1796, they presented a petition describing their Quakers. sufferings on account of religious scruples; and April 21st, Mr. Sergeant Adair brought in a bill to facilitate the recovery of tithes from members of that sect, without subjecting them to imprisonment; and to allow them to be examined upon affirmation in criminal cases. The remedy proposed for the recovery of tithes had already been pro

1 33 Geo. III. c. 21 (Irish); Debates of Irish Parliament, xiii. 199; Plowden's Hist., ii. 421; Adolphus' Hist., vi. 249-256; Lord Stanhope's Life of Pitt, ii. 277; Butler's Hist. Mem., iv. 62; Life of Grattan, iv. 87; Parnell's Hist. of the Penal Laws, 124.

2 Parl. Hist., xxx. 766; 33 Geo. III. c. 44; Butler's Hist. Mem., iv.

vided by statute, in demands not exceeding 107.;1 and the sole object of this part of the bill was to insure the recovery of all tithes without requiring the consent of the Quakers themselves, to which they had so strong a religious scruple, that they preferred perpetual imprisonment. At that very time, seven of their brethren were lying in the jail at York, without any prospect of relief. This bill was passed by the Commons, but was lost in the Lords, upon the representation of the Archbishop of Canterbury that it involved a question of right of very great importance, which there was not then time to consider.

Quakers, 1797.

66

In the next session, the bill was renewed, when it encountered the resolute opposition of Sir William Scott.4 "The opinions held by the Quakers," he said, were of such a nature as to affect the civil rights of property, and therefore he considered them as unworthy of legislative indulgence." If one man had conscientious scruples against the payment of tithes to which his property was legally liable, another might object to the payment of rent as sinful, while a third might hold it irreligious to pay his debts. If the principle of indulgence were ever admitted, "the sect of anti-tithe Christians would soon become the most numerous and flourishing in the kingdom." He argued that the security of property in tithes would be diminished by the bill, and that "the tithe-owner would become an owner, not of property, but of suits." It was replied that the tithe-owner would be enabled by the bill to recover his demands by summary distress, instead of punishing the Quaker with useless imprisonment. The very remedy, indeed, was provided, which the law adopted for the recovery of rent. The bill was also opposed by the solicitor-general, Sir John Mitford, who denied that Quakers entertained any conscientious scruples at all against the payment of tithes. The question for going into committee on the bill was decided

1 7 & 8 Will. III. c. 34; 1 Geo. I., st. 2, c. 6; Parl. Hist., ix. 1220. 2 Parl. Hist., xxxii. 1022. 4 Afterwards Lord Stowell.

8 Ibid., 1206.

by the casting vote of the speaker; but upon a subsequent day, the bill was lost by a majority of sixteen.1

militia.

Such had been the narrow jealousy of the state, that Roman Catholics and dissenters, however loyal and Catholics patriotic, were not permitted to share in the de- and the fence of their country. They could not be trusted with arms, lest they should turn them against their own countrymen. In 1797, Mr. Wilberforce endeavored to redress a part of this wrong, by obtaining the admission of Roman Catholics to the militia. Supported by Mr. Pitt, he succeeded in passing his bill through the Commons. In the Lords, however, it was opposed by Bishop Horsley and other peers; and its provisions being extended to dissenters, its fate was sealed.2

The English ministers were still alive to the importance of a liberal and conciliatory policy, in the govern- Lord Fitzment of Ireland. In 1795, Lord Fitzwilliam ac- william's policy, 1795. cepted the office of lord-lieutenant, in order to carry out such a policy. He even conceived himself to have the authority of the cabinet to favor an extensive enfranchisement of Catholics; but having committed himself too deeply to that party, he was recalled. There were, indeed, insurmountable difficulties in reconciling an extended toleration to Catholics with Protestant ascendency in the Irish Parliament.

Union with

But the union of Catholic Ireland with Protestant Great Britain introduced new considerations of state policy. To admit Catholics to the Parliament of Ireland, in the United Kingdom would be a concession full of with Catholic popularity to the people of Ireland, while their disabilities.

1 Parl. Hist., xxxii. 1508.

connection

2 Wilberforce's Life, ii. 222. The debates are not to be found in the Parliamentary History. "No power in Europe, but yourselves, has ever thought, for these hundred years past, of asking whether a bayonet is Catholic, or Presbyterian, or Lutheran; but whether it is sharp and welltempered." - Peter Plymley's Letters; Sydney Smith's Works, iii. 63.

8 Parl. Hist., xxxiv. 672, &c.; Plowden's Hist., ii. 467; Butler's Hist. Mem. iv. 65.