1 partake the fame cities, the fame councils, and even the fame churches. The unbounded liberality of the king of Pruffia's conduct on this occafion is known to all the world; and it is of a piece with the other grand maxims of his reign. The magnanimity of the imperial court, breaking through the narrow principles of its predeceffors, has indulged its proteftant fubjects, not only with property, with worship, with liberal education; but with honours and trufts, both civil and military. A worthy proteftant gentleman of this country now fills, and fills with credit, an high office in the Auftrian Netherlands. Even the Lutheran obftinacy of Sweden has thawed at length, and opened a toleration to all religions. I know myfelf, that in France the Proteftants begin to be at reft. The army, which in that country is every thing, is open to them; and fome of the military rewards and decorations which the laws deny, are fupplied by others, to make the fervice acceptable and honourable. The first minifter of finance in that country, is a Proteftant. Two years war without a tax, is among the first-fruits of their liberality. Tarnished as the glory of this nation is, and as far as it has waded into the fhades of an eclipfe, fome beams of its former illumination ftill play upon its furface; and what is done in England is ftill looked to, as argument, and as example. It is certainly true, that no law of this country ever met with fuch univerfal applaufe abroad, or was fo likely to produce the perfection of that tolerating spirit, which, as I obferved, has been long gaining ground in Europe; for abroad, it was univerfally thought that we had done, what, I am forry to fay, we had not; they thought we had granted a full toleration. That opinion was however fo far from hurting the Protestant cause, that I declare, with the most serious folemnity, my firm belief, that no one thing done for these fifty years past, paft, was fo likely to prove deeply beneficial to our religion at large as Sir George Savile's act. In its effects it was, "an "act for tolerating and protecting Proteftantism throughout "Europe:" and I hope, that those who were taking steps for the quiet and fettlement of our Proteftant brethren in other countries, will even yet, rather confider the steady equity of the greater and better part of the people of Great Britain, than the vanity and violence of a few. I perceive, gentlemen, by the manner of all about me, that you look with horror on the wicked clamour which has been raised on this fubject; and that instead of an apology for what was done, you rather demand from me an account, why the execution of the fcheme of toleration, was not made more anfwerable to the large and liberal grounds on which it was taken up. The question is natural and proper; and I remember that a great and learned magiftrate, diftinguished for his ftrong and fyftematic understanding, and who at that time was a member of the house of commons, made the fame objection to the proceeding. The ftatutes, as they now ftand, are, without doubt, perfectly abfurd. But I beg leave to explain the cause of this grofs imperfection, in the tolerating plan, as well and as fhortly as I am able. It was universally thought, that the feffion ought not to pass over without doing something in this business. To revife the whole body of the penal ftatutes was conceived to be an object too big for the time. The penal ftatute therefore which was chofen for repeal (chofen to fhew our difpofition to conciliate, not to perfect a toleration) was this act of ludicrous cruelty, of which I have juft given you the hiftory. It is an act, which, though not by a great deal fo fierce and bloody as fome of the reft, was infinitely more ready in the execution. The Chancellour. It was the act which gave the greatest encouragement to those pests of fociety, mercenary informers, and interested disturbers of houfhold peace; and it was obferved with truth, that the profecutions, either carried to conviction or compounded, for many years, had been all commenced upon that act. It was faid, that whilft we were deliberating on a more perfect scheme, the spirit of the age would never come up to the execution of the ftatutes which remained; especially as more steps, and a co-operation of more minds and powers, were required towards a mifchievous use of them, than for the execution of the act to be repealed: that it was better to unravel this texture from below than from above, beginning with the lateft, which, in general practice, is the severest evil. It was alledged, that this flow proceeding would be attended with the advantage of a progreffive experience; and that the people would grow reconciled to toleration, when they should find by the effects, that justice was not fo irreconcileable an enemy to convenience as they had imagined. These, gentlemen, were the reasons why we left this good work in the rude unfinished state, in which good works are commonly left, through the tame circumspection with which a timid prudence fo frequently enervates beneficence. In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But the works of malice and injuftice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold masterly hand; touched as they are with the fpirit of those vehement paffions that call forth all our energies whenever we oppress and perfecute. Thus this matter was left for the time, with a full determination in parliament, not to fuffer other and worse statutes to remain for the purpose of counteracting the benefits proposed propofed by the repeal of one penal law; for nobody then dreamed of defending what was done as a benefit on the ground of its being no benefit at all. We were not then ripe for fo mean a fubterfuge. I do not wish to go over the horrid fcene that was afterwards acted. Would to God it could be expunged for ever from the annals of this country! But fince it must subfift for our shame, let it fubfift for our inftruction. In the year 1780, there were found in this nation men deluded enough (for I give the whole to their delufion) on pretences of zeal and piety, without any fort of provocation whatsoever, real or pretended, to make a desperate attempt, which would have consumed all the glory and power of this country in the flames of London; and buried all law, order, and religion, under the ruins of the metropolis of the Proteftant world. Whether all this mischief done, or in the direct train of doing, was in their original scheme, I cannot say; I hope it was not; but this would have been the unavoidable confequence of their proceedings, had not the flames they had lighted up in their fury been extinguished in their blood. All the time that this horrid scene was acting, or avenging, as well as for fome time before, and ever fince, the wicked instigators of this unhappy multitude, guilty, with every aggravation, of all their crimes, and fcreened in a cowardly darkness from their punishment, continued, without interruption, pity, or remorfe, to blow up the blind rage of the populace, with a continued blast of peftilential libels, which infected and poisoned the very air we breathed in. The main drift of all the libels, and all the riots, was, to force parliament (to perfuade us was hopeless) into an act of national perfidy, which has no example. For, gentlemen, it is proper you should all know what infamy we escaped escaped by refusing that repeal, for a refufal of which, it feems, I, among others, ftand fomewhere or other accused. When we took away, on the motives which I had the honour of ftating to you, a few of the innumerable penalties upon an oppreffed and injured people, the relief was not abfolute, but given on a. ftipulation and compact between them and us; for we bound down the Roman Catholics with the most folemn oaths, to bear true allegiance to this government; to abjure all fort of temporal power in any other; and to renounce, under the fame folemn obligations, the doctrines of fyftematic perfidy, with which they flood (I conceive very unjustly) charged. Now our modeft petitioners came up to us, moft humbly praying nothing more, than that we should break our faith without any one cause whatfoever of forfeiture affigned; and when the fubjects of this kingdom had, on their part, fully performed their engagement, we should refufe, on our part, the benefit we had ftipulated on the performance of thofe very conditions that were prefcribed by our own authority, and taken on the fanction of our public faith-That is to fay, when we had inveigled them with fair promifes within our door, we were to shut it on them; and, adding mockery to outrage -to tell them, "Now we have got you faft--your con"fciences are bound to a power refolved on your deftruc"tion. We have made you fwear, that your religion ob"liges you to keep your faith: fools as you are! we will "now let you fee, that our religion enjoins us to keep no "faith with you." They who would advisedly call upon us to do fuch things, muft certainly have thought us not only a convention of treacherous tyrants, but a gang of the lowest and dirtieft wretches that ever difgraced humanity. Had we done this, we should have indeed proved, that there were fome in the world whom no faith could bind; and we fhould |