tholic religion; 5. Receiving holy orders beyond the seas.

12. Finally, the law pursued them even to the grave: if a recusant convict, man or woman, not being excommunicated, was buried in any other place than in the church, the executors of the person so buried, were to forfeit 20 l. or 60%. of the present value of money.

13. It should be observed, that the Catholics were subject in the same manner as the Protestant dissenters, to the proceedings of the high commission how oppressive these were, and how severely the Protestant dissenters suffered under them, is shown in my Historical Memoirs; but as the Catholics were much more odious to the sovereign and the ministers than the Protestants, there is great reason to believe that they suffered much more severely under them. *

14. Add to this,-that even when the laws which have been mentioned were not acted upon, they had a silent, but most bitter operation; they tended to make every Catholic an object of odium, to lessen his few remaining comforts, and to abridge his few remaining rights. When they were with

*See "Burn's Ecclesiastical Law," title "Popery;" and the Acts of 1 El. c. 1. 5 El. c. 1. 13 El. c. 2. 23 El. c. 1. 27 El. c. 2. 29 El. c. 6. 35 El. c. 1. 2. 1 Ja. c. 4. 3 Ja. c. 4. 5. 7 Ja. c. 6.

held or contested, if the Catholic complained or resisted, or resorted to law, he was often reminded that he might be proceeded against for recusancy.

I conclude the statements in my Historical Memoirs of the sufferings of the English Roman Catholics, under the penal codes of Elizabeth and James, with an authentic account, taken from Dodd's Church History, of the sufferings of one Roman Catholic family under them. If there is a person who can read it indifferent and unmoved, I envy not that person his feelings.

What a dreadful scene do these codes exhibit! In what an agony of mind must the general body of Catholics have existed during this period. In less than a century, they reduced to the most abject and miserable poverty the whole Catholic body, with the exception of a few families whose estates were large enough to bear, without exhaustion, this incessant ravin of them!

LETTER XVII.

CHARLES I.

1. YOU say, (page 290), that "You do not de“fend the cruel and savage executions of the unfor66 tunate men who were condemned to death for a "religion which was thus considered treason." But, You not only do not condemn,--You repeatedly eulogise the laws written in blood, which made it treason. You mention “ the deep-rooted prejudices "and hatred of the people to the members of my "communion," but You say nothing of the most vile arts by which these prejudices and this hatred had been raised.

2. You admit, that “ the Catholics," in their conduct to Charles I. "were brave and loyal ;" but You allow them no merit for their loyalty. "Their bodies were the

You even say, (p. 291),

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servants of the prince; their consciences were "still obedient to the Pope, who had not directed "them to forsake the standard of their sove

“ reign ” !!! When You wrote this, did You not recollect that the Pope had directed, and even ordered all the Catholics to forsake the standard of Elizabeth, yet that all the Catholics still adhered to it? After this, You remark, (page 292),

that "the loyalty of the Romanists was not conspicuous in behalf of the Brunswick dynasty, "either in 1715 or 1745." If You have read the act passed against the Roman Catholics in the first year of George I,* You must allow, that an exuberance of loyalty could not be expected from them. If You examine the number of his Majesty's subjects who were engaged in the rebellions of 1715 and 1745, You will find the proportion of the Roman Catholics engaged in them so small, as to render the general loyalty of the body unimpeachable. You should have mentioned, that, when, in the reign of the third monarch of the house of Brunswick, all his Protestant colonies in America revolted against him, his only Catholic colony preserved her allegiance inviolate.

I believe You are the only writer who has denied the merit of loyalty to the conduct of the Roman Catholics, while England was threatened by the Spanish armada, or during the grand rebellion.

LETTER XVIII.

CHARLES II. -JAMES II.

1. YOU defend, (page 293), the breach of faith of Charles II. on his Restoration. You describe it as a failure of faith to his Catholic subjects only, and justify it by "the national dislike of them at "this period.'

In this representation of the transaction there is great inaccuracy:-1st. Charles plighted his faith not to the Roman Catholics only; he plighted it also to the Protestant Dissenters: 2d. In regard to these, the national dislike of Catholics could have no concern: 3d. But the national dislike of Catholics or Puritans had no existence at the time of which we are speaking.

In the first years of the monarch's reign, all was good humour and brotherly love between the Church of England and the Roman Catholics.

The adversaries of the Catholics, and the party who strove to render Charles II. unpopular, excited the national hatred of them by degrees: it was consummated by wickedly imputing to them the fire of London. This, You do not mention; but surely, when You describe in such strong terms the hatred which You say the nation bore to the Catholics, justice required of You to mention how