regard to the change of situation, which the progress of government, and the improvements of science have produced, yet for these, by a fair and candid interpretation, it has actually provided, in its own nature and spirit, and which its original founders, more liberal than their successors, certainly intended to take place. The union of the two kingdoms, which afterwards succeeded, was founded, as you well know, upon an equal participation of rights and privileges. No exception is made, in any of its clauses, in favour of this monopoly of the London College. The two kingdoms, to all intents and purposes, became one, and the seats of learning, in the College Charter, became, according to the very intention of framing it, for the purpose of giving a preference to the Graduates of our own, rather than Foreign Universities, naturally extended to those of Scotland, as they had formerly included the whole of England.

The College itself has, at all times, been sensible of the illiberality of its Charter; but like persons who hold fast to their own interest, and concede what is against it, with a bad grace, and only by halves, it has admitted the Scots in common with others, to be Licentiates, on partial and narrow conditions. By a Bye-Law it has agreed, that every Graduate, who possesses a résident degree, that is, has resided for two years at the University where this honour has been conferred upon him, shall be entitled to become a Licentiate of the College, on passing a proper examination. Will your Lordship, or any one, who is conversant with what, a learned profession requires, say, that this is a period any way suitable for rendering a Student capable of entering upon the successful exercise of so important an employment as Medicine, a period not half the length of what is assigned to a mechanical occupation. If any restriction was made, it should either have been an ample

one, or none at all; nay, since it was qualified with an examination of the Candidate, this limitation was certainly unnecessary. It was meant, no doubt, to militate against a degree merely honorary: But if honorary degrees, or those obtained without residence, are objected to, the example should first be set by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where they are granted, as well as at the Scots Universities, and an end put to this proceeding.

Such restriction in the College, it must also be observed, is illiberal on another ground. By reserving the test of an examination in its own hand, no Candidate can be admitted a Licentiate, who is not competent to the exercise of his profession. By this restriction, it was, indeed, opening the door for young men, new from the school, versed solely in academic lore, but it was shutting it against a more deserving class, that would have done the College more credit by their admission into it. I mean those practitioners, who, after thirty or forty years meritorious application to the exercise of the different departments of the profession, and having gained public approbation, wish for an honorary degree to lessen their toils, and to confine their practice to the office of the Physician. This degree being their passport to obtain a license from the College, the restriction of residence prevents the admission of it.

But this Bye-Law of the College, in favour of the Graduates of the Scots and other Universities, is by no means a settled law: It is merely a matter of caprice in the Directors of the College at the time, and is opened, generally, for the special purpose of introducing some favourite individual, who possesses the suffrages of a party, to force him into this situation, so that the original monopoly of the Charter may be still considered as existing, to its full ex

tent.

But what must appear galling to your lordship, and to the Heads of the Scots Universities, if they possess a spark of national pride, and a sense of their own dignity and importance in the scale of the empire, is, that, not many years since, a concession was granted in favour of the Graduates of Dublin, which was not extended to them. A Graduate of Dublin requires only to enter himself of Oxford, or Cambridge, and to be admitted into the College without even examination. Thus, by his simply entering his name, he acquires, if he did not possess them before, all the supernatural endowments, all the sacred Esculapian charm, which is confined solely in the eye of the College, and, in the language of its Charter, to the Graduate of the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, which hath accomplished, it is said; "all things for his form, without any grace."

Is Scotland, then, of so little importance in the scale of government, that no step should be taken in her favour, and in support of her just rights? Concession, she should scorn to ask; her incontrovertible claims she has only to demand. Ireland, like a favourite and promising child, has been yielded to, by her indulgent mother, because she possessed strength, if refused, to insist upon it, and her parent was, probably, afraid. Scotland, from the period of the union, has, virtually, possessed privileges, which have been withheld from her, because she has not had spirit to assert her right.

The Charter of the College I have examined elsewhere, in a letter to the President, nor shall I trouble your lordship with the absurdity of its enactments. On a future occasion, I shall show, I hope, to public conviction, that it cannot be supported by the royal prerogative, as inconsistent with the coronation oath of His Majesty; that it cannot be supported in a court of justice, by the judges, as

inconsistent with the oaths of office, and of allegiance to the crown; and it cannot claim the protection of a jury, as inconsistent withthe principles of a free government. The interdict of the College, is even nothing more than the lesser excommunication of the Romish church, by which, the members of the College are forbid communication with any one, lying under its anathema.

Would you, my lord, in your senatorial capacity, were this body to agitate their rights in parliament, which, it is supposed, they are desirous to do, not oppose such a shameful monopoly? Would you allow the rights of your country to be tamely given up, or lie in the passive state they have been? This I may confidently say, that, should you, and the forty-five members of the sister kingdom, be forgetful of their own just claims, and of the duty their country requires, it is an example would not be followed by the Irish members. They would then demand as their right, what has been granted by concession, and that even without solicitation: their consequence as a kingdom they know, and can also maintain.

Such being the statement of the case, I address it to your lordship, in the name of a number of respectable Physicians resident in London, who all possess degrees from the Scots Universities. The illiberality of the College in insisting, on the monopoly of their Charter, in excluding them from practice, brings the subject to an issue, and your Lordship is called upon, as the guardian of the rights of your nation, as well as interested particularly in the fate of her Universities, to turn your attention to the present subject. The very words of the degree, or academical honours, conferred by the Scots Universities, show that they are not fettered by the College Charter, and that they know no such restriction. In conferring their honours, they give a right

of practice hic et ubique, which certainly extends, at least, to every part of the British empire. Every one possessing a degree from any of the Scots Universities, and subjecting himself to the difficulties of obtaining it, is certainly, your Lordship must allow, entitled to call upon the University from which he has it, to support him in the right and privilege it grants him; nay I would even carry it a step farther, and insist, that any injury happening to an individual, in supporting his rights against the College, the Scots Universities are bound to make good.

If these facts strike your lordship, you are imperiously called upon, from every sentiment of honour, duty, and national character, to bring forward the present encroachment on your seats of learning, and to assert their privileges in the great council of the nation, of which you are a member; to represent the same to your Sovereign, in your capacity, as a Privy Counsellor, and to take every other step necessary to confirm your Universities in their just, and too long neglected, privileges. By doing so, the honours of the Scots Universities will attain their just value, and hold the rank they ought to possess. How degrading is it, to find the Graduates of the first school in Medicine in Europe, placed in the contemptible light, that her honours are considered as no test of professional qualifications in those that hold them, and that even, if as a matter of extreme favour, they are to be admitted Licentiates of the London College, they must submit to a second examination, a thing not insisted on with any other Graduates in the empire but theirs! Nay, that the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, although no way distinguished as medical schools, can have their Graduates, however ignorant, or in other words only term trotters, admitted without any proof of their qualifications whatever.