1807.

that House, who meant to contest it, he should offer to to the house an explanation of the grounds

"that I will also, to the utmost of my power, maintain and sup-
"port the established constitution and government of the said
"United Kingdom, against all attempts whatever that shall be
"made against the same." And whereas it is expedient, that
his Majesty's subjects, however employed in any of his Majes.
ty's sea or naval forces, or any of his Majesty's land or military
forces whatsoever, should be allowed the free exercise of such
religious opinions, as they may respectively profess; Be it en-
acted, that no person employed in his Majesty's sea or naval
forces, or land or military forces, and having previously signi-
fied in writing, signed by himself, to his commanding officer,
his dissent from the doctrine or worship of the Church of Eng-
land, as by law established, shall, under any pretence, or by
any means, be prevented from attending, or be subject or liable
to any pains, penalties or disabilities for attending such divine
worship or religious service as may be consistent with, and ac-
cording to his religious persuasion or opinions, at proper or sea-
sonable times, and such as shall be consistent with the due and
full discharge of his naval or military duties; nor shall any such
person be compelled or compellable to attend the worship or ser-
vice of the said established Church; and that any commissioned
officer, acting in violation of, or contrary to this provision, shall,
upon conviction thereof, before a general court martial, be liable
to be suspended or dismissed from his Majesty's service, or to
such other punishment, not extending to life or limb, as the
said court shall award; and that any warrant or non commis-
sioned officer so offending shall be liable to such punishment,
not extending to life or limb, as shall be awarded by a general
or regimental conrt martial. And be it further enacted, that this
act shall be and continue in force from the
in the year
of our Lord,

Lord "

until the

in the year of our

It is obvious, that this bill was not intended to remedy the great national evil, which consisted in the statute disabilities, pains and penalties falling on above five millions of his Majes

which the bill was founded, without going into the question of the general expediency of penal laws,

ty's Catholic subjects, who might enlist, or may have enlisted as
private soldiers or common seamen in his Majesty's service.
Hence it was usually called Lord Howick's Catholic officer's bill.
Yet the act of 1 Geo. I. c. 13. had re-enacted all the operative
penal parts of the 25. Car. II. (the Test Act) and extended them to
private soldiers and common sailors for refusing or neglecting for
three months after having enlisted, to take the oaths of suprema-
cy, abjuration and allegiance. That act of Geo. I. affects Catholics
only, for it says nothing of the sacramental test, which most
Protestant dissenters conscientiously refuse; although none of
them object to the negative oath of supremacy (on which is found-
ed the operative exclusion to Catholics, who submit to a supreme
bishop) as they admit of no head of the Church on earth. It
cannot be dissembled, that a very large part of the Irish Catho-
lics, disrelished, contemned and ridiculed this officers bill. They
considered it as an insult on the body. They had not so refined
upon political economy, as to be sensible, that a country could
be over peopled. With Adam Smith, they still substantially
thought and measured a nation's happiness by the density of its
population. They considered Lord Howick's boasted policy of
strengthening the Protestant ascendancy, by thinning the Catho-
lic population, at least not friendly to the internal prosperity of
the country. To kill off its male youth, in foreign warfare, was
the most insidious mode of depopulating it by emigration. This
they connected with the checks given to Irish population by the
provocation and suppression of the rebellion of 1798. And they
never separated it from the jealousy of government at the rapid
growth of the physical force of the country. They considered
Lord Howick, whose bill they indignantly despised, as connect-
ed domestically as well as politically with Mr. Ponsonby, who,
with other distinguished patriots, was once zealous for re-
form and emancipation, though he had latterly declared, that
it would militate against the interests of the empire to concede
either. They had brought themselves to this (not very unha-
VOL. II.
2 H

1807.

ment.

1807 which imposed checks upon the consciences of individuals. Dr. Paley, and all other modern writ ers of respectability concurred, that such restraints and exclusions, as he was about to remove, ought only to be enforced against religious opinions, when it was manifest, they were inconsistent with the necessary order and subsistence of governIf it were now necessary to state, that the connection, which formerly existed between the religion and the politics of the United Empire had ceased, and therefore those restrictions, which were applicable only to their politics, and not to their religion were rendered unnecessary, he should feel no difficulty in making that statement, and in maintaining it by unanswerable argument. If this were allowed, the proposition necessarily followed, that at the present season of difficulty and danger, when it was desirable to unite every heart and hand in the cause of the country, it was unwise to exclude from that union so large a portion of the people, as the Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland, amounting in number to nearly a fourth of the whole population of the empire, and to prevent them from sharing in the danger and the glory of their countrymen. The fact was, that at that very moment a great proportion of our soldiers and sailors (particularly of the latter) were Catholics, and it was fitting, that Parliament should sanction by fight, what was already allow

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tural) conclusion, that wherever legislative union had succeeded in planting British popularity, there had it never failed to extinguish Irish patriotism.

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ed by connivance? By the law, which passed in the 1807. Parliament of Ireland, in 1793, Catholics were allowed to hold commissions in the army, and to

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enjoy those privileges in Ireland, which it was the
object of the bill he meant to propose to communi-
cate generally to the Catholics of this country.
The bill would go to admit persons of every reli
gious persuasion, to serve in the army and navy,
without any other condition, but that of taking
an oath particularised in the bill. Of course, if
this indulgence were granted to Catholics, it was
unnecessary to state, that there could be no objec-
tion to grant it to any
other sect of dissenters from
the established church, unless some specific dan-
ger could be shewn, which he did not at present
see. The provisions of the bill would therefore
extend to persons of all religious persuasions. What
had particularly drawn the attention of his Majes-
ty's government to the subject, was the strange ano-
maly, which existed in consequence of the act
passed in Ireland, in 1793, by which the Roman
Catholics in that country were enabled to hold
commissions in the army, and to attain any rank
(except commander in chief of the forces, master
general of the ordnance, or general of the staff.)
The effect of this permission so granted to the Ca-
tholics in Ireland was a striking incongruity; for
if a Catholic, who was by law qualified to serve
in the army of Ireland, should be brought out of
that country by any circumstances, which de
manded in this country the presence of the regi-
ment, in which he served, he would be disquali-

1807.

fied by law from remaining in the service, and would have only this alternative, either to continue in the service contrary to the law, and thus subject himself to the penalties and forfeitures consequent thereon, or to relinquish a profession, in which he had risen to the rank, which he might hold, either by the sacrifice of his fortune, or more probably by a succession of meritorious services, such as proved him qualified to defend the prosperity and assert the honor of the country. So absurd an inconvenience must be remedied. The inconveniency was seen, when Great Britain and Ireland were separate nations, and had separate parliaments, and when the act of 1793 was proposed in the Irish parliament, it was declared, that a similar proposition should be made in two months by the Parliament of Great Britain. This was distinctly promised; Lord Clare in the House of Peers, and Lord Buckinghamshire in the House of Commons distinctly stated, that it was the intention of his Majesty's government, with all convenient dispatch, to prepare a similar bill in the British Parliament. The measure, which he was about to submit to the judgment of the House, was calculated to remove the inconvenience, and to reconcile the incongruity complained of, and at the same time to maintain the faith of the British government, by redeeming the pledge, to which he had alluded. There seemed to be no objection to the measure, as a necessary consequence of the act of 1793, and as a redemption of

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