pounds a year, reduced to less than threescore, "a lean pittance to maintain them and their chil"dren, being persons for the most part of good

quality and civil education. And as for priests, "it is made as great a crime to have taken orders "after the rites of their church, as to have com"mitted the most heinous treason that can be imagined; and they are far more cruelly pu"nished than those that murder their own parents.

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"Besides these extreme and fatal penalties that "lie upon the recusants, merely for their con"science, there are many other afflictions, whereof "few take notice; which, though of lesser weight, yet, being added to the former, quite sink them "down to the bottom of sorrow and perplexity; as their continual fear of having their houses "broken open and searched by pursuivants, who "enter at what hours they please, and do there " what they list, taking away not only all the in"struments of their religion, but oftentimes money, "plate, watches, and other such popish idols, "especially if they be found in the same room "with any pictures, and so infected with a relative "superstition.

"Another of their afflictions is, that they, (I mean "these single recusants,) have no power to sell or mortgage the least part of their estates; either "to pay their just debts, or defray their necessary "expenses, whereby they are disabled of all com

merce; and, their credit being utterly lost, (upon "which many of them now provide even their daily bread), they must needs, in a short time,

"be brought to a desperate necessity, if not abso"lute ruin; and if any, the most quiet and mode"rate amongst them, should desire to transplant "themselves into a milder climate, and endeavour "to avoid the offence that is taken against him, "in his own country, he cannot so dispose of his "estate here, as by bill of exchange, or any other way, to provide the least subsistence for himself " and his family a severity, far beyond the most rigid practice of the Scotch kirk; for there, (as "I am informed), the persons of recusants are only banished out of the kingdom, and prohi"bited to reside at their own homes above forty

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days in a year, which time is allowed them for "the managing of their estates; and their estates "allowed them for their maintenance abroad: a

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proceeding which their principles would clearly "justify, if they could justify their principles. But " in England, where compulsion on the conscience "is decried as the worst of slaveries, to punish "men so sharply for matters of religion, contrary "to the principles publicly received, is a course "that must needs beget, over all the world, a strong suspicion and prejudice against the honour and "reputation of that state, which, at the same time, can practise such manifest contradictions.

"To this deplorable condition are the English "catholics now reduced; yet they bear all, not

only with patience, but even silence; for amongst "the printed complaints so frequent in these times,

never any thing hath been seen to proceed from "them; though always the chief, and now the

"sole sufferers, for their consciences, except, (not "to be altogether wanting to themselves), some "modest petitions, humbly addressed to the par"liament, though such hath been their unhappi"ness, that more weighty affairs have still disappointed their being taken into consideration; "else, were they admitted to clear themselves of "the mistakes and scandals unjustly imputed to "them, they would not doubt fully to satisfy all "ingenuous and dispassionate men, nay, even "whomsoever that were but moderately prejudiced "against them."

It has been stated, that, during the reign of Charles the first, twenty-three priests were executed for the exercise of their sacerdotal functions. Two others suffered; one before, and one in the first year of the protectorate. The latter, John Southworth*, was a man highly respected by the catholics. From the fatal cart he addressed the multitude in a very modest speech, and concluded it in the following terms:

My faith is my crime; the performance of "my duty, the occasion of my condemnation.— "I confess I am a great sinner.-Against God "I have offended; but I am innocent of any sin "against man;-I mean the commonwealth and "present government. How justly then I, die, let

them look to who have condemned me. It is “sufficient for me that it is God's will. I plead "not for myself, (I came hither to suffer,) but for Dr. Challoner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests, vol. ii.

P. 354.

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you poor persecuted catholics, whom I leave "behind me. Heretofore, liberty of conscience "was pretended as a cause of war; and it was "held a reasonable proposition, that all the natives "should enjoy it, who should be found to behave "themselves as obedient and true subjects. This

being so, why should their conscientious acting, " and governing themselves according to the faith "received from their ancestors, involve them more "than all the rest in an universal guilt?-which "conscientiousness is the very reason that clears "others, and renders them innocent. It has pleased "God to take the sword out of the king's hand, "and put it in the protector's.-Let him remember, "that he is to administer justice indifferently, and "without exception of persons; for there is no "exception of persons with God, whom we ought "to resemble. If any catholics work against the "present government, let them suffer. But why "should all the rest, who are guiltless (unless con"science be their guilt), be made partakers in a "promiscuous punishment with the greatest male"factors? The first rebellion was of the angels. "The guilty were cast into hell; the innocent re"mained partakers of the heavenly blessings."

Here, being interrupted by some officers, desiring him to make haste," he requested all pre"sent, that were catholics, to pray for him and "with him. Which done, with hands raised up to heaven, and eyes (after a short prayer in silence) "gently shut, thus devoutly demeaned, he ex"pected the time of his execution, which imme

"diately followed; and which he suffered with "unmoved quietness; delivering his soul, most "blessedly, into the hands of his most loving "God, who died for him; and for whose sake he "died."

CHAP. LXII.

LOYALTY OF THE ENGLISH CATHOLICS DURING THE CIVIL WAR, AND THE USURPATION:-NEW PROFESSION BY THEM OF ALLEGIANCE AND CIVIL PRINCIPLES CONDEMNED BY INNOCENT THE TENTH.

THE history of the English catholics during the reign of Charles the first, affords a view at once pleasing and affecting, of the undeviating rectitude of their conduct towards their sovereign and the state, and of the persecutions which they suffered from all parties: it affords also a fresh instance of obstacles too successfully thrown in the way of their endeavours to obtain some relaxation of the penal code, by an unequivocal disclaimer of the pope's deposing power, and some other obnoxious tenets.

LXII. 1.

Loyalty of the English Catholics.

FROM the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth, till the time, of which we are now writing, attempts were unceasingly made to fix on the