Courts of France for the security of the temporal rights of the Crown, and the privileges of the Gallican Church. These privileges depended on two maxims: that the Pope had no authority to order any thing in general or particular, in which the civil rights of the kingdom were concerned; and, secondly, that, notwithstanding the Pope's supremacy was acknowledged in cases purely spiritual, yet, in other respects, his power was limited by the decrees of the ancient councils of the realm.

In 1482, the Superior Council of Provence enacted that no letters coming from foreign jurisdictions, though only in spirituals, should be executed without the ratification and registry of the Court; and this practice was universally adopted by the Supreme Courts throughout the kingdom. By rescinding the statute of the 13th Elizabeth, and establishing a regulation in these kingdoms upon this principle (conformable not only to the practice of the jealous Gallican Church, but, as I before observed, to that also in the Calvinist States of the United Provinces, &c.), Government would thereby obtain a check upon all Rescripts and correspondence with the See of Rome, connected with his Majesty's dominions, by means fully commensurate to the object, and in all political and commercial concerns, (should the temporal Government of the See of Rome be re-established) his Majesty's Ministers would thereby acquire the same unquestionable facility of official communication with the Sovereign and Ministers of Rome as with other States. I say unquestionable, as the Act of 13th Elizabeth was certainly held to be of doubtful construction in this respect; and I am warranted in saying, also, that it was raised up in terrorem by persons of great rank and weight at home, as an obstacle to avowed correspondence with the See of Rome, at one of the most critical moments of the present war, when the Sovereign Pontiff alone possessed the means of efficaciously administering to the necessities of our fleet and army in the Mediterranean. I need not repeat to

your Lordship in what manner those means were nevertheless

made so highly productive.

And to what miserable shifts have we since been driven ! Independently of the multiplied negociations with the See of Rome on the subject of Corsica (which passed through my own hands during my residence at Rome, and to which the faith of the British Government was pledged), [by his Majesty's Commissioner Plenipotentiary in the Mediterranean] Ministry at home have been constrained obliquely to negociate with the Pope on the subject of the proposed appointment of a Bishop in the West Indies; and your Lordship knows we are on the eve of a similar negociation on the Ecclesiastical concerns of the Island of Minorca. Other Protestant States have maintained a more consistent conduct in this respect. Russia, Prussia, Sweden, &c., had their resident Ministers or Consuls-General at Rome, both for the convenience of their Catholic subjects and the general interests of their respective States. From the want of a British representation, or direct agency, in the Ecclesiastical territories, I have myself witnessed the greatest inconveniences, and often great injuries to our commerce on the Adriatic coast, especially as, I am warranted to say, will be proved by the official correspondence of our last resident Minister at Venice.

With respect to a State provision for the Prelates and officiating Catholic Clergy of both kingdoms, I believe at this hour there will be little difference of opinion; and an adequate allowance, at the same time, should be made to the regulars, though excluded from the functions of Parish Priests. Such a provision is highly decorous and consistent with sound policy ; it may have recommendations even with those who are ever apprehensive of the spirit of proselytism that actuates the Roman Clergy. Dr. Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations," observes, that "The teachers of new religions have a considerable advantage in attacking the ancient established systems of which the Clergy, reposing themselves upon their

benefices, neglect to keep up the fervour of devotion in the great body of the people." The independent provision in many places, which has been made for Dissenting teachers, seems very much to have abated the zeal and activity of those teachers. "In the Church of Rome," he continues," the Mendicant orders derive their whole subsistence from the voluntary oblations of the people; it is with them as with the Hussars of some armies-no plunder no pay. They are obliged, therefore, to use every art which can animate the devotion of the people."

"The establishment of the two great Mendicant Orders" (of St. Dominic and St. Francis), Machiavel observes, "revived the languishing devotion of the Catholic Church." The whole of this chapter of Adam Smith is so much in point, that I beg to refer your Lordship to it; it will be found in his fifth book, under the head of "Institutions for the Instruction of the People."

Having much exceeded the limits of a letter, I will, for the present, adjourn, though, with your Lordship's permission, not wholly dismiss, the discussion of a subject at this hour involving so many serious considerations. I pledge myself to advance nothing but what is the result of much sober reflection and experience, under great local advantages. Every assertion shall be substantiated by the most irrefragable authorities; and I flatter myself that I can open such sources of information as will present a view of this question very strikingly different from what it has ever yet appeared in to the Government or the Legislature. Your Lordship will thence perceive into what errors, inconsistencies, and serious political embarrassment, we have been precipitated, from the want of adequate unprejudiced evidence, and from the very partial consideration this wide and important subject has hitherto received, since the period of the Reformation. Had I remained in Parliament, I certainly should have thought it my duty to have brought forward an investigation suited to the occasion; and possibly it will not

be long before I may regain that advantage. I should certainly have moved the repeal of the 13th Elizabeth, and to enact in its place a practicable regulation of the nature I before sketched.

Embarrassed as this subject may appear to those who have viewed it only superficially or obscurely through the mist of the prejudices of more than two centuries of alienation from a direct intercourse with Rome, I am persuaded that our Legislature can now liberally and safely tread the middle path, rendering unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's" in the true spirit of the injunction; but it is incumbent on us deliberately and correctly to appreciate what we are in justice to grant, and what in prudence to restrain.

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Such an investigation, and the consequent projected arrangements, should, in my humble opinion, be the early care of Government, whether the question of the Union sleeps or be re-agitated. It has been recently said in Parliament (Mr. Canning's Speech, 22d January), "If the Union with Ireland does not take place, it may be necessary to refortify the Protestant ascendency, by reviving the old penal code against Catholics. God forbid! On a sober, impartial view of the subject, I am convinced that no such sanguinary measures are indicated. If

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refortify" we must, let us atone for the errors of our ancestors, by substituting outworks which may constitute a solid, effectual defence, nor longer expose the venerable walls of our Constitution to be sapped and undermined, while we fallaciously estimate our security from their imaginary inaccessibility. The lofty bastions and idly menacing batteries projected by the State Engineers of Elizabeth are ill adapted to the tactics of later times; to command the greater range, they improvidently took their level too high, but the error is not without example; the statesman, as well as the tactician, has often overshot his mark.

If, my Lord, I am tempted to conclude this serious comment with a less serious metaphor, it is obviously pressed on

me by the text. Should your Lordship think that these pages are not unworthy of following the route of the preceding communications, they are equally at your Lordship's service. I have said there is no fact or assertion precipitately hazarded; and the documents in proof are ever open to your Lordship's

examination.

I have the honour to be, &c.,

J. C. HIPPISLEY.

PS. Perhaps it might be as well to require the returns to be made of the number of Catholic Priests, with the distinction of Regular or Secular, &c., before the requisition is suggested of leaving out the Regulars in the recommendation to the Pope for vacant Catholic Prelacies: the latter measure will seem then to originate from the first return itself, in which the numbers of regulars and their employment will appear.

Extract from Mr. Burke's Letter to Dr. Hussey.

Beconsfield, May 18, 1795.

I do not like the style of the meeting in Francis Street; the tone was wholly Jacobinical. In Parliament, the language of your friends (one only excepted) was what it ought to be; but that one speech, though full of fire and animation, was not warmed with the fire of Heaven. He is certainly a man of parts, but one who has dealt too much in the philosophy of France. Justice, prudence, tenderness, moderation, and Christian charity, ought to become the measures of tolerance, and not a cold apathy, or, indeed, rather a savage hatred, to all religion, and an avowed contempt of all those points on which we differ, and on those about which we disagree. [Mr. Burke allows that many provoking circumstances attended the business, but that the Catholics ought not to be irritated out of their principles and out of their good sense.] The language of the day, [he says] went plainly to a separation of the two kingdoms. God forbid that any thing like it should ever happen! They would both be ruined by it, but Ireland