The Express.
London, England, 1852-12-06 00:00:00

TU MAI►IA'.

On Saturday a deputation mai'ed on 3[r. Sure_
tary Walpole, at the Home-office, to place in his hand; a
memorial addressed to her Majesty, on the subject 41 the
persecutions for religious opinions now curie,' et
bury, Colon The
el titaatrii7e re, ntnViiltreda h Wilbraham Ttahyel oir,sEr lof
Shat s..
Giberne, J. M. White, Esq., T. R. WM alley, B.
Seeley, Esq., and J. Mackie. gar, Esq. The meuierou ~„
as follows.—
.. To Iler Most Gracious Majesty Victoria, by the Greet
of God, of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defend rof
the Faith: the loyal Addruai of the undersigned
Gentry, Clergy, and others.
" We, your Majesty's most loyal and devoted sehjells,
beg leave to approach the throne with our sincerest user-
maces of attachment to your Meiesty, as supreme toad of a
government under which your people are truly and deeply
sensible of the full enjoyment of civil and religious liberty.
" Tout memorialists hive fic•aid wi'h deep dismay of the
trial, in the capital of Tuscany, of Francesco and ltea
Mullet on the charge of Impiety, shown in making mese-
lytee to the so-called Evangelical or Pure Gospel Confession'',
—a charge whose sole foundation consisted an their mem:m-
ing and reading the Holy Scriptures and other religious
works in their own household, and being reedy to shore the
blessings they poeumed with all who sought them. For no
other cause and with the repress declaration of goyim-
ment that the charge wee totally unconnected with polities,
the said Francesco and Rosa Madiai were sentenced by the
Tuscan authorities, on the 31st of July last, to iraprisen-
meat with hard labour, for the respective terms of 66 and
45 months.
" Your memorialists recognise in your Majesty the repel-
sentative of a great and free country, whose glory it hos
been practically to proclaim the sacred right of every human
being to liberty of conscience ; and though they are fully
alive to the danger of one elation interfering with th, later-
nal regulations of another state, they feel that where peace-
ful and harmless individual% in any professedly Chri=,ian
community are condemned as criminals for no greater offence
than that stated above, it is no lees than iinperati ve on every
lover of liberty, civilizat•on, and as eurity, to nroa st, in t:e
name of justice, of civil freedom, metal common humanity,
against so glaring a violation of the right of every man
peaceably to follow the dictates of his own conscience.
While your memorialists, as Britons, as freemen, and
as members of the great human lentil, would (swishier
themselves bound to protest against such misapplication
of civil power, even if the sufferers were followers of a
false religion, they feel that those among them who are
professors of a faith which proclaims the written word of
God to be the free and precious birth right of all mankind,
are more urgently impelled to protest openly and boldly
against so flagrant a violation of the first principles of reli-
gious liberty.
" As the loving subjects of a Christian Queen, your me-
morialists are confident that your Majesty will share their
abhorrence at the spectacle tit a woman, on such a charge,
condemned to imprisonment in tho degrading company of
the worst of criminals.
"Sympathy for a woman thus cruelly outraged will find
a ready echo in the heart of your Majesty, as in that of
every woman capable of feeling tor the wrongs of a sister
and a fellow Christian.
"Your memorial stn, having discharged their hare duty
in laying at the feet of your Majesty this solemn public
protest against the great outrage which has been offered to
humanity, would entreat your Majesty to make the feelings
of:the British nation known to the Tuscan government, and
endeavour to procure either a reversal of the judgment on the
said Francesca and Rosa Madiai, or at least such alteration
of their sentences as would admit of their seeking refuge
in some land where it is lawful for each man to worship
God after his own coesience.
"That your Majesty's throne and the constitution of
country may ever continue, by God's blessing, based, rs
now, on the surest of all foundations, the conscious happi-
ness and affectionate confidence of a Christian people, who
study to use, without abusing, the principles of civil and
religonus liberty, is the earnest prayer of your Majesty's
loyal subjects."
The above memorial was signed by the Dukes of Suther-
land and Argyle, the Marquis of Cholmondelev, the Earlsof
%Vinchelsea, Fortescue, Duels, Shaftesbury, Dartmouth,
Roden, Waldegrave, Cavan, Bandon, Darnley, Donough-
more, Meath, Antmatey, Clancarty, Carnworth; Lords
Stopford, Dunks, Lorton, Bangor, Bernard, Mooch, Csi-
thorpe, Ranfurley, De Saninares, Hathertun, Clanmorria,
Bowan, Many, Moreton, Claude Hamilton T. Pelham
Clinton, Chu. Pelham Clinton, H. Cholmondeley, Rev.
Lord Wriotheal Russell. By the Archbishop of Dublin,
the Bishops of Manchester, Worcester, Norwich, Cashel,
Down, Ossory; Ramose, and Tuam. By 21 members of
the House of Commons, 26 baronets, 10 deans, 8 arch-
deacons, 9 generals and 94 other officers, 19 admirals and 'it
other officers in the navy, 321 'juncos of the peace, 630
members of the professions, 1,302 clergymen, 230 dissent-
ing anntinnftl, 17,431 bankers, merchants, and private gen-
tlemen, and by 8,894 other persons, being a total of 23372
SiCNM.
. Secretary Walpole received the deputation most
Peoltrteously, and promised to lay the address before her
Mojesty Immediately.