The Sun.
London, England, 1853-02-18 00:00:00

ame reason in Hungary. The truth appeared to be that
of the House of Hapsburg had done nothing else since the
Reformation but persecute the Protestants in every way.
It was not so much the Pope who was to blame in all that,
as it was that Jesuitism, which had always been main-
tained by Austria, and constantly under the pretext of
religion, of which perhaps it felt but little. He (Lord D.
Stuart) was glad to see that the Government was so much
alive to this subject of persecution ; but he thoughtn the
s
best means of carrying into effect the object w
hon. friend (Mr. Kinnaird) had in view, would be, by
an alliance with Prussia or any other State, üby .
pro-
curing an evacuation of Tuscany byAustrian tbe made
(Hear, hear.) He thought that this ought not .
a question of party or of creed. H. e was glad to see so
many members of various creeds in the house, and he
in that assembly persons of more
only wished
(tautighereterw.)ereHe had heard
in this country didard with great pain and
surprise that many Roman Catholics
not disapprove of the conduct pursuedthyab
t had been
Duke.
That was shown by the little response made
to the letter of Lord Carlisle, in which that nobleman
called on his Roman Catholic countrymen to state whe-
ther they approved of persecution for conscience' sake.
His learned friend Mr. Anstey, who recently held a seat
in that house, himself aßoman Catholic, had stated that
those among the Roman Catholics who were against such
persecution were a very small minority ; and the hon.
member for Meath (Mr. Lucas) had publicly stated, in a
letter to Sir Calling Eardley Smith, that he considered it
was the duty of every Roman Catholic State to put down
heresy, even with violence, if that it should be necessary.
(Hear.) He (Lord D. Stuart) was sure that those prin-
ciples were not common to all Roman Catholics ; and he
would point to a declaration to be seen in the newspapers
of that day, signed by five gentlemen who had the mis-
fortune to be Polish refugees, to the effect that they did
not agree with those who thought it was a duty of
Catholic States to persecute their sucjects for heresy.
In conclusion, he trusted that whether the Government
agreed to the motion or not, they would, at all events, pro-
ceed in the career which• it pointed out, and not permit this
country to suffer the reproach of remaining supine when
such atrocious attacks upon religious liberty were made in
any country, as those which had just been brought under
the notice of the house.
Mr. LUCAS said, that while he could not withhold the
expression of his thanks to the hon. member for bringing
forward this subject, in order that it might be fully and
fairly discussed, he could not agree to the resolution which
had been submitted to the house. His reason for not agree-
ing to the resolution was, that he did not believe it stated the
real facts of the case. The resolution set forth statements
different from those contained inthe papers submitted tothe
house. The words of the resolution were, that " her Majesty
-will be graciously pleased to take such steps as her Majesty
may deem most fitting for bringing under the notice of his
Imperial Highness the,Grand Duke of Tuscany, the strong
feelings ;prevailing among a large number of her Majesty's
subjects in consequence of the persecution now actively
begun in Tuscany, of those who secretly or openly profess
principles held by her Majesty, in common with the majo-
rity of her Majesty's subjects in this United Kingdom."
The case, which was stated in the papers before the house,
was altogether a different one. (No, no, and hear, hear.)
From these papers it appeared certain that the case of the
Madiai was not a persecution for openly or secretly pro-
fessing any religious opinions whatever, but a punishment
inflicted upon those persons for engaging in a system of
proselytising at the bidding and instigation of foreign
emissaries and agents. (No, no.) He contended that such
was the case set out in the papers before the house. It
was the actual technical form of the proceedings of the
Court, and they were punished and condemned for " the
crime of impiety, asmanifestedin their acts of proselytism."
No person could deny that such was the case. The
Madiai, while denying that sectarian meetings were
held in their house, admitted the fact of the meeting of
a few friends there, for the performance of the rites of
the religion which they had newly embraced. That
was the case they endeavoured to make out for them-
selves. They admitted the apostacy of the young girl in their
service, but they maintained that the act of apostacy was
committed by her spontaneously, and not by their persua-
sion. The entire defence put forward by the Madiai was
that they were not guilty of the crime of proselytising,
and that they had only performed acts of private worship
in their own houses. The sentence of the court, however,
was, " That notwithstanding, neither by their witnesses
nor by witnesses summoned to public audience, have they
succeeded in overthrowing the facts alleged in the accusa-
tion." And these facts were acts of systematic prose-
lytism, at the instigation of foreign agents, and by the
instrumentality of money supplied from this country.
(Hear, hear.) The hon. member who proposed the resolu-
tion stated that those persecutions arose out of religious re-
action, and the noble lord who seconded the motion be-
lieved that they arose entirely out of political reaction—one
believed the Pope to be the prime mover of the business, and
the other the House of Hapsburg. For his part, however,
he believed the statement made in the letter of Mr. Scarlett,
addressed to the Foreign Secretary on the 22d of August,
1851, contained the real cause. That gentleman stated that
all persons professing a religion different from that of the
Roman Catholic were always permitted in Tuscany perfect
freedom ; but that the State would not allow foreigners to
tamper with the religion of Tuscany, as it was believed that
religious conversations were only used as a mask of dan-
gerous political views. That was the case which the Tus-
can Government made out for itself, and the resolution
called upon the House of Commons, in fact, to constitute
itself a court of appeal from the courts of Tuscany, and to
declare that they had not pronounced correctly either upon
the facts or upon the law of the case. He contended that
it was impossible for the house to take any such ground as
that. They were bound to assume in discussing a question
of this kind, that the finding of the Tuscan courts was true,
and that the law had been accurately carried out. The facts
were, that the Madiai had been prosecuted for the crime of
proselytising, for acting under the direction of foreign agen-
cies, meeting in secret conventicles, dividing themselves into
companies of ten, for the propagation under these foreign
agencies of certain doctrines, and it was for these offences,
and not for meeting together for private worship in their
own house, that they had been condemned. He did not
profess to have the least sympathy with!the recent re-enact-
ment by the Tuscan Government of the punishment of
death against the so-called " depravers of religion," and so
far he agreed entirely with the sentiments expressed by the
previous speakers. Indeed, for the sake of argument, he
was ready to admit that the Tuscan Government was to be
blamed for having punished the Madiai in the way it had
done for the crime of proselytising. What, however, had
been the conduct of the Government in cases of a different
description, and in which Roman Catholics in different parts
of the world had been concerned? The noble lord the mem-
ber for Marylebone had told the house with great power of
the persecution of the nuns of Minsk by the Emperor of
Russia. That case excited a great deal of public feeling in
this country, but he (Mr. Lucas) had never heard that, the
Secretary for Foreign _Affairs everinstructed our ambassador
at St. Petersburg to remonstrate on the subject to that
mighty potentate ; on the contrary, he treated him with a
great deal more consideration than had been shown to the
humble and miserable Grand Duke in the north of Italy.
Who had ever heard of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs re-
monstrating with the Emperor of Russia, or telling him
that it was contrary tothe law of nations andthe enlighten-
ment of his age, to persedute and inflict the extremity of
punishment upon mere Roman Catholic nuns ? (Hear, hear.)
The sufferings of these nuns were greater in atrocity than
anything which the greatest license of extravagance had
stated to have taken place in Tuscany ; but the prudence,
discretion, and good taste of her Majesty's ministers at that
time thought it would be better to allow the nuns to be
tortured than to hazard a word of remonstrance with so
great a potentate as the Emperor of Russia. (Hear, hear.)
From the speeches of the mover and seconder of the reso-
lution he gathered that in their opinion it was the duty of
that house to remonstrate whenever Protestants suffered
persecution. The noble lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs
had stated in his dispatch of 27th October, included in the
papers before the house, that foreign governments might
intercede with another on behalf of those who professed
the state religion of the interceding nation, and that more-
over it was their moral duty, as Protestant ministers of a
Protestant sovereign, to employ their good offices in the
cause of persons whose only crime was their adherence to
- those views of the doctrines of Christianity which were
maintained with the Church of England, and which were
shared, with greater or lesser shades of difference, by the
vast proportion of the human race. He did not know
whether the house was prepared to adopt that limited
theory on the subject. He for one certainly was not.
The practice of the Foreign-office had been not merely
negatively, but positively, in accordance with this theory.
If he were looking for an advocate of the highest authority
in that house to defend the conduct 'of the Grand Duke,
he should be inclined to request the noble lord now the
Secretary of State for the Home Department to undertake
the case. (A laugh.) The house would recollect
the transactions which took place in 1847 with respect
to the expulsion of the Jesuites from Switzerland.
The noble lord took an active part in those transactions,
and the voice of the able advocate of toleration for the
Church of England was then heard in favour of the expul-
sion of the Jesuits, guilty of no crime. (Hear.) In a dis-
patch from Lord Palmerston to the Marquis of Normanby,
of November 16, 1847, the noble lord said:—" It appears
to her Majesty's Government that the objections which the
Diet makes to the continuance of Jesuits in Switzerland,
are not destitute of good and reasonable foundation. The
society of the Jesuits must be looked at both in a religious
and in a political point of view." (Hear, hear.) In its re-
ligious character this society seeks to make war upon the
protestant religion. (A laugh.) What wonder, then, that
In a sniall country like Switzerland, where two-thirds of
the Population are Protestants, the introduction of such a
society should give rise to distinctions between Catholics
and Protestants, and should be viewed with aversion by
the majority of the people. Upon that ground it was
that the noble lord in effect advised the Diet to exter-
minate the Jesuits from Switzerland. But the Jesuits
Were to be established in the Catholic cantons, and in
strict accordance with the policy and opinions of the ma-
jority of the inhabitants. The noble lord recommended, in
fact, that the lay Catholics of the canton of Lucerne should
be shot, war waged upon them because they advocated
among themselves the maintenance of a body of emissaries
of their own faith, wh° were organised to make war upon
Protestantism. The Grand Duke of Tuscany said that the
emissaries of Protestantism were really emissaries of revo-
lution, and, taking the same ground as the noble lord the
were
s some
be e expelled lloepdini
t frmseooons
The
then Secretary for Foreign Affairs, he decided that these
persons ought to be punished in Tuscany, just as the noble
lord had decided that the Jesuits should
Switzerland. (Hear, hear.)
There
of the noble lord which also qualified him for the post
of defender of the Duke of Tuscany, and h
opinions would be found embodied in the correspondence
between himself and the Rev. Mr. Consul Pritchard, of
Tahiti. The facts connected with this case were, that after
labouring from 1797 down to the year 1835, the Independent
missionaries found themselves at the head of a community
more or less flourishing in the South Seas, the members of
which have been converted by the labours of the mission-
ariesfrom the worst form of Paganism to some description of
Christianity. The Rev. Mr. Pritchard, whose name had ob-
tained a world-wide celebrity, was appointed consul of the
island. In the year 1835 certain Roman Catholic mission-
aries went to the island, just in the same manner as foreign
agents had gone to Tuscany, for the purpose of proselytis-
ing the people to the Catholic religion. The vessels in
which the missionaries were had scarcely cast anchor,
when the reverend consul went aboard, and, when told
that there were Popish priests in the vessel, he departed
abruptly, stating that the Queen would not allow
them to land ; and they were compelled to return to
South America. In tho the following year several priests
landed ; their dwellings were attacked, their lives placed
, in jeopardy, and ultimately they were compelled by main
. / ' force to leave the island. The priests, however, found a
,French vessel sailing
,!' - --1 ' in those seas, and they claimed the
i ; ‘
.. .„. 4tirot.ection of the forces of their own country. Mr. Prit-
/
/;:-.7 / ..,... ) !_, . colic]. accordingly applied for advice to the Foreign-
-4.4,•„- 4,,,,, c 5,,,,, -,,, • ,
,ib, office, and stated that Queen Pomare was anxious to pre-
l' Y•' /,-.0,,-:,'(-*-1" VelltitomauCatholic4 from landing in the island. The noble
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