The Sun.
London, England, 1847-04-15 00:00:00

ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIEF.

An lioN. MEMBER also presented several petitions in
Favour of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill.

Petitions were presented in favour of the Bill, by Mr.
B. Escott, from several places in th• counties of War-
wickshire, Northamptonshire, Southampton, and other
places ; by Lord J. Manners, from Mel on Mowbray,
Lincoln, Birmingham, Penzance, Manchester, Salford,

lath, Atherton, Knaresborough, several places in the
county of Staffordshire, and numerous other places; and
by the Earl of Arundel and Surrey nineteen petitions.
Petitions against the Bill were presented by Mr. Fee-
rand from Pembri,ke, trim the city of London, the
parishes (if Chelsea, St. Andrew's, Holborn, from various
metropolitan parishes, from the city of York, from
Dorset, and various places in the counties of Kent and
Essex, and from the city of Ripon • by Mr. Spooner
thirteen petitions ; by Ste R. 11. Inglis, nine petitions,
and by Mr. Islewilegate.
AGRICULTURAL TENANT RIGHT BILL.

Mr. CHRISTOPHER gave notice that be would,
A hen this Ball was brought before the House, present a
petition against it, and also move that the !louse do
resolve itself into a Committee on the Bill that day six
months.

CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL.
On the order of the day being read for going into
Committee on this Bill,
Sir It. H. INGLIS said, that when he recollected how
often the House had rejected the measure, and that it
was rejected iu the last session by a majority of 120 to
80, he thought that the most fastidious Member would
not accuse him of giving unnecessary trouble to the
House when he asked the H0u,,0 to rescind the decision
to which it had arrived upon the measure a short time
since, and rtturn to the sound principle upon which it
had acted last session. When he considered the immense
importance of the principles involved in this measure he
trusted that he had still less reason to apologise to the

House for intimating thus early his intention of again
taking the sense of the House upon this question. He
believed the present was one of a series of measures
having a direct tendency to unprotestantize the consti
tutien of England, and to degrade its Church.—(Hear,
hear.) It was not oily a question affecting the Church
of Englaed, but one which, in his opinion, struck deep
at the P. otestantism of the country. lie was perfectly
ready to acquit the Hon. and Learned Member fur Kin-
sale (Mr. 1e atson) of an 3 intention to bring about this
disastrous state of things. He was aware that the Hon.
Member (Mr. Watson) had introduced several clauses to
avert the oppwitioe to this me.isure ,• but these clauses
ref.rred only to the latter portion of the Bill, and left
wholly untouched the great objections to it. They did
not so far chunee or medify its character sa to
justify him (Sir R. highs) in relaxing his Opposition to
it. He considered that Englat.d was a Protestant state
and empire, and the Bill under consideration had for its
object the complete destruction of that character. Now
he asked the law advisers of the Crown to lend him
their attention, while he showed that it would have the
effect of endangering the security of the Protestant
Church in this country. Now the point to which he
wished to direct their attention was, that it would repeal
the 30tH of the Act of Charles 11., and also the Act
passed in the second session of the same year. This
Act made it imperative on all the Members of the Le-
gislature and upon the Sovereign to make a declaration
to maintain the Protestant Church in this country in all
its integrity. Now by the Relief Act passed in 1829,
the declaration, as far as regarded the Members of the
Legislature, was partially repealed; but the declaration,
as far as retarded the Sovereign of these realms, was
left untouched. It was necessary that every monarch,
on accession to the throne, should make this declaration,
and he believed that many of them had witnessed
the present most gracious Sovereign making it.
But if this Act of the 30th Charles 11. were wholly re-
pealed, he would ask what would remain for the Bill of
Rights to cork upon? He believed it would become
wholly nugatory. sow, let the House recollect that
that declaration was the testimony of the nation
against the Catholic religion, anti was the foundation on
which the cl sim of the House of Hanover to the throne
.f these realms rested. If this Bill, therefore,
passed, the Bill of Rights would become nugatory,
and the security of the Established religion endangered.
The lion. Member here recut(' the declaration of the
30th of Chart, s IL, and asked the Hon. Member (Mr.
1 arson) whet:,er this 8.11 would not shake that by
which it was secured that this country should alwa)s re-
main Protestant. lie admitted that the Bill was improved
as compared with that of last session, but still there was
nothing intro :uced into it which could reconcile him to
the dangerous principles which it sought to 1. galise.
He considered this as one of a series of aggressive
measures which had been passed during the last fifty
years. If he uttered haish language against Roman
Catholics he could only say that he regretted the
necessity which compelled him to do so. There
were many li,,•man Catholics for whom in private
life he entertained the hie.hest respect; but in the dis-
charge of what he considered a public duty, he could
nit retrain, even in their presence, from making state-
ments which might not be quite palatable to them. He
regarded the Church of Rome to have been for three
centuries the inexorable, the unchangeable enemy of
Protestantism—of Protestantism in this country—the
unchangeable foe of the Church of England, and he
challenged any one to contest this point with him—
that so far as hostility to httestantism was concerned,
the Roman Catholics had not changed—had not abated
one iota for the last three centuries. He admitted that
there had been times when the pretensions of the Church
of Rome had been allowed to conveniently sleep,
but they had invariably awoke to greater
vigour than before; and yet in 1829 many
good easy men held that the danger of the
Church of Rome only existed in the wild fanaticism of
some few Protestants. But he asked if during the last
fifty years the pretensions of the Church of Rome had
not proved as vigorous and as practical as at any former
period ? He asked the Honourable Member who in-
troduced the Bill, if in 1783 it would have been con-
ceived possible that any Pope or Prelate would have ab-
solved She subjects of the King of France from their alle-
giance, and transferred that allegiance? Could more have
been done in the sixteenth century,and was more done?
It was done in the sixteenth century by Pope Pius V.,
who was canonized and made a saint. Similar
things were done between 1783 and 1810, and the
services of that Pope and Gregory VII. it appeared at this
day were treated as great deeds, and were appearing in
reviving strength and vigour; and he, therefore, con-
tended that until they had something more than the
wish of a Member of that House—something more than
his assuraece that the Roman Catholics had changed,
and that it was no longer the lion but
the lamb—until he found that they had
forgone the claims which were thundered forth in the
Vatican by both these Popes, and that they had no arms
in their arsenal readyesthoiotbr
euelsdedninrteoctpt eteidopn.e as
etwnatthsteohfisernlsdyt
ufnuornt
hv ee ;
cnoi enncte
ion.
E opportunity,
veii
model for Popes; bhtutiet where was the liberality clPaimase3
notrs awlhteicrhed
ffay
,n
measuresfor him
of
whenhisheprehaaedcessodof the
a
etevsetnanl•ithsttinr)amwhn the
avin law which prevented
other
religious bodies? Why, this most liberal
Pope had not
prevented English Pro-
s pl.ce of worship in his "eternal
•y
t ff.....
01 . (Hear, hear.) Then again' had the House for-
gotten the conduct of the Jesuits in France,
Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium ?—(bear.
hear.) He heard a cheer from a Noble Lord
with whom he had the misfortune to differ,
but did he mean by that cheer to deny that the Jesuits
had not disturbed the pun, peace of France, Switzer
land, Germany, or rirdgium ? Did he forget the con-
duct of the Jesuits in Louvain, and that they had almost
gained that kingdom to themselves ? And yet it was