The Sun.
London, England, 1821-03-24 00:00:00

was not an object of suspliou. A course- was
taken that seemed opposed to all ordinary legisla-
tion., as a great security was demanded from the
innoxious, while the security exacted from the
object of,suspicion was limited and diminished.
De. PitlLLuttonz supported the clause. He
thought the objection to it hypocritical. He
begged permission of the House to reply to the
objections of the 'lon. Member for Oxford.. The
Catholics it was well known entertained doubts
as to the oath against supremacy, and it ap-
peared by various documents that Queen Eliza-
beth herself had qualified that oath to accord
with their conscience. The Learned Doctor
cited a letter frotn Dr. Sands to Dr. Parke, also
the 'Obserrations of Bishop Burnet, in support of
his. opinio;t.

- BFciirn was ready to make every allow-
ance for-the prejudices of those brought u? in
the' tenets of the Established Church ; yet he
not hut consider sufficient had been said
to 'satisfy every reasonable' mind. And the
Mouse should now consider that we had connect-
ed 'oars:lves with Ireland, and- were bound to
consult her iuferestS ; and nu one could say that
the _Catholic population did not
.form such a pro-
port!on of the-people of Ireland as to_call for our
peculiar consideration. NO one could contend
-1-m- a moment that the Catholic...Reliion was de-
caing in Ireland ; oa the contrary, it wa.s in-
creasing, and he -trusted the pyesent measure
-would pass, and would prove the first step in the
new system of Government in that heretofore mis-
governed . country, to which England owed so
much.

Mr. 13F,F,L • said that he should confine himself
-to this simple question, whether or not the clause
in question should stand part of the Bill. He
confessed that he felt a-serious difficulty with re-
spect to that-clause, to which he %cished to call
:the attention of the framers of the. Bill. • lie did
not-mean to urge this objection as fatal-to the
general principle. In• the -Bill of 1812. it had
been proposeo to reliete -the Catholics in &Man-
ner different from the present mode, and he saw
• no objection ;in the present instance to. qualify
• or, explain the, clause to which he objected
- Without affecting the other parts of the Bill.
—The difficulty with which he bad to contend
was, that the clause to which he• objected, in.!.
• stead of operating to the relief of Catholics, would
operate to the exclusion of conscientious Protes-
tants. The Protestants had hitherto been re-
• quired to take the Oath of Abjuration, deny-
ing -all spiritual interference of the Pope ; and
that oath had, since the Reformation, been re-
quired from protesta.nts as a -qualification for
clay but now a new policy was about to be intro-
duced, which acknowledged the, authority of the
Fopein spiritual matters.. .Thus every commu-
. nicittion with the See of Rome on matters of a
spiritual nature was legalised. In the. Act of
170 certain concessions were made, certain pri-
vileges granted to the Catholics; but in no single
instance were the Bishops. recognized by such a
title;. indeed in that very Act,- -which provided
for the education of the Catholics, the then Arch-
bishop of Ireland was simply designated the Rev.
Dr. O'Reilly, and the titular Archbishop of
Dublin was merely, in the same Act, termed Dr.
Troy. In the Act of 1782 (an Irish Act) it was
-expressly declared, that if any Roman Catholic
s:culd appear in the ecclesiastical symbols 'of
-4,i profession he should be deprived of all those
- privileges to which he would otherwise be entitled.
o. also in 1791, the English Act, in which
an Act of Charles 11. was expressly recognised,
every- order of the Clergy was mentioned, with
the, exception of Bishops; and therefore it ap-
peared to him to be the policy of the law to ex-
clude the title of Bishop; but if that clause
passed, it was permitted at once that the See of
home should interfere in all. spiritual matters,
and the title of Bishop was at once admitted;
aad might not a conscientious Protestant, who
bad denied the power of the Pope. to interfere in
spiritual matters, object, and justly, to such a
Last ? . He knew that he should be answered by
the remark, that this spiritual power had always
been left to the Pope, but be would show that the
spiritual power delegated by concurrence to the
Pepe., was of a totally different nature to that which
it was now proposed to confer upon him. The
authority of Archbishop Brumel had been cited
on the.other side, and though he, who was a Pro-
testant'Archbishop, alleged, that by the Oath of
Supremacy it was never intended to interfere
with -the Pope upon purely spiritual matters;
yet he -(Mr. Peel) was quite- willing, taking the
whole of the Archbishop's argument, to rest it-
upon his authority as to the cases in which it-
was meant .to exclude the power of the Pope.—
The .Archbishop stated three cases, the first,
which consisted of all power of ordination and
dispeosation, together with the administration of
the Sacraments, was a:lowed to the Pope. The
second, the power • of jurisdiction in Ebro con-
..soientia, was also left to the Pope-; but there'
vas a third, partly spiritual and partly political,
the power in externo foro, and upon that third
paint Bruinel rested what he considered to be
userpatlons upon die part of the See of Rome. He
admitted time power of the Pope to a certain ex-
tent ; but in many instances where it had been
exercised, he. denied it. With respect to the'
state of Canada, where the Catholic religion had
been established, the Act, guaranteeing to the
Canadians the exercise of their religion, directed,
that as there were in that country 10,000 persons,
to whom the _free exercise of their religion was
permitted by capitulation, the Episcopal func-
tions Were entrusted to certain Dignitaries of that
Church, but the.supremacy was reserved to the
King, and. the Canadians, ten years. afterwards,
in a petition presented to that House, admitted
that the interference of the Pope was quite un-
necessary... These were the objections avhich, oc-
curred to him against the present
.claims, and he
considered that,the proper time to urge them.

Lord CASTLEREAGH did -not rise to address
more than a few observations to the House. Ile
wished only, to. state -hi; opinion upon tho
clause, without: entering into- discussion upon
the latter part of the Bill. The clause then
under consideration only stated what was the
nature of, the test required by Parliament.—
It involved a mere question whether the pre-
sent teit wits the best Parliament could oh-