The Sun.
London, England, 1828-05-10 00:00:00

have been said by my Hon. and Learned Friend, to go
back to principles, which, I had hoped, might have been
allowed to be taken for granted. lam not one of those,
Sir, who are disposed to exalt temporary expediency over
principles, that are founded in truth, in justice, and expe-
rience. And when my Hon. and Learned Friend demands
what connection has a seat in Parliament with the free
profession of religion, I feel bound to ask in return, what
is religious liberty, and I know the answer that his own
truth and candour would suggest to my Hon. and Learned

Friend. lam aware that it would be impossible to give a
philological definition of religious liberty; bbt it is per-
fectly easy to give a practical description of it, that may
answer as a standard to which we might refer, with a
view of .ascertaining how, Much of this inestimable bless-
ing may be enjoyed by any particular class or na-
tion. And I, Sir, would say, that religious liberty consists
in that state of the common law which affixes no penalty
or disability—that _decrees no exclusion—or that attaches
no inferiority of any soft to a man for avowing his opi-
nions in matters of religion. Or, to say the same thing
more shortly religious liberty consists in that state of the
law, by which no man is legally the worse for his opinions
on religion—by which, whatever they may be, he may ex-
press them epenly, without drawing upon himself any mark
of public displeasure. For I say that all persons who are
subject to exclusion, not for civil disabilities, but on the
grounds of religion, are marked out by the public dis-
pleasure, because of the religion they profess. And lam
borne out in this assertion by the Hon. Member for Louth,
who declares that there is in this country a state of dis-
trust towards those who profess a certain religion. Now,
Sir, I say that every disability or disadvantage imposed

upon a man on account of his religion, that is not abso-
lutely and imperatively necessary for the public weal, and
for the preservation of the Constitution, is persecution—

rank persecution—and differs from an auto da je in
humanity, but not in principle. A man, Sir, who holds
the doctrine of exclusion on account of religious faith
_ _

may be restrained by humanity, by policy, by ;flame ; but
if he be consistent with himself, all he has to consider is
the weight of penalty and degree of punishment that
should be employed against those who dissent from the
Church by law established. But this, Sir, is not my
. . _

doctrine, nor is it the doctrine of one who has been

frequently mentioned in this House, anti whose name
has been much abused—l allude to my Lord Somers, and I

shall take the liberty of repeating his own words. Lord
Somers did not apply them to the Roman Catholics, but to
the Difienters, and I quote them with pleasure and pride on
this aulipicious day, when his Majesty has been graciously
pleased to consent to the most wise and paternal measure—
! mean to the restitution of their long-lint birthright to'
the Dissentets—a birthright which was never forfeited
through• any fault of their own.—(Great cheering.)—l
quote, Sir, the doctrine of Lord Somert not as applied
only to the Dissenters or to the Roman Catholics, but to
all mankind. He says the punishment of incapability is,
next to loss of life, the heaviest that can be inflicted ; for,
continues he, an Englishman cannot be reduced to any
more unhappy condition than that of being declared in-
capable of serving his Prince and his country, and nothing
but a crime of the meat detestable nature ought to put him
under the operation of so great and terrible a penalty.
This, Sir, is the opinion of Lord Somers, who was the
leader in that conference between the Houses of Parliament,

upon the question respecting the Conformity Bill, and who
was also supposed to be the author of the reasons assigned
in the protest that was inscribed upon the Journals of the
House of Lords. My Hon. and Learned Friend (the Soli-
citor-General) has spoken of the reign of William and
Mary, and of Charles If. as those in which the wisdom of
our ancestors was at the greatest; and he has argued that•
because Acts of exclusion were then passed, and because
the Catholic religien remains unchanged, that we should
not venture to repeal or alter any of those statutes : bat
this, Sir, is a mere' paralogy. lam myself as strongly
disposed as anybody can be to resist crude innovation, and
I feel a degree of mere than common reverence for the in-
stitutions of our ancestors, through affection for their
memory; but never was the phrase of the wisdom of our
ancestors applied with greater infelicity than to the degree
of judgment they exercised in the passing of their Test and
Corporation Acts, and their Penal Statutes. We may
talk of the. folly of our ancestors; that could only be
excused by their inexperience—we may talk of their delu-
sion, which could be only remedied by the progress of
reason ; but, for God's sake ! let us not, on this occasion,
and on this day, attempt to vaunt their wisdom. It isnot
more, Sir, than 250 years since the time of Elizabeth, that
illustrious and magnanimous Princess, when every State
punished dissent from the Church established, as a crime.
It is not 200 years since, in the time of James, two
Arians were put to death. And, Sir,

Iliaeos intra peccatur mums et extra.
We all know that in the days of Edward the Sixth, the
cradle of the Protestant was bathed in blood. We know,
Sir, that. Arians and Anabaptists were brought to the
scaffold and the stake under the auspices of Cranmer—a
man in many respects moat estimable and venerable, and
whose faults were less his own than those of the age in
which he lived. From that time I shall now come, Sir,
to the present, in which, though there are many intolerant
(for that is a vice of human nature), there are yet none
hardy enough to declare that they would directly inflict
punishment upon those who might differ from them in
their religious tenets. At this moment, Sir, .I am proud
and happy to observe all the Statesof civilizedEnropepro-
fess toleration, and the greater number of them practise
it.—(Hear.)—We have come to a time in which tolera-
tion has become religious liberty,• in that sense in.which I
have described it.—That no man should suffer in his civil
liberty in consequence of his religion, is the common law
of Europe, from the Pyrennees to:the:Alps, and from Arch-
angel to Kamchatka. The despotic Governments of
Russia and Austria come under this, and in all the various
States which form the Germanic Body, we see a Catholic.
In Saxony, which was the cradle of the Protestant reli-
gion, we see a Catholic Kiug governing with an equal
band his subjects, of whatever religious denomination. In
Bavaria we have also a Catholic King governing his Pro-
testant subjects in the same spirit, while. in Prussia there
is a Protestant King ruling in the same way a great body
of Catholic subjects. In the last Century, however, Eng.
land and Holland were the only countries in the world in
which there was toleration; and toleration was regarded
by them as a. badge of . civilization, and they were in the
habit of looking down upon other great and powerful
States as still in a state of comparative barbarism, because
they still continued to retain exclusive laws. Holland,
ruled as it is, by_ a descendant from the Illustrious House
of Nassau; is yet at this moment the most tolerant and best
governed State of Europe. And, Sir, I rejoice at this, on
English. Roman account of the ancient amity and alliance that has subsist-
ed between Holland and this country—
PenAatelasig"h)—but I
for the House of Hanover, that England should have fallen
I rejoice for the sake of the House ofth Natalssakun,ewanad Inroemgient
of civilization. I cannot say, Sir, if Sweden does, as has
into the rear, after having been once foremoswthoinretahreesemnarteeha
been stated, exclude Roman Catholics, who, by the way,
are not to be found iu her territorie3—(
can say with respect to Denmark,
DCaenthmolarickgaetnttlheismacno,uort,f Irish extraction,
knexewtracatnianE,n
there are no Protestants to
States; in which, though
Ca-
tholic, who represented her at the Court of the Nether-
lands. The presumption to be drawn from this, Sir, is,
that laws of exclusion art' not in force there : and if, ac-
cordingly, we search Europe, we shall find that intolerance
prevails
suffer from the operation of such laws. Where, then, Sir,
does intolerance exist ? In England and in Spain—in the
eerveaialsreonvlyeriynmathenyPiennfiindrisla,r
country of Locke, and in the country of Loyola—under the
Government of the House of Brunswick, and under the
Government (if indeed I may dignify it with the title) of
Ferdinand Vll.—(Cheering.) Thus, Sir, by being so in-
fatuated as to adhere to this misapplication of the wisdom
of our ancestors, by struggling blindly to preserve some
fragments, have we been brought to dishonour the power
of England, 'to endanger the integrity of the empire, to
encounter the risk of breaking the link that binds to us
the most precious members of that empire—ef shutting a
door that, until it be opened, there can be no hope of
improvement for Ireland--of treating the people of Ire-
land in the same way in which they have been so
long treated, and which they cannot continue to en-
dure for ever. Seven hundred and fifty years have
passed since the Anglo-Normans established themselves in
Ireland ; and during these seven hundred and fifty years
the Irish chiefs and people have been constantly stretclii
They
have been continually begging as a boon that which En-
gland has been so infatuated as to refuse, but which if ,e
knew .her own interest, she would implore theta to accept.
And what has been the consequence? Is it not that Ire-
hind, which ought to have been a pride, a blessing, and a
strength to-England, has been a shame, a weakness, and a
curse? Is it not that by a Jost retribution, s
nglap feels
the miseries she has inflicted, in divided coaric"—in a tot-
teringdistrust of public men—in
Government—in _
the weakness of each party—and in the difficulty of form-
ing a lasting coalition ? By and by she will feel it in a
;note vital part of the Constitution—she w
in will feel it in the
beggary of the humble and industrious portion of the com-
munity-,-she will feel it the influx of starving wretches
whom mismanagement and misrule fling daily and hourly
upon her shores—she, will feel it in the wretched compe-
tition, that, if the existing order of things be preserved,
must one day, and that no very distant day, take place he-