Star.
London, England, 1824-05-26 00:00:00

OFFICE TESTS.

The Marquis of LANSDOWN said, that in conse-
quence of what had transpired in the course of the de-
bate last night, he had alien to move for copies of the
oaths now taken by the Officers of the Excise and Cus-
toms, and also of the exceptions which had lately been
provided for no: taking such oaths which WC! e enacted
by the memorable Act of Charles the Second. lle al-
luded to the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, which
he understood had been for some time dispensed with
in the offices he had mentioned. Ile should therefore
move for an account of the oaths taken, or excused from
being taken, since 182'2, pursuant to the Acts of the 12th
and 15th of Charles 11.

The Earl of LIVERPOOL did not rise to oppose
the motion, but to explain how the question stood. By
the Act of Charles the Second, cap. 23. it was required
that all persons holding offices in the Excise should take
the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. In the course
of last year, when the consolidation of the Excise of the
two countries, that is to say, England and lteland, took
place, the provisions of the Act of Charles the Second
had creased great alarm in Ireland, as, horn the ex-
change of Custom House Officers, it was considered a
great hardship for the Irish who happened to be trans-
planted here, that they wete unable to take the oaths
there prescribed. The consequence was that arrange-
ments were made between his Right Honourable Friend
the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Cominissioners
of Customs, that certain oaths should for the time being
be dispensed with, respecting persons so coining over
to this country from Ireland. In point of tact, how-
ever, a new clause had been introduced to that effect
into the Act of Indemnity which passed both houses
thin year; but as this provision was not so sati.,factory
as might be wished, he had given directions to prepare
a specific Act, which he hoped in the course of a very
low days to be able to lay on the table of the House.
The Marquis of LANSDO\VN was not aware that
an al:era:km had been introduced into the Act of la-
cier:init.. which passed this year.
The Earl of LIVERPOOL, In explanation, observed,
that there was no alteratian in the Act of Indemnity
generally ; but a clause had certainly been introduced
inderenifiag certain officers of the Excise in the
event of their not taking the oaths in question up to the
given time.
Lord KING hoped that the measure now mentioned 1
by the Noble Eat 1 opposite MO been submitted to the
Noble and Lear Lord on the Wn‘lsack, and that his
sanction had been obtained to it. He formerly thought
that wleniever a Bill was brought in by the. First Lord
of the Treasury, or even when sanctioned by him, it
was sure to pass that House; but after the experience
of last night, he hardly knew what to think. It ap-
peared that the centre ;.:1 gravity, and the centre of sus-
pension could not always coincide. Ile remembered
when a Noble and Learned Lord vaunted of a giant re-1
freshed in his strength ; nerhaps he had been refreshed
by two victories, for tae same scene was acted over '
egeill. The most wily polirciae of termer times was
Sall to assemble Parliameet by the stroke of his pen,
acct to disperse it be the breath of his nostrils; so per-
haps tine Noble and Learned Lord upon tee Woolsack,
who had got the Ministry together of a stroke of iris
pen, might so thorn with the b:eatl rf his mouth.
Viscount Cleil:DEN was (vim coavinced that the
day was fist eperoachine when not only the appeirie.
meats to the Excise, and as Justices of the Peace, but
els) the Bench and Privy Cenncil, must be given up

to the rightful claims of his Majesty's Roman Catholic
subjects. They amounted, he believed. to a population
of fAXX) in England and to 6,000.000 in Ireland. The'
proposed
inhabiting. the west
rejection of the Bills se_ .ASt nicht was a direct
insult to a very large
exposed part of the empire ; but Ire word.? hot go with
the suhject row, though the Corperation Test Act, and.
the decantation that it required, were not only an insult
to those taking and subscribing, but a mass of lien far
he could call it nothing che. It treated his' ajesty's
Roman Catholic subjects as persons who disregarded all
oath c, aod were not to be believed upon their oaths;
and yet their Lordships knew, and it was notoriously
known lino. ii thing brit the repugnance of Roman
Catholics to take certain oaths debatred them from ac-
cepting of no merote3 offices, and rising, as they were
,entatten to do by their loyalty nod bravery, in the social
scale. Tare day would come. he must repeat it, when
their Lordships would erase from the Statute Books the
Acts row contended for, and when Catholics would be
placed on the ,same footing as Protestants. \\*henever
war again broke out, and war must come sooner or later,
for the Holy Alliance was ci umbling into atoms, if the
privileges they claimed were not c.:nceded to the
tholics, the empire would be shaken to its fouudation.
The Earl of DARNLEY thought that linistcts had
not shown much respect to Parliament by endeavouring
to smuggle a new clause, for their own purposes, into
,In Annual Act, passed as a matter of Inrin, without the
least exarninatiun or sospicion. Ile hoped that in future
their Lordships would be more careful in passing such
Bilk as if they were matters of course. .•
Lord HOLLAND could ;let help expressinglis sur-
prise, that the Noble Friends he had the pleasute to see
around him had not detected the clause now first intro•
duced in au Animal Act, though, perhaps, the unsus-
pecting confidence of his Noble Friends, even in Minis-
ter:, had not prepared them to expect such a miser-
able pap ; but he could not help expressing his •sur-
pi,e, that the Noble and Learned heads of the law,
and religious heads of the Church, (and he could not
help that not one of those heads were present), should
nave omitted to notice so ominous a clause to both
Chinch and State, and so surreptitiously introduced into
die Indemnity Act, but not by any arch fiend—not by
any oppugner of the doctrines cf the Established Church
—not by any traitorous conspirator against Govern-
ment, but by whom ?—why, patticulatly by his Ma-
jesty's Ministers; and 'so introduced, he nots:7 presume,
not without the knowledge, but wi:h the sancti'n of the
Nohle and Learned Lord on the Woolsack. Ministers
had done that covertly, f'.r which James the. Second
was Expelled from-the throne of this countre, be-
icause he did the same thing openir. There were
'matters in policy that puzzled him extremely; when
be looked at the whole state of the troose, it was
as difficult to find what was the strength of the House
as to decide the difference between soul and body..
Sometimes he had thought, when he looked to the No-
ble Earl opposite, thiit the strength of the House lay in
the brains of the House; then again he had thought
that the strength of the House lay in the benches of the
opposite side ; then again it might be cenjectured.to lie
in the_midd:e of the House; and at length the strength
of the House might be traced to the stove of the House,
which, by some improvement (and few improvements
could suiprise their Lordships in the present age) might
he empowered to count noses, which operation for any
thing their Lordships saw, might be sufficient for the
business of the House. All this, however, was difficult
to be understood by his Noble Friends; it might be di-
verting, and probably it was so to some wicked people
out of doors, but it could be no diversion to the Noble
Earl oppOsite. Exercises in kicking might, for instance,
be amusing ..to lookers-on, but then certainly it never
could be an agreeable spectactelont to those who were so
kicked, whether in the morning or the evening. What,
however, to return to the question, had now become of
the boasted oath (a. supremacy ? it had been
evaded and disperned with, an.] therefore the result was
,plainly that their Lordships ought to place the whole le-
gislation on one footing. The present was a system of
anomalies, and into such anomalies their Lordships must
always fall when proCeeding in such matters with an
unchristian feeling, and not laying the correcting axe to
the corrupting root. What were they doing but saying,
I am dressed up in a little brief authmity, I enjoy toy
opinkins, and will shut out every man whoa dates to
d.ffer with me? Was this at all language that befitted
the dignity of their Lordships, or likely to satisfy :the
people of this country ? Let his Majesty's Ministers
pursue a plain, bold, and open course ; let there be no
vacillation in matters of such moment; let them do one

thing or the other; but let them do it decidedly, if ne-
cessary to be done, with credit to themselves, and satis-
faction to others. •
The Eatl of LIVERPOOL said, that it appeared to
him that the Noble Baron (Holland) had mistaken the
question at issue. It bad been the unit rm practice of
Parliament, fur a century past, to indetim:fy those per.
sons who had abstained horn taking the Sacrament ac-
cording to the ritei of the Church ol Laiglandl and cer-
tain oaths on the acceptance of official situations; but
•
it •happened, by some inadvertency, that whilst all
other Acts were included in the annual Act of Indem-
nity, that of Chat les H. had been omitted. This was
not, therefore, an innovation, but rather an extension
of that power which ought to have beea introduced in
the first instance. At the same time,• he would admit
that it was proper a more uniform law sl.ould be intro-
duced; and especially where, by the action of Conso-
lidated Customs, there must necessatily bean exchange
of the officers as it re pected ho:h ct:untriec.
Lord HOLLAND was sufficiently well aware of the
complex state of the,Revenue Sta-v ice (encumbered as
its officers were with the administrati,,n of the Oath of
Allegiance, the Oath of Supremacy, aii. tillaucprodnmesnutcahl
(
Test); and als6 of the once taint).
subjects, to make due allowances for the conduct-
of
Government on this occasion. Fear 01. the protestint
Di
isselleirtcet now
wisisld
scrupled as
how astolt‘aklig. the requisite oaths;
but
ssear4V,ei*
II:,
nor i
01 they ereitc.ii
th re!
their Lordships
; and. tiiiluisc
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pit, *.utill)siteicll:ll,llaiestarlAp4iii..t
1
l%);l"treidr ttlit;y,tieLlarlittolgalldil)Cl/1111i;(1/'rii:11:eerolliteitileC:lalAnw.'e7srei.wslbffi°101ee.'
sent... . Now the negative of this

iwww-
sure to the friends of the Noble Earl opposite, or else,
on the other hand, the enactments for which the Noble
Earl's friends contended, were not essential to the safety
of the State. He had always heard that the incapacity
of serving his King and country, in any way or station,
was regarded as the severest of all penalties, and ought
never to be inflicted on any not guilty of the most de-
testable crimes. He knew of no crime perpetrated by
• the Roman Catholics of this country, and therefore
their exclusion from office was most disgusting to him ;
it was, in reality, a crying sin of injustice on their Lord-
ships part. He never could understand how, after all,
the newly-introduced clause, in the annual Act of In-
demnity, could indemnify those Commissioners who ad-
mitted the holding of places by Papists ; and if any
thing were attempted, let it be done openly. For the
purpose of ascertaining the practice that had lately been
adopted, and also for the purpose of enabling their
Lordships to legislate on the subject, he must persist in
- calling for that information which had been moved to
be laid before their Lordships by his Noble Fiiend.
The Earl of ROSSLYN said, that the Indemnity
Act allowed a latitude of swearing, in this instance, to
holders of office up to the 25th of March, 1825, on the'
condition of their taking the qualificatory oaths within;,
the year; but he apprehended there was no protection'
to the Commissioners in administering or permitting
the oaths.
Earl BATHURST postponed the Committee on the
Newfoundland Marriages Bill to Friday ; and at nearly
Seven o'Clock the House adjourned till to-morrow
morning at ten.