The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-11-16 00:00:00

THE OATH OF SUPREMACY.

(From the Standard)
A case of great delicacy and of no less importan
likely to offer itself at the assembling of Parlitnyc'a
More than one or two noble lords have expressed tad
doubts as to the safety of taking the oath of suPre!lol
in the actual state of the law as illustrated by the prftd
of the executive. By the oath of supremacy, Pro"-;,00
peers and Protestant members of the House of Con'''sier,
are required to swear that "the Pope bath no 11°,
authority, jurisdiction or superiority, ecelesia-li,l'a'are
spiritual, within these realms." This oath must he '7l
by every Protestant peer and member of the floe'ar
Commons, and, being Protestant=, they will of
swear (as by law they are required to do) "
the common meaning and acceptation of the words "1.,i0
equivocatiou or mental reservation." New the 911
is, can any Protestant unequivocally deny upon
that the Pope "has any power, authority, or jurisdnod
wi Ifn this realm ?" While the power of the Porecoo'
his delegates was exercised in defiance of law and in oth
tempt of the authority of the crown, ire n taking the 001
might satisfy their consciences by the i on ideration,o6
what is not done lawfully may be regarded as notbit
and even this was a plea approaching to casuistrY:,
how can any
one solemnly swear that the Pope
y, or .superiority in this realm, 0111::1
power, authority, or
law r3cognises his ecclesiastical appointments and 000'
ecutive admits his titles of nobility ? In the Act `lie'
mostly called the Charitable Bequests Act, 7 and 13. Hpf
chap. 97, sections 15, 17, and 18, recogniSe arclibis' 0
and bishops in holy orders of the Church of ROI 0
such; sec. 2 of the same Act 'empowers the (Rues'"
council to appoint ten commissioners. cle
This power the Queen exercises by appointineurvrol,
her sign manual, among others Archbishop Nuf tb.
as such archbishop (which is plainly an recognition
Pope's authority), and places this Archbishop Aluril'oret
order of precedence above the Earl. of Donotlfititic,it
plain recognition of the Pope's superiority. But olgr
eo
not a mere barren concession, which might be regatta.
as a slip in the copyist of the instrument hearing I:e.. :„10
jesty's sign manual, for the Earl of Clarendon exf,lb; the
addressing the Romanist bishops as ' My Lord,'
terms of the Act referred to, and by the preeedereall
to an archbishop of the Pope's creation before a'
the creation of the sovereigns ef these count "weft
The activity, as
.well as the existence of
authority, or jurisdiction, and superiority" of -
b the '5
Rome "in this realm," is further illustrated I 7
the niatt'
triumph given to Mr. Archbishop M'Hale •,, or
of the provincial colleges. By the Pope's commanst.e,
gested by M'Hale, Dr. Murray has been compe.ll,;,o
withdraw froth his seat at the Education Boardri:
the
thet;,3
what conscientious man, wills these facts before
safely swear that the Pope has no power. authority, .1, 2,
diction, or superiority in this realm? We prescribe t('#
man's conscience, but we confess for ourselves, that 4
should long hesitate before taking the oath of suprcalro
under such circumstances. We can assure our resio‘e6
that this is not a crotchet of our raising—on the °Poi
hand, many noblemen and members of the new 1-louFe,b
Commons have been for some time meditating
difficulty with painful anxiety.

ARCTIC EXPEDITION OF DR. RA$•

(From the uardian
Whoever will take the trouble to cast.)
his eye over
iht
modern map of North America, will see the line,e!if
northern coast distinctly marked out from Bee,rliotv
Strait eastward, to nearly the 90th meridian of Nve"coir
gitude. Here the line will begin to fail him. The
tinuous margin sinks away into broken indications' ill
peninsula, abutting from a blank, a coast line rib.ruftoE
ceasing, a few traces here and there, at first in bestoi
intervals, and finally breaking up into a dotted 'line, :cite
to show that we have passed the boundaries of certsioil
and are once more in the regions of the unknesclig
imaginative—the Ilyperboreaus of modern geogly,',o-'
These are fife last strongholds of Fancy, the fl
fortalices of her invaded territory. Cold, bleak, deF°.tioo
and tenantless, they form no inapt emblem of her Po,setil
in this fact-seeking and investigating age. And b 8
these dreary realms are grudged to her sway; incept"
inch, before the slow though certain advance of ber.
mies, she has been driven further within the polar c;t
Thirty years ago, no map could have presented the.t.'d
line of which we have already spoken between Bell or
Straits and the Committee Islands—a line of many ;0/
dred miles. There was, indeed, a vague rumour 0' 01
Mackenzie had cherished a hesitating Lope that it
e
ice which eh:vedhb their
tuchht ibsn travels.eloacwkei 1817,dAi lthtlieeb however,eastern
existencegaz ed nt of
ait polar
throughseareporthad formed rr imnonofegrd'atshtgreat
Straits;
northern
movement
aebonorotnukienenat'Aitgpol
Acoisasytetoll;
more set on foot the long-cherished but long-neglea,
idea of a north-west passage to the Pacific. Ross, l'ate
Franklin, soon became names little inferior in notori
to Baffin, Davis, and Hudson. Before the close of losi
the long line of northern coast, as far eastward t&r,
Castor and Pollux river, and Dease and Simpsonv-
f
pui
thest point, had become the legitimate property °
Atlas. .
iGstryeeannlaanrdc°o:!
Further to the east. however, all was yet nue
An interval of about 10 degrees still separated tiletiotO
boundaries of the known world. Successive expeoLri,
had thrown a shadowy light over this interval. 'ref
tracts of land were known to exist north of the ge°,4
direction of the coast line ; but whether these fortel
peninsula, connected by some narrow isthmus with, t)
main land, or whether they constituted some vast
or collection of islands—the Australia and Oceania 0 g
northern hemisphere—was a point still open to the,oi
eussion of theorists and the discovery of navigators. 'Ol
point has been for ever closed by Dr. Rae's report.„4l
a laborious coasting journey, he has placed it ber)'se
doubt, that Boothia Felix, and consequently North oil
merset, and therefore probably the land over 01,04
Melville Island, compose a vast continent, co.no,eti
with the main land of North America by a narrow :'t
of land, much in the same way as that continent is 1'
connected with its southern comement.
A glance at the map will slow the importance 0f rer
discovery. It closes one posFible channel of the 0° 01
west passage. Two entrances seemed to lie open t!',ol
Polar Seas. Davis' Strait conducted through 13n4'
Bay into Lancaster Sound and Barrow's Strait ;
thence along Parry's first route to Melville Island.
however, the sea had been found apparently imPl'acir
ble ; and the latitude being far above that of the long pi
of explored coast, there could be no well-known caPC,IOOI
familiar bay to look for, no prospect of a sudden junco
which might at once reward and terminate the lahoer:eli
the explorers. A far more tempting prospect was,'"oll.
out by the more southerly route down the Boothia vO/4
whether entered from Barrow's Strait, through Frl`
Regent's Inlet, or by the more direct though more *!.,,40'
gerous straits of Hudson, and the Fury and heels. dap'
pine minds could not but hope for an open sea cooe,
ing this gulf with the strait discovered by Sirapsoll
Deese, in 1839, and bearing their name. Dr. Rae, ‘Ol
shown that no such sea exists ; that the gulf and
strait are separated by a barrier of solid land.
Such is the general issue of his expedition. Its ai,
are as yet scarcely discernible .in his brief report.
we can see little more than that the usual hardsla.'o#
the northern discoverer were encountered with the vl4,
manfulness, and vanquished by the usual perseverPv,io
Nothing, however, of the terrible sufferings of CaP tbt
Franklin's expeditions meets our eye. Through •°D'
provident care and constant watchfulness of their P"„e,
pal, the party, though often on short allowance, ogle
seldem to have been actually in distress for food. f
indeed, is sufficiently evinced by the fact that the?,
turned to Fort Churchill with eight bags of pentol
and four hundredweight of flour still remaining. ' ilu
The toil and delay of' a long voyage 'round *Jot'
Peninsula, and through the I"nry and Hecla Strait'hoi
aveided by the classical expedient 'of dragging the
across the isthmus from the innermost cove of Itert,oo
Bay. The whole distance was fort.), miles, but for ss°,
thirty-five of these their labour was lightened by 9or
cession of lskes and rivers, which enabled them to ,
the boats. The arctic sea thus attained,' Dr. Rae
corded to explore first westwards, and then ea;twarde'
he had succeeded in tracing the whole line of coast Ile'
connects Boothia Felix with the southern shore
Fury and Heels Straits, The whole time emploYC '
something more than a year. The erpt.dition
Churchill, in.litlson's Bay,. on the sth of July,
and returned on the 6tli of September, 1847. •

Noy.

1N47.