the country, not only the property of his securities, but even any estates he himself might leave behind him might be free, as the debt must merge in the felony. Sir Samuel Romilly said, that this, which was indeed a great objection, might be obviated by leaving out the word felony. So thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The bill, with this and some other amendments, was passed. K 2 CHAP. CHAP. VIII. Mr. Brand's Motion for Parliamentary Reform negatived.-Mr. Grattan's Motion for a Committee on the Catholic Petitions.-Debated— Negatived-A Motion to the same Effect in the House of Lords, by the Earl of Donoughmore, negatived.-Measures adopted by the Legislature for Conciliating the Attachment of the Irish Nation.-Motion by Sir Samuel Romilly for bringing under the Consideration of the House of Commons some Parts of the Criminal Law of this Country-Agreed to, and leave given to bring in a Bill for that Purpose.-Objections to the Bill. -Debates.-The Bill rejected-Motion by Sir Samuel Romilly for carrying into Execution the Acts already passed for the Erection of Penitentiary Houses, for confining and employing Convicts.-The Principle of this System approved, but some Time required for complete Information on the Subject.-Debates on the necessity of Delay.-Sir Samuel Romilly's Motion withdrawn for the present.-Vexatious Arrests Bill.— Insolvent Debtors Bill.-Scotch Judicature Bill-State of the Slave Trade.-Address to His Majesty for his using his Influence with Foreign Powers, and the Execution of the Laws in this Country for the effectual Abolition of that Commerce.-Relief of the Poor Clergy in Scotland, and in England.-Motion by the Marquis of Lansdown, relative to the Campaign in Spain.-And by Earl Grey on the State of the Nation. H% TOUSE of Commons, May 21. Mr. Brand rose to submit to the consideration of the house the motion, of which he had given notice, respecting parliamentary reform. Having represented the evils resulting from the present state of representation, rotten boroughs under the power of individual proprietors, very opulent and populous places sending no representatives to parliament whatever, &c. &c. he came to propose a remedy, which, he observed, was pointed out by the constitution; of which remedy, or plan of reform, the principal features were the following. He did not mean to touch the right of voting for county members, except by letting in copyholders, and assimilating the mode of voting in Scotland to the practice in this country. He proposed to disfranchise the boroughs, in which the members were returned on the nomination of individuals and as the numbers in the House of Commons would be diminished in that proportion, to transfer the right of returning such members to populous towns, and to apply any surplus to populous counties. He recommended that the duration of parliament should be made triennial, with a concurrent arrangement for collecting the votes by districts and parishes. He did not think that all persons holding offices should be excluded from that house, house, but ascertained that, with a view to the independence of parliament, persons holding offices without responsibllity should not be suffered to have seats in that house. On these grounds he brought forward his present motion; and he trusted the house would give it all the attention it deserved. Of one thing he was sare, that they must either have a temperate reform, or a military government. However partial he might be to his own plan, his inteation was, in the first instance, to move for a committee, in which it might undergo a vigilant revision, and he would have an opportunity of adopting any amendments that might be recommended. He concluded by moving, "That a Committee be appointed to inquire into the state of the representation of the people in parliament, and of the most efficacious means of rendering it more complete, and to report the same, with their observations thereupon, to the house. After a long debate, in which the usual arguments were urged pro and con, the motion was lost by a great majority. Ayes, 115; Noes, 234. Before the question was put, Mr. Brand, after replying to certain arguments against his plan, declared, that whatever the fate of Lis motion might be, on the present occasion, he should think it his duty to bring it forward again and again. Another great standing question was submitted to the House of Commons on the 13th of May; when a motion was made by Mr. Grattan, for a committee to consider the Roman catholic petitions. He stated his intention to rest his motion on two grounds, the domestic nomination of catholic bishops, and the civil capacities of the Irish catholics.-Mr. Grattan on this, as on former occasions of discussing the same, or other great questions, displayed the utmost precision and subtlety of argument, energy of language, and sublimity of eloquence. He is the most accomplished English orator within the memory of the present age: the great Earl of Chatham not excepted. He is clear, concise, fervent, and rapid. He gives edge to his speeches by metaphysical acumen, and sublimity by the stores of learning; and above all by connecting the affairs of earth with the laws and providence of heaven. His speech, on the present occasion, was well arranged, and animated throughout; the following are a few specimens. The charges against catholics, that they hold the doctrine of no faith with heretics; that the Pope is infallible, and has a power to absolve from moral obligation, &c. &c. &c. he refuted by three ar guments, the last of which was, that the truth of the charges was impossible. "For," said Mr. Grattan, "they amount to a criminality which would have rendered the catholic incapable of civil government, or foreign relationship. It amounts to a transfer of allegiance, and a dissolution of the elements of human society. The existence of society and of government in catholic nations, is the practical answer. But there is another answer more authoritative and conclusive. The charge is irreconcileable to the truth of the Christian religion. It supposes the the catholic to be more depraved than the pagan or idolater. But the catholics are by far the majority of the Christians. It would follow that the majority of the worshippers of Christ are worse than the worshippers of Jove or of Mahomet. But this is not all. They are, according to this charge, rendered thus execrable by their religion. It would follow that the design of Christianity had been defeated; that Omniscience had been blind, Omnipotence baffled; and that what we call redemption, was the increase of sin, and decrease of salvation. That is to say that the Christian religion is not divine.". "What, have you taken away the Irish parliament, and then do you tell the Irish catholics that by the fundamental laws of the land they must be excluded from yours? Did Mr. Pitt, when he held out the well-known expectations to the catholics? Did his cabinet?-Come, let us examine the laws alluded to: the declaration of right, and the limitation of the descent of the crown. I bow to these sacred instruments. The declaration of rights is a modest document of intelligible liberty, founded on two great propositions, first, that civil and religious liberty is the inheritance of the people; second, that the violation of this inheritance is a forfeiture of the crown. I see here no catholic disability.-We will send for the other great instrument, the limitation of the crown. It is a limitation of the crown to certain descriptions of persons being protestants, in consequence of a forfeiture by the preceding family incurred for the attempt to take from the subject his civil and religious liberty. The opponents of the catholics suppose that the words " being protestants," import not merely that no catholic should be a king, but that no catholic should be a free subject: that the catholics being readered incapable of the crown, were rendered incapable of enjoying civil capacities. This interpretation I submit to be inadmissible. It raises a code of inability by implication. It confounds two powers which are essentially distinct: the power of limitting the descent of the crown, and a power of destroying the inheritance of the people. It makes the act of settlenent, with regard to the catholic and his posterity, commit the very violation for which it deprives the house of Stuart of the throne, and at once transfers his alle giance, and takes away his birthright. "With regard to the objection to the catholic claims, founded in the oath of the king, to preserve the protestant reformed religion as by law established,' the comment of the anti-catholics, is, that by law established is meant law not to be altered, and that any alteration of that law, to favour the catholic, would endanger the protestant church. This interpretation, in every shape and reference, I hold to be destitute of reason and justice. It supposes the king to be sworn in his legislative capacity, which is a false supposition. It supposes the oath of the king to be intended as a check on the advice of his two houses of parliament, another false supposition. It supposes the laws regarding the different religions in these coun tries to be irrevocable. A provision in a statute that a law should not be repealed, is void. The legislature has not the power to make it. The comment inverts the order of things. It makes rights revocable and penalties everlasting. Farther, this comment takes from the jurisdiction of parliament the whole code of Jaws respecting the different religiens that exist in the kingdom, and, of course, disinherits the 'egislature of its supreme power. Further still, it supposes the protestant church to rest on pains and penalties inflicted on the professors of another religion: that is to say, it rests the word of God on an act of power, and makes what is a sadal to religion the support of the church. And, finally, it supposes the chief magistrate to have made a covenant against the civil Iberties of a great portion of his subjects, and to have called on his God to witness the horrid obliga great purchases since 1778, founded on protestant titles; and the catholic tenantry hold under protestant landlords to a very great extent. The bulk of catholic property depends on protestant titles. The danger alleged arises, then, from two impossibilities. First, that the catholics will be the parliament. Secondly, that they will, then, use their power to destroy their property.-As to the danger of religion, to disfranchise the catholics, for the support of the church, is a proposition in breach of a moral duty against the people by whom the church is paid, and the principles of that religion for which the church is supported. It is a proposition that sacritices to the imaginary danger of the ecclesiastical establishment, not only the people, but the Deity- that is, the attributes of the Deity; and supposes that holy and pious corporation, the church establishment, to do what it could not conceive, much less perpetrate, to shoulder "We are told that the catho- God out of the church, and the lics do most ardently desire situa- people out of the constitution. tions in the parliament, and in the Let us try the sanctity of this policy state; and that they would use by making it part of our pravers, both, to overturn the settlements and to suppose a clergyman thus of property, and the establishment to recite the Christian duties: of the church. I do allow self-Do as you would be done by, defence to be a legitimate cause of love your enemies, love your restriction; but the danger must neighbours as yourselves, and so be evident. Ere that the catholics may God incline your hearts to can, by a law, repeal the settlement love one another.' of property, they must be the parliament. Supposing them, in spite of all difficulties, to have become the parliament, how would that parliament act on property? First, that parliament must possess the property of the country, otherwise it could not be the parliament. Again, the catholics have made tion. 66 Bigotry is now no more than a spent fury. In 1709, you set up the popedom. In 1791, you established popedom in the North of America. In 1803, you conveyed the catholic religion, with all its rites and ceremonies, to South America. In 1909, you sent to Spain and Portugal two armies, to support |