Lord Beauchamp's act (which was previous to this bill, and intended to feel the way for it) has already preserved liberty to thousands; and though it is not three years fince the laft act of grace paffed, yet by Mr. Howard's last account, there were near three thousand again in jail. I cannot name this gentleman without remarking, that his labours and writings have done much to open the eyes and hearts of mankind. He has vifited all Europe, not to furvey the fumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiofity of modern art; not to collect medals, or collate manuscripts:-but to dive into the depths of dungeons; to plunge into the infection of hospitals; to furvey the mansions of forrow and pain; to take the gage and dimenfions of mifery, depreffion, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forfaken, and to compare and collate the diftreffes of all men in all countries. His plan is original; and it is as full of genius as it is of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery; a circumnavigation of charity. Already the benefit of his labour is felt more or less in every country: I hope he will anticipate his final reward, by feeing all its effects fully realized in his own. He will receive, not by retail but in grofs, the reward of those who visit the prifoner; and he has fo foreftalled and monopolized this branch of charity, that there will be, I

trust,

truft, little room to merit by such acts of bes nevolence hereafter.

66

It is a business

They are all on My little scheme

Nothing remains now to trouble you with, but the fourth charge against me-the bufinefs of the Roman Catholics. clofely connected with the reft. one and the fame principle. of conduct, such as it is, is all arranged. I could do nothing but what I have done on this fubject, without confounding the whole train of my ideas, and disturbing the whole order of my life. Gentlemen, I ought to apologize to you, for feeming to think any thing at all necessary to be said upon this matter, The calumny is fitter to be fcrawled with the midnight chalk of incendiaries, with No Popery," on walls and doors of devoted houses, than to be mentioned in any civilifed company. I had heard, that the fpirit of discontent on that fubject was very prevalent here. With pleasure I find that I have been grofsly misinformed. If it exifts at all in this city, the laws have crushed its exertions, and our morals have shamed its appearance in day-light. I have puffued this fpirit where-ever I could trace it; but it ftill fled from me. It was a ghoft, which all had heard of, but none had seen. None would acknowledge that he thought the public proceeding with regard to our Catholic diffenters to be blameable; but feveral were sorry it had made an ill impreffion upon others, and that my intereft was hurt by my share in the business. I find with fatisfaction and pride, that

not

not above four or five in this city (and I dare fay these misled by fome grofs mifrepresentation) have figned that fymbol of delufion and bond of fedition, that libel on the national religion and English character, the Proteftant Affociation. It is therefore, Gentlemen, not by way of cure but of prevention, and left the arts of wicked men may prevail over the integrity of any one amongst us, that I think it neceffary to open to you the merits of this tranfaction pretty much at large; and I beg your patience upon it: for, although the reasonings that have been used to depreciate the act are of little force, and though the authority of the men concerned in this ill design is not very impofing; yet the audaciousness of these confpirators against the national honour, and the extenfive wickedness of their attempts, have raised perfons of little importance to a degree of evil eminence, and imparted a fort of finister dignity to proceedings that had their origin in only the meanest and blindeft malice.

In explaining to you the proceedings of Par liament which have been complained of, I will ftate to you,-firft, the thing that was done;

next, the perfons who did it ;-and lastly, the grounds and reasons upon which the legislature proceeded in this deliberate act of public justice and public prudence.

Gentlemen, The condition of our nature is fuch, that we buy our bleffings at a price. The Reformation, one of the greatest periods of human improvement, was a time of trouble and

confufion,

confufion. The vaft ftructure of fuperftition and tyranny, which had been for ages in rearing, and which was combined with the intereft of the great and of the many; which was moulded into the laws, the manners, and civil inftitutions of nations, and blended with the frame and policy of states; could not be brought to the ground without a fearful ftruggle; nor could it fall without a violent concuffion of itself and all about it. When this great revolution was attempted in a more regular mode by government, it was opposed by plots and feditions of the people; when by popular efforts, it was repreffed as rebellion by the hand of power; and bloody executions (often bloodily returned) marked the whole of its progrefs through all its ftages. The affairs of religion, which are no longer heard of in the tumult of our prefent contentions, made a principal ingredient in the wars and politics of that time; the enthusiasm of religion threw a gloom over the politics; and political interests poisoned and perverted the spirit of religion upon all fides. The Proteftant religion in that violent ftruggle, infected, as the Popish had been before, by worldly interests and worldly paffions, became a perfecutor in its turn, fometimes of the new fects, which carried their own principles further than it was convenient to the original reformers; and always of the body from whom they parted; and this perfecuting spirit arofe, not only, from the bitterness of retaliation, but from the merciless policy of fear.

2

It

It was long before the spirit of true piety and true wisdom, involved in the principles of the Reformation, could be depurated from the dregs and feculence of the contention with which it was carried through. However, until this be done, the Reformation is not complete; and those who think themselves good Proteftants, from their animofity to others, are in that respect no Proteftants at all. It was at first thought neceffary, perhaps, to oppose to Popery another Popery, to get the better of it. Whatever was the caufe, laws were made in many countries, and in this kingdom in particular, against Papifts, which are as bloody as any of thofe which had been enacted by the Popish princes and states; and where those laws were not bloody, in my opinion, they were worfe; as they were flow, cruel outrages on our nature, and kept men alive only to infult in their perfons, every one of the rights and feelings of humanity. I pass those statutes, because I would spare your pious ears the repetition of fuch fhocking things; and I come to that particular law, the repeal of which has produced fo many unnatural and unexpected confequences.

A ftatute was fabricated in the year 1699, by which the faying mafs (a church-fervice in the Latin tongue, not exactly the fame as our Liturgy, but very near it, and containing no offence whatsoever against the laws, or against good morals) was forged into a crime punishable with perpetual imprisonment. The teaching school, an useful and virtuous occupation,

even