XV. 3.

Your Eulogy of the Moderation of the Laws passed in the first year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.

1.-You premise your observations (p. 188) on the sanguinary and penal code of Elizabeth, by affirming that "its laws were all passed in consequence of the danger of the state, of some "hostile proceeding on the part of foreign powers, or some discovery of treason on the part of her own subjects."

These lines contain, speaking generally, all the substance of your present chapter, and thus call for particular attention.

1. With respect to the hostile proceedings of foreign powers towards Elizabeth, You are entirely silent on the hostile proceedings of Elizabeth towards them;-to the rebellions which she fo mented in France, the Netherlands, Holland and Scotland; to her plunders and piracies in the West Indies, South America, and on our own sea; to the capture of the Spanish treasure galleon, when wrecked on our coast. Much of this took place in the time of professed peace, and was therefore a breach of inter-national law. MOUR7

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2.-These hostile proceedings of foreigners, supposing them such as You describe them, prove nothing against the Catholic subjects of Queen Elizabeth, unless you prove that these co-operated in them. You have not produced, and I defy you to produce, a single instance of this co

operation, which fixes guilt upon the Catholic body.

3,-As to the dicovery of treason among her own subjects:-If you mean, in this place by treason; those acts which were treasonable by the antient laws and constitution of the country, I affirm, most positively, that nothing of the kind has been or can be proved against the Catholic subjects of Elizabeth, which inculpates the general body, or even what may be called a proportion of them.

4I will add, that if all the treasons charged upon them were true, the number of Catholics whom they would affect is so small, that effrontery itself would not dare to charge them upon the whole body.

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5. The great question between us is,-Did justice and morality render it lawful for Eliza beth to make the creed and liturgy of the smallest religious denomination of her subjects the creed and liturgy of the state; to spoliate the antient clergy of their possessions, and transfer them to the new establishment; to legislate that the nonconformists to it should be delinquents in the various gradations of misdemeanour, felony, and treason, and punishable in the various gradations of fine, confiscation, imprisonment and death?

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This leads to the following and very important consideration:Did not candour, and even perspicuity require, that whenever You brought the charge of treason against the Catholic body, or Catholic

individuals, You should have explained, whether the treason with which You professed to charge them, was that which was treason under the subsisting law of the realm; or that which never was treason till Elizabeth's Draconian laws made it such. By not attending to this, You frequently, and often very injuriously to the Roman Catholics, mislead your readers.

6. Thus all the ground upon which Your attempt to advocate the sanguinary code of Elizabeth, fails You. But to proceed,

I have frequently considered the nature of the supremacy conferred upor Queen Elizabeth by this act of the first year of her reign: I have given the result to the public, in my Historical Memoirs of the English, Irish and Scottish Catholics.*Ar

It appears to me clear, that, if the act conferring fit, ascribed explicitly and unequivocally temporal sovereignty only, to the queen and her successors, and if the clauses in it which deny the supremacy of the Pope, had denied his temporal power only, the oath would have been unobjectionable, and have been taken universally, or at least with a very trifling exception, by the whole Catholic body.

But the oath went much further. nothing else, Hume, † and Mr Neale

Agreeing in

assert, to use the words of the former, that " Elizabeth "always pretended, that, in quality of supreme

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head of the church, she was fully empowered to decide all questions which might arise with "regard to doctrine, discipline, and worship; and "6 would never allow her parliament so much as "to take these points into consideration." Mr. Neale's arguments "that the act was intended to ❝ confer on the Queen some powers, merely "spiritual, and belonging of right to the church," appear to me incontrovertible.

It could not therefore be taken, either by the Catholics or the Puritans: even the party afterwards denominated the High Church, could not take it consistently with their own principles: Would you assign to George IV. the spiritual prerogative claimed by Elizabeth, and generally allowed to be assigned to her by this oath Pi

You know that the oath was altered at the Revolution; that then, the assertion of the spiritual supremacy of the Crown was expunged, and the denial of any foreign supremacy substituted for it. Was not this an unequivocal. admission, that the disbelief of the spiritual supremacy of the Crown, for which Roman Catholics and Puritans had in such numbers, and for so great a length of time, been persecuted, was perfectly consistent with the allegiance of English subjects?

→7 You next proceed to the Common Prayer. It is now considered, and from the beginning was considered, to contain several things contrary to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church. This can admit of no doubt.

No Roman Catholic could therefore conscientiously attend a church, in which the ritual of the Common Prayer was used.

By the act of the first of Elizabeth, those who absented themselves from their parish churches, were liable to a forfeiture of one shilling to the poor, for every Lord's day in which they so absented themselves; if they continued their absence for a month together, they were liable to a forfei ture of 20% to the king; and if they kept in their own house any inmate guilty of such absence, they were to forfeit 107. for every such inmate. Every fourth Sunday was understood to complete the month: thus, thirteen months were, in relation to those penalties, supposed to complete the year. "Strange and severe," You say, (p. 193), " as those laws now must be considered, great pro"gress in liberality had evidently been made by "their comparative mildness. That it must be ❝ remembered is the only point which it is now f necessary to prove. The payment of one shil"fling, or twenty pounds, was not so terrible as fire

and faggot. No prince in Europe at this time "defended or sanctioned the laws respecting reli"gion, with penalties so mild as these."A previous admission of your own shows your last assertion to be unfounded. In page 186, You inform us, that "in Germany, the treaty of Passaw "had given to both parties a temporary repose."

But in this view which You give of the case, two important circumstances, wholly passed over