A

LETTER

TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT,

First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer,

ON THE SUBJECTS OF

Toleration and Church Establishments;

OCCASIONED BY HIS

SPEECH AGAINST THE REPEAL OF THE TEST AND CORPORATION ACTS,

ON WEDNESDAY, THE 28th OF MARCH, 1787.

SECOND EDITION, CORRECTED AND ENLARGED,

Is is so far from being a crime, or an affront, to any legislature, to endeavour to shew the evil consequences, or inequitableness, of any law now in being, that all law-makers, who act upon principles of public justice and honour, cannot but esteem it an advantage to have such points laid before them.

BP. HOADLEY.

[London, 1787.]

A LETTER,

&c.

SIR,

HAVING had the opportunity of hearing your speech against the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, and thinking I could perceive that you had not given sufficient attention to the subject, or seen it in a true point of light, I take the liberty which I conceive not to be unbecoming an Englishman, and which, being well intended, and respecting an object of great national importance, is not, I presume, without some title to gratitude, to suggest what appear to me to be clearer ideas than you seemed to be possessed of, and such as may be the foundation of a better policy than you have adopted.

Educated as you have been by clergymen, who are interested in the support of the present establishment, and whose minds may therefore be supposed to be biassed in favour of it, it is not much to be wondered at, that you should have adopted their ideas of its inseparable connexion with the political constitution of this country, and that you should have caught their fears on the subject. But that these notions, and others which you advanced in the course of the debate, are destitute of all foundation, I do not despair of being able to prove, even to your own satisfaction, and so as to influence your future conduct.

I shall previously observe, that besides being misled by your education and connexions, there was the appearance of your being farther embarrassed and misled by your situation; and that your attention to the real merits of the question was distracted by a wish to recommend yourself to a majority of the people, without offending the minority;

* Mr. Pitt's domestic tutor was Mr. Wilson, who was afterwards Rector of Binfield, in Berkshire, where he died several years since. He was reputed an Antitrinitarian of some description, and on this account to have declined his pupil's offers to advance him farther in the church. Mr. Pitt's college tutor, as is well known, was Dr. Prettyman Tomline, for whom he procured the Deanery of St. Paul's and the Bishopric of Lincoln, from which he has been lately translated to Winchester. See Mem. of Wakefield, I. pp. 133—136.

an object, Sir, which much older statesmen than yourself have seldom been able to accomplish. As far as I can perceive, you have failed with respect to both, and that even Lord North, who spoke the honest sentiments of his heart, has left an impression of much greater respect on the minds of those against whom he pleaded, than you have done on those for whom you exerted yourself so much. But it has been the common deception of statesmen, to think to gain their ends by address, over-rating their own talents, and undervaluing those of others, who are as quick-sighted as themselves.

Believe an older man than you are, that a common proverb, older than our grandfathers, viz. honesty is the best policy, applies to the case of statesmen as fully as to that of tradesmen, for whose use it might be more particularly intended. Keep this in view in all measures of policy, invariably pursue what shall appear to be right, and you will be respected in all your conduct, and all the changes of your conduct, produced by a real conviction; because it is not disgraceful to any man, and least of all to a young man,* to change his opinion, on farther reflecting upon a subject. If any pretend to the extraordinary merit of deciding upon every thing intuitively, and without taking the pains that other men must do in order to understand it, he affects to be more than man; and those who see him to be in other respects like themselves, will not give him credit for his pretensions. But they will forgive a mistake, because they know that they are subject to mistakes themselves.

In this letter, in which I mean to take a pretty large scope, and bring before your view objects to which, if I may judge by the tenor of your speech, you have not given much attention, I require no other apology for the liberty I take, than what is given me by the postulatum, that the greatest politicians are but men; and that, notwithstanding their profound knowledge of the things to which they have given attention, they may be profoundly ignorant of things to which they have not attended. And there are many things, and those in which great national interests are involved, which, educated as you have been, and circumstanced as you are, I apprehend you have not sufficiently studied. Among these, I must take the liberty to rank that of the intimate connexion of any particular mode of religion with the welfare of the state, by a regard to which alone, and

* Mr. Pitt was now in his 28th year.

by no means to religion, in itself considered, your conduct, as a statesman, ought to be governed. As an individual, give as much attention to religion and a future life as you please. Nothing can be more interesting to any man. But as the ostensible prime minister of this country, you have nothing to do with any life besides the present, and the happiness of the inhabitants of this island in it. This is a province large enough for yourself, and all your colleagues in office. For other things we shall look to other persons, or provide for ourselves as well as we can.

When you say that the present establishment of the Church of England is necessary to the civil establishment of the country, and that this is necessary to the peace and happiness of it, you may be misled by several fallacies, and the propositions you advance may be true or false, according as they are understood.

A change, and especially a great and sudden change in matters of religion, would, no doubt, be dangerous, on the supposition that the people continued to think as they now do; because, in that case, they would certainly be dissatisfied, they would probably resist the innovation, and public calamity might ensue. But, Sir, this would not be the consequence of any change, how great soever, in matters civil or religious, which the people themselves should be persuaded to think well of. Nay, in this case, the same mischiefs which you now apprehend from a change, might arise from any attempts to prevent the change.

This island was, I presume, the seat of much happiness and temporal prosperity before either of the parts of our present boasted constitution had any existence. Our present form of government was not coeval with the nation; for our Saxon ancestors were Heathens, and in a later period they were Catholics. As those, therefore, who approve of the present state of things must believe that past changes have been advantageous to us, and such changes as Englishmen in former times would certainly have opposed; why may not other changes be also advantageous, though, at the first proposal, the minds of the present generation may equally revolt at them? If the maxims on which you laid so much stress had always been rigorously adhered to, the established religion of this country would now have been Pagan, and our priests Druids. If, after this, they had been adopted at any period before the Reformation, we must have been Catholics, and without a shadow of a toleration.

You disclaimed persecution in words, but you admitted, as