to interpret some dark phrases in the letters, above and beyond all ordinary construction." "Thus the supposed delivery "Of nation in epitome, "Was celebrated every where; "And hence it is that once a year "The people Powder-plots remember, “And all run mad, the fifth o' November." Setting aside the gross impiety of this parliament in declaring the monarch to be inspired by the Holy Ghost to discover that which he al, ready knew, if the testimony of several writers of that age are deserving of credit, let us examine a little into the justice of this act, which has contributed more than any other circumstance to keep alive the popular hatred against popery in this country. Mr. Cobbett, in his third letter on the present paper system, written in the year 1810, very strongly condemns the writer of a London print for calling the notes of country bankers "destructive assignats," and "vile rags," because, such harsh words, he says, have a tendency to excite popular hatred, and, in cases that may happen, popular violence, against that part of our paper-money makers, called country bankers; than which nothing cau be more unjust in itself, or be more likely to lead to universal confusion, the experience of the world having proved, that commotion, when once on foot, is seldom li mited to the accomplishment of its original object; and, we may venventure to affirm, that nothing was ever better calculated to render popular commotion violent, to push it beyond its natural bounds than the hatred and revenge, which it would seem to be the object of the print above mentioned to excite in the minds of the people....Papermoney making is a trade or calling (continues Mr. C.) perfectly innocent in itself, and the tradesmen may be very moral and even very liberal men.--Amongst them, as amongst men of other trades, there are, doubtless, sharpers and even rogues; and, the trade itself may be one that exposes men to the temptation of becoming roguish; but, it does not follow, that all the papermoney makers, or that the papermoney makers in general, are men of dishonest views. It is, therefore, not only illiberal, but unjust in the extreme, to condemn the whole of the trade in a lump, to call their wares 'destructive assignats, oile rags, dirty rags,' and the like; whence it is of course, intended that it should be understood, that all the issuers of them ought to be regarded as pests of society, and treated accordingly." Now, if this reasoning be correct and conclusive in behalf of the country paper-money makers, and no candid man of sense will assert that it is not, is it not of equal force in favour of the believers in popery ? And what then are we to think of this first noble struggle of the reformers in the cause of "religious liberty."- For admitting the aforesaid plot to have been a real one, entered into by Catholics for the purpose of retrieving their declining cause, as it is said, it is evident from the speech of the king, as well as from his proclamations, that no more than nine individuals were engaged direct in the conspiracy. Was it not then a cruel act of injustice to fix the crime on the whole body, and attribute it to the system of their religious belief, even after the criminals at the place of execution acknowledged that they acted contrary to it? If the attempts to excite popular commotions against country bankers at the commencement of the 19th century is unjust, because paper-money making is perfectly innocent of itself, it must be equally unjust to raise popular commotion against Papists in the beginning of the seventeenth, without a but the applause of every true friend to the welfare and happiness of his country, since they have not only declined the pensions offered them by government out of the taxes of the people, but have refused to become the tools of ministers by surrendering up the independence of their stations, whereby the remaining privileges of the favoured part of the people would be endangered. But notwithstanding this, the same degree of prejudice, though unattend shadow of proof of the criminality of their religion. If it does not follow that all paper-money makers are dishonest, because some few amongst them may be rogues, what are we to think of the liberality and piety of those men who enacted a solemn day of thanksgiving to the God of CHARITY, for the deliverance of the king and the nation from PO. PISH TREACHERY; thereby transferring the crime of a few selfconvicted miscreants to the WHOLE Church, of which they were consi-ed with the atrocious and cruel madered the disgrace? If it is not only lignity which accompanied it, exists illiberal, but unjust in the extreme, to among the leaders of the people now condemn the whole of a trade in a against popery, as in the days of the lump, and call their wares by foul Stuarts; a stronger testimony of names, thereby intending that it which cannot be given than is to be should be understood that all the found in the bigotted ravings of Mr. dealers in them ought to be regarded Cobbett and his patriotic coadjutors as pests of society," and treated against all catholic institutions and accordingly, what are we to think catholic governments, thus exciting of the present conduct of Mr. Cob- popular hatred, by the same means bett and our patriot orators, who, which he condemns in another like their fathers of liberty strug-than which nothing can be more ungling memory, are constantly con- becoming sober discussion or sound demning the popish priests, and the justice. But let us return to "the jesuits, and the inquisition, and the noble struggles of this gentleman's Bourbons, together with the pope ancestors in "the cause of religious and cardinals in "a lump," holding liberty." them out as worthy the popular hatred of this country, and as the 66 pests of society," and attributing at the same time all the heavy grievances the nation now labour under, to the machinations of these members of the church of Rome?-Popery (whereby is meant the catholic religion) is in itself perfectly innocent, and those who follow its precepts are sure to be moral and may even be liberal men, while those who profess it, and are sharpers and rogues, act not according but contrary to its system. Of the believers in popery there are between five and six millions of souls in this united kingdom; out of which number there are more priests than country bank-offences) within three days after the ers, whose conduct, as a body, enti- offence, so that he or they may be tles them not only to the sympathy amerced and attainted, he shall not As I before observed, both houses cordially agreed to harass the papists with the severest penalties. To particularize the various enactments of this session only would occupy the whole space of this number, I must therefore content myself with a concise detail of one or two of the clauses of these sanguinary laws, by which the reader will be enabled to judge of the sacred attachment of our reforming ancestors to the liberty of the subject. By one clause of the 3 J. 5. c. 5, it is enacted, that any one discovering a recusant or other person receiving or entertaining a popish priest, persons hearing mass, or the priest saying the same (all capital sant to have, they were to be immediately defaced and burned.-We have heard a great deal about the power and tyranny of the inquisition in Catholic countries, and we have been much amused with the boastings of our country-men, that every Englishman's house is his castle, but here we see a species of inquisition established, by which one man was empowered to invade the sanctuary of his neighbour, to over it, if he should wisely or wickedly deem it unmeet for him to possess. Thus any stupid but malicious mercenary, if invested with the magisterial character, had it in his power to harass and persecute the unoffending and studious man of letters, by burning every classical volume in his possession, under pretence of containing most damnable heresy and superstition, without the sufferer being able to seek a redress. Talk of the Spanish inquisition, indeed; talk of the tyranny and cruelty of popish priests; where will our liberty-orators be able to produce so cruel, so oppressive, so vandalic a system of persecution as this in any catholic only be free from danger, if he be an offender therein, but shall have a third part of the forfeiture of the recusants goods, provided it exceed not one hundred and fifty pounds, in which case he, shall have fifty (a pretty good sum in those days) and a warrant to the sheriff to levy the same. Here we have the bribing system of discovering offenders extended by holding out rewards and immunities to any villian who may inform against the hospitality of an indivi-haul his property,'and even to destroy dual that dares be guilty of the heinous crime of bestowing shelter and giving a morsel of bread to the poor persecuted popish outcast, whom the strong arm of the law was hunting even to death, for adhering to the dictates of conscience.-By the same statute the recusant was not only forbidden to marry otherwise than according to the rites of the church of England, but he was also compelled to have his children baptized according to the rites of the said church, and the poor victim was even pursued to the grave, by these vindictive venerators of liberty, it being enacted that no popish recusant should be buried in any other place than in a church or church-state in christendom? Yet the frayard belonging to the establishment under a forfeiture of twenty-pounds, to be levied on the executors, &c. Another object of this statute was to prevent the bringing from foreign parts any popish missals, &c. in any language, or any superstitious books in English, under forfeiture of the books, which were to be burnt, and a penalty levied of forty shillings for every individual offence.-Any two justices, and all magistrates of corporations, were also empowered, from time to time, to search the hou. ses and lodgings of popish recusants, or of those protestants who might happen to be married to a papist, and if they found any crucifix, popish relics, or book, which they might,deem improper for such recu mers of these laws are at this day, and by men professing themselves to the friends of justice and freedom, held up as noble strugglers for "the cause of RELIGIOUS LIBERTY!!!" · O tempora, O mores. Notwithstanding this malevolence of the leaders in Parliament towards the Catholics, the monarch still continued to entertain sentiments favourable to them; and, although he gave the royal assent to the sanguinary enactments above-mentioned, he appears to have done it with the impression,that his prepotency would allow him to mitigate the severities which the bigotted legislators were desirous should be inflicted on them. From the tenor of the king's speeches to parliament it is clearly discernible equal justice to all parties, they would cease to attribute all the evils which scourged the nation during the time of the Stuart family to the supposed tyrannical disposition of its members, and fix them on the real source from whence they sprung, namely, the arbitrariness of Henry and the obsequiousness of his servile and corrupt parliaments. -The dispensing power practised by the Stuarts, of which such loud complaints are made at this day, was also practised by Henry and Elizabeth, and arose out of the new title assumed by the former, and confirm that James considered the dogmas of the catholic church perfectly consistent with the civil duties of a true and faithful subjecf, while, at the same time, he condemned the kingkilling and deposing doctrines, then so industriously attempted to be fixed on her tenets, which he deemed to be equally as pernicious as the avowed principles of Calvin, who publicly taught that "Princes forfeit their power when they oppose God in opposing the reformation; and that it was better, in such cases, to spit in their faces than to obey.”. Having experienced in his own person, as well as in that of his unfor-ed by their legislating slaves, that of tunate mother, the restless and tumultuous effects of the paritan spirit of this class of reformers, it is no wonder that the king was eager to suppress the vehemence of this party, and if the measures which he pursued were not perfectly consistent with the genuine character of the constitution, the fault was not in James, but in the temper of the times when he was called upon to sway the kingdom. - If the acts of this king are to be considered as tyrannical and unconstitutional, what are we to think of those of his predecessors, Henry and Elizabeth, each disregarding both law and conscience in enforcing their arbitrary mandates or corrupt designs? It is the fashion of our super-enlightened orators to declaim against the family of Stuarts with the same vehemence as they abuse that of the Bourbons, but, like their ancestors of reforming memory, they examine one side only of the question, because their prejudices and their passions will not permit them to take a cool and impartial investigation in to the events of the last three centuries, in which case they would probably perceive their error, and I trust have manliness enough to avow it.-Were they animated with a desire of descrying truth and doing Supreme Head of the Church. - Previous to the reign of Henry, the monarchs enjoyed the supreme sovereignty of the state; the people enjoyed both liberty and national happiness; the parliaments were annual and uncorrupt; the laws were good and few, enacted for the protection and not the oppression of the subject; and no power could dispense with the execution of these laws but that from whence they emanated. Henry, however, was no sooner invested with the authority of governing the Church as well as the State, than his parliament passed an act, that "nothing should be taught or maintained contrary to the KING'S instructions," and it was adjudged HERESY for any spiritual person to preach or maintain any thing contrary to the KING'S instructions made, OR TO BE MADE; thus conferring an absolute power in the crown, hitherto unknown, and placing the conscience of every individual in the realm under the control of a despotic monarch, as well as surrendering to him a moiety of the legislative privileges. From this time Henry ex ercised the dispensing power as his own capricious will dictated, nor do we find that any member of his par liaments had the temerity to raise his voice against it. Edward's Pro tice; whose passions were inflamed with religious prejudices, and heated with the ravings of factious leaders; and whose heads were not only dizzied with the charms of evangelical liberty, but likewise clouded with the grossest credulity in forged tales concerning the tricks and cruelties of popish priests and jesuits. To such a pitch, indeed, were the feelings of the people worked up at that time; so dreadfully terrified were the fathers of our modern patriots, at the name of a jesuit, that one of the first noble struggles made by them in the cause of religious liberty was to pass a law by which the simple fact of being a jesuit and residing in England, consigned the offender to the ignominious death of a traitor! Yet, notwithstanding this blessed law, and others of the same mould, the people were still considered insecure against the designs of these wicked agents of popery, and the very thought of one of these supposed monsters landing on the shores of old England, was sufficient to throw the whole herd of popery-haters into a fit of terror, and cause them to tremble like an aspen-leaf. Nor is this panic wholly subsided, as the late restoration of the illustrious order of Loyola seems to have created alarming fears in the breasts of Sir John Hippisley and Mr. Cobbett. tectors did the same; but when the "bloody tyrant" Mary came to the crown, she abolished the edicts of her unrelenting father, and placed the laws upon the same footing as they were in the first part of his reign.-Mary was succeeded by her sister Elizabeth, who was not long before she restored the arbitrary statutes of Henry, and established a commission to visit the whole kingdom, for the purpose of reforming all heresies, &c. regulating all opinions, and punishing all infractions against public worship. The power of this commission extended to all orders of men, and their authority was subject to no control; of course, it was independent of Parliament. This commission was in force when James ascended the throne; and with such precedents before him, is it to be wondered that he conceived those notions of a kingly government which have been ascribed to him? Is it not a matter of greater astonishment, that the powers he found himself possessed of were used so sparingly and with such lenity? Had he been endued with the spirit of his predecessors, there is no doubt but the turbulence of Pym would have cost him his life, and the enthusiasm of his puritan associates experienced considerable mollification. On the other hand, had James enjoyed the means of gratifying the avaricious desires of his courtiers with the spoils of the church; or felt inclined to indulge the cruel propensions of the besotted people, by spilling the blood of inno-vanced by the popular leaders of the cent victims, there is no question but he would have found the parliaments as compliable to his will, as those of his predecessors were to their dicBut James was not a tyrant; the summit of his desires was to live in peace with his neighbours, and rule his subjects with mercy and forbearance. But he had a people to govern whose minds were alienated from the principles of truth and jus tates. ORTHOD. JOUR. VOL. V, It is not one of the least amusing studies of our history to trace the various causes of discontent ad nation, from the period we are treating of to the present time. The grand cause of our own grievances is ascribed to the many years of war which have occurred in this reign, and more especially to the duration and success of the late contest, which restored the old order of things in Europe, that is, the Bourbons, the Pope, the Jesuits, and the Inquisition, to the great discomfiture of our |