saw that it must soon be in antagonism with it; and its only hope now was in making a vigorous effort to revive, purify, and appropriate to itself the Church. This exclusive reliance upon the Church appears to have been, as yet, the only new point of sympathy between this party and Rome; but it was enough to set men whispering imputations of Romanism against its members. While such imputations were arising and spreading, the LowConversions Church party were zealous among the Romanists to of Catholics. convert them; and the registers of the time show their great success. Conversions from Popery figure largely among the incidents of the few years following Catholic emancipation; and nothing could be more natural. There were in the Catholic body, as there would be in any religious body so circumstanced, many men who did not know or care very much about matters of faith, or any precise definitions of them; who were of too high and honorable a spirit to desert their Church while it was in adversity; who had fought its battles while it was depressed, but were indifferent about being called by its name after it came into possession of its rights. Again, amidst the new intercourse now beginning between Catholics and Churchmen, it was natural that both parties, and especially the Catholics, should find more common ground existing than they had previously been aware of; and their sympathy might easily become a real fraternization. Again, there might naturally have been many Catholics constitutionally disposed to a more inward and "spiritual" religion than they received from a priest, who might add to the formalism of his Church an ignorance or hardness which would disqualify him for meeting the needs of such persons. Under these influences we cannot wonder that conversions from Popery were numerous at that time; but we may rather wonder what Lord Eldon, and other pious Protestants, thought of a fact so directly in opposition to all their anticipations. Protestantism had its day then, when its self-called champions least expected it; and Popery has had its day since, when the guardians of the Church, or those who considered themselves so, were least prepared for it. An extraordinary incident which occurred in the midst of these conversions was the defence set up by the counsel for the defendants in an action for libel, brought by the Archbishop of Tuam against the printer and publisher of a newspaper. The libel complained of was an assertion, that the archbishop had offered a Catholic priest 1000%. in cash, and a living of 8007. a year, to become a Protestant. Sergeant Taddy declared the allegation to be purely honorable to the archbishop, instead of libellous, as, by a whole series of laws, he was authorized to bestow rewards on Catholics who should submit to conversion; and, under this head of his 1 Annual Register, 1828, Chron. p. 69. argument, he brought forward the atrocious old laws of Queen Anne and the first Georges, by which bribes to Protestantism, on the one hand, were set against penalties for Catholicism on the other. The defence was purely ironical; but the judge had to be serious. He pronounced these old laws irrelevant, being Irish; and, not stopping there, declared their intention to be, not to bribe, but to grant a provision afterwards to those "who, from an honest conviction of the errors of the Romish Church, had voluntarily embraced the purer doctrines of Protestantism." The moderate Churchmen, meanwhile, were dissatisfied with the prospect opened by the conflicts of the High and Low Church parties; and some of them began to desire a revision and reconstitution of the whole establishment. Dr. Arnold' writes, "What might not do, if he would set himself to work in the House of Lords, not to patch up this hole or that, but to recast the whole corrupt system, which in many points stands just as it did in the worst times of Popery, only reading 'king' or 'aristocracy' in the place of Pope."" Again, when disturbed by the moral signs of the times: "I think that the clergy as a body might do much, if they were steadily to observe the evils of the times, and preach fearlessly against them. I cannot understand what is the good of a national Church, if it be not to Christianize the nation, and introduce the principles of Christianity into men's social and civil relations, and expose the wickedness of that spirit which maintains the game-laws, and in agriculture and trade seems to think that there is no such sin as covetousness, and that, if a man is not dishonest, he has nothing to do but to make all the profit of his capital that he can." Men were too busy looking after the faith of everybody else to attend to the moral evils of the times; and yet no party was satisfied with the Church, or any body of Churchmen of its own. This was exactly the juncture to excite and betray Edward Irving. 2 Amidst these diversities of faith, there never was a time when diversity of opinion was less tolerated. Amidst the Intolerance vehement assertion of Protestantism, its famous right of opinion. of private judgment was practically as much denied with impunity and applause, as it could have been under Popish ascendency. The fact of the illegality of bequests for the encouragment of Popery was brought prominently before the public in 1828, by a claim of the Crown against the Bishop of Blois. The Bishop of Blois had put out a book, when resident in England at the beginning of the century, which he believed might serve the cause of religion permanently; and he invested a large sum of money, appointing trustees, who were to pay him the dividends during his life, and apply them after his death to 2 Life of Arnold, i. p. 274. 1 Life of Arnold, i. p. 82. Bishop of the propagation of his work.1 It seems as if the bishop had discovered that his bequest was likely to be set aside as illegal, at the present time of eager controversy; for he petitioned in the Rolls Court, that his bequest might be declared illegal and void, and that the stock might be re-transferred to himself. But here the Crown interposed, demanding the stock in question, on the ground that the money, having been applied to a superstitious use, was forfeited to the Crown, any proviso of the testator in prevention of such forfeiture being an evasion of the law. The Master of the Rolls, however, decreed justice to the bishop, giving him back his money, while deciding that he must not put it, in the way of bequest, to such "a superstitious use" as spreading a book in advocacy of the faith that he held. The whole transaction looks like one not belonging to our own century. The laws were ancient; but the use made of them by the Crown, on the plea of the contrariety of the book to the policy of the country, is disheartening to look back upon as an incident of our own time. One small advance in religious liberty was, however, made in 1828, when the question was raised whether baptized Jews should be permitted to purchase the freedom of the city of London. In 1785, the Court of Aldermen had made a standing order that this privilege should not be granted to baptized Jews; and an application now, nearly half a century afterwards, by the brothers Saul, who had been always brought up in the Christian faith, though children of Jewish parents, was thought a good opportunity for one more struggle for religious liberty, after the failure of many in the intervening time. Much discussion having been gone through, the old-fashioned order was rescinded, and the petitioners were directed to be sworn in.2 Baptized marriages. Some extraordinary and painful scenes which took place durDissenters' ing this period at the marriages of Protestant Dissenters foreshowed the near approach of that relief to conscience which was given by the Dissenters' Marriage Bill. One wedding-party after another delivered protests to the officiating clergymen, and declared to persons present their dissent from the language of the service, and that it was under compulsion only that they uttered and received it. One clergyman after another was perplexed what to do; and there was no agreement among them what they should do. One refused to proceed, but was compelled to give way; and another took no notice. One rejected, and another received, a written protest. Some shortened the service as much as possible; and others inflicted every word with unusual emphasis. Such scandals could not be permitted to endure; and more and more persons saw that the Dis1 Annual Register, 1828, Chron. p. 158. 2 Annual Register, 1828, Chron. p. 27. senters must be relieved and silenced by being made free to marry according to their consciences. 1 Calcutta. Stamp duty. Two or three awkward questions arose at this time in our dependencies on questions of liberty, which were in each case decided in favor of the subject against the government. The East-India Company were so rash as to attempt at the Press at same time to coerce the press at Calcutta, and to impose a stamp-duty of doubtful legality, when the period of the expiration of their charter was drawing on. The Council at Calcutta prohibited the publication of any newspaper or other periodical work by any person not licensed by the Governor and Council; and the licenses given were revocable at pleasure. Englishmen were not likely to submit to such restrictions on the liberty of printing, at any distance from home; and the men of Calcutta, after the regulation had been registered there, looked anxiously to see what would be done at Bombay. Two of the three judges of the Supreme Court of Bombay refused to register the regulation, as contrary to law; and the Calcutta authorities were therefore ignominiously defeated. And so they were, by the ordinary magistrates, about the same time, on another occasion of equal importance. The government wished to pay the expenses of the Burmese war by a new stampduty, which was pronounced by the whole population of Calcutta unjust and oppressive, and even illegal. All argument of counsel, all petition and remonstrance, being found unavailing, the inhabitants resolved to petition Parliament. They obtained permission from the sheriff, as usual, to meet for the purpose; but the sheriff was visited with a severe reprimand from the Council, and the meeting forbidden. The next step was to hold a meeting as an aggregate of individuals, instead of in any corporate capacity; and public notice of this intention was given. The Council, while professing to have "no objection" to the inhabitants petitioning Parliament, a thing to which they had no more right to object than to the inhabitants getting their dinners, sent an order to the stipendiary magistrates to prevent the meeting, and, if necessary, to disperse the assemblage by force. The magistrates consulted counsel, and, finding that each of them would be liable to an action for trespass for disturbing a lawful meeting, they declined acting; and the meeting took place. Here was foreshown some of the future under the new charter. In 1827 we first hear of the new functionary, the protector of slaves, and of proceedings instituted by him.2 An Protection order in Council was promulgated in Demarara, in of slaves. January, 1826, which had, after vehement disputes, been pre 1 Annual Register, 1827, pp. 194, 195. 2 Edinburgh Review, xliii. p. 428. viously promulgated in Trinidad, by which, among other provisions, a protector of slaves was ordained to be appointed, who was to be cognizant of all proceedings against slaves, and against persons declared to have injured slaves; and to see that justice was done to the negroes. He was to assert and maintain the right of the slaves to marriage and to property, and to look to their claim to emancipation. In 1827 the first claim of a First self-pur- slave to purchase liberty was made in Berbice; and chased slave. the protector carried the cause. The opposition set up by the owner of the woman whose case was in question exhibited the vicious assurance which was an understood characteristic of West-India slaveholders. The plea - there, in that spot where marriage among slaves had been a thing unheard of, and where purity of morals was, naturally, equally unknown was, that the money with which the slave desired to purchase her freedom had been obtained by immoral courses; the woman having had a mulatto child. The plea, odious from its hypocrisy, was rejected on a ground of law. The protector claimed for himself, as the legal officer concerned, the power of determining whether the money had been honestly earned. He had ascertained that it had been honestly earned. The result was, that the woman and her child were declared free on payment of a sum fixed by appraisers.1 Thus, not only was a great inroad made on the despotism of slavery, but a prophecy was given forth to the whole world, that greater changes were impending. The wedge was in, and the split must widen. In the same year, Treaty with a treaty for the abolition of the slave-trade was made with Brazil, the Emperor engaging that the traffic should cease in three years from the ratification of the treaty; after which the act of trading in slaves was to be considered as piracy. Brazil. Spring A proceeding, big with prophecy of the fate of all remnants of feudality, is noticeable in the Scotch High Court of guns. Justiciary in 1827. A gamekeeper of Lord Home being indicted for murder for having set and charged a springgun, by which a man was shot dead, the counsel of the accused began his defence, by asserting the legality of the act of setting and charging a spring-gun. Certain English judges - Abbott, Bailey, and Best had delivered an opinion, a few years before, that the act was lawful, and morally defensible. As the practice was abolished in this same year, 1827, we may spare ourselves the pain and shame of citing the arguments, the prejudices under the name of opinions, which English judges could bring themselves to deliver at so late a date as the nineteenth century. The men and their judgments are gibbeted in the pages of the 1 Annual Register, 1827, p. 193. |