"it. The matter being thus broke off, I have deter"mined to put the thing in execution which I said "in my former letter I intended in that case, by "tendering the oaths to Howard and seizing bishop "Gifford and Grey (the earl of Shrewsbury). But "because this proceeding is chiefly with a view to "make them squeak, I would contrive to do it in "such a manner as not to put them out of my power, "by over acting it, into that of the law. For which "end I have desired Delafaye to pick out a couple "of discreet justices of peace of his acquaintance, "that will, as of themselves, take up Howard and "Gifford, and afterwards do just what Delafaye ❝ shall bid them, without carrying their zeal too far. "And as for Grey, I think some trusty and under"standing messenger must be sent to manage him, "for he is seventeen miles off. Strickland persuades "this method will have its effect, and make them "ready to sign even stronger letters than those

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already proposed to them; and as they know the "doctor intends very shortly for France, and that they are allowed no other conferant but him, it may be expected we shall quickly know what they will do.

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"I take this occasion to send your lordship a "private letter from the duke of Bolton to me, which "was omitted in my last, and likewise another I "received last night, which will show your lordship

what temper Ireland is in upon the opening of "that parliament.—I am, my lord, your lordship's "most obedient and most humble servant, "J. Craggs."

"R. H. Earl Stanhope."

THE CONDITION

CHAP. LXXI.

GEORGE II.

1727.

OF THE ENGLISH ROMAN

CATHOLICS DURING HIS REIGN.

OUR subject now leads us, I. To mention in a few words the state of the catholics at this period: II. We shall then notice the contests between the high church and the low church, and the consequences favourable to the catholics, with which they were attended: III. Some acts in favour of the protestant dissenters: IV. The dispute occasioned by the work of Dr. Courayer on the validity of the ordinations of the English protestant clergy: V. And the correspondence between archbishop Wake and Dr. Dupin, for the re-union of the roman-catholic and the English churches.

LXXI. 1.

General State of the English Catholics during this
reign.

THE reign of George the second is remarkable for its being the first, after the reformation, in which no new law was enacted against the romancatholics.

This circumstance does the monarch and his government the greater honour, as the rebellion in 1745, in which several roman-catholics were

engaged, furnished the enemies of their religion with a pretence for calling down upon them a severe execution of the existing code, and even an extension of its severities. Better councils prevailed the whole penal code was continued in force; but the instances, in which it was put into activity, were not very numerous. When they occurred, they were produced either by the mischievous activity or the selfish feeling of individuals; but were very seldom, if ever, countenanced by the government.-Some freedom was allowed to the catholics in the exercise of their religion: still, through the whole of this reign, the catholics were molested by informers, their lands were doubly taxed, their enjoyment of them was insecure, sometimes they were wrested from them by a protestant next of kin ; and, (which was a dreadful calamity), they continued subject to the constructive recusancy mentioned in the preceding chapter, and to all its terrors.

In 1729, the second year of this reign, Matthew Atkinson, a missionary priest, died in Hurst castle, after an imprisonment in it during thirty years, for the exercise of his religious functions.

LXXI. 2.

Contest between the High Church and Low Church ;— Progress of religious Toleration.

THE latitudinarian divines have been mentioned: the spirit of religious liberty, by which they were animated, was spread by their writings over the

nation; it reached the continent, and often returned from it, enriched and invigorated.

We must however observe, with Mr. Gibbon*, that three writers, by whom the rights of toleration were nobly defended, Locke, Boyle, and Leibniz, were laymen and philosophers; they had been preceded by Grotius; but, by a strange inconsistency, while that great man condemned the tribunal of the inquisition, he approved the imperial law of persecution. Locke's "Letters on Toleration," exhausted the subject: they are unanswered and unanswerable, and seem to have set the question at rest for ever. The principles of the revolution

embodied both the friends of civil and the friends of religious liberty, and united them in the general cause. We have mentioned the opposition between the political principles of the latitudinarian and those of the nonjuring divines: each soon received a new religious appellation. Before this time, the advocates for the lawfulness of resistance to government had been called whigs, the opposers of this doctrine had been called tories; the latitudinarians joined the former, the nonjurors the latter; and, so far as politics were concerned, received their respective denominations. But their different opinions in religious matters, particularly on the authority of the church and her dependance on the civil magistrates, which dependance was asserted by the whigs, and denied by the tories, -introduced a new distinction; the advocates

*Ch. liv. note 39.

-

† De rebus Belgicis Annal. 1. i. p. 13, 14. 12mo.

for its dependance, were called the low church the advocates for its independance, were called the high church. For a time, the distinction was strongly marked ;--by degrees, the nonjurors disappeared, but the whig divines,-whigs both in politics and divinity,-filled their camp, and perpetuated in the church, both their own civil and their own religious principles. Liberty was their constant theme; they proved by arguments, which could neither be answered nor evaded, that liberty of belief in religious concerns was, in respect to the civil magistrate, a common benefit, an unquestionable and undeniable right. They excluded the catholics alone from it:-But they candidly and unequivocally admitted that one reason only," the supposed enmity of the catholics "to civil government, as then settled in the land*," -justified the exclusion.

The advantages, which the catholics derived from this concession, were incalculable.-So far as respected their title to a participation in the blessings of the constitution, all questions respecting their religious tenets became unnecessary; as, to prove their title to be delivered from the penal laws, and to be placed on an equality of civil right with their fellow subjects, nothing could now be required of them, but to show, that they equalled them in loyalty to their king, affection to their fellow subjects, and attachment to the constitution.

Dr. Hoadley, bishop, first of Bangor and afterwards of Winchester, was at the head of the whig Hoadley's Common Rights of Subjects.