famous inquisitorial court called the Star Chamber, which court, in addition to all its other vexations and severities, employed the rack and torture, to extort confessions. (1) The doctrines and practice of persecution, in England, did not end with the race of Tudor. James I., though he was reproached with being favourable to the Catholics, nevertheless signed warrants for 25 of them to be hanged and quartered, and sent 128 of them into banishment, barely on account of their religion; besides exacting the fine of 207. per month from those who did not attend the ChurchService. Still he was repeatedly called upon by Parliament to put the penal laws in force with greater rigour; in order, said they, 'to advance the glory of Álmighty God, and the everlasting honour of your Majesty:' (2) and he was warned by Archbishop Abbot, against tolerating Catholics, in the following terms: Your Majesty hath propounded a toleration of religion. By your act you labour to set up that most damnable and "heretical doctrine of the Church of Rome, the whore of Babylon;-and thereby draw down 6 upon the kingdom and yourself God's heavy wrath and indignation.' (3) In the mean time the Puritans complained loudly of the persecution, which they endured from the Court of High Commission, and particularly from Archbishop Bancroft, and the Bishops Neale of Lichfield, and King of London. They charged the former of these Bishops with not only condemning Edward Wightman for his opinions, but also with procuring the King's warrant for his execution, who was accordingly burnt at Lichfield; and the latter, with treating in the same way Bartholomew Legat, who was consumed to ashes in Smithfield. (4) The same unrelenting spirit of persecution, (2) Rushworth's Collect. vol. i. p. 141.

(1) Mosheim, vol. 4. p. 40.

(3) Rushworth's Collect.

(4) Chandler's Introduct. to Limborche's Hist. of Inquis. p. 80, Neal's Hist. of Purit, vol. ii.

which had disgraced the addresses presented to James, prevailed in those of Parliament and of many Bishops to his son Charles. One of them signed by the renowned Bishop Usher, and eleven other Irish Bishops of the Establishment, declares, that 'to give toleration to Papists, is to become accessary to superstition, idolatry, and the perdition of souls; and that, therefore, it is a grievous sin.' (1) At length the Presbyterians and Independants, getting the upper hand, had an opportunity of giving full scope to their characteristic intolerance. Their Divines, being assembled at Sion College, condemned, as an error, the doctrine of toleration, under the abused term,' as they expressed it, of liberty of con'science.' (2) Conformably with this doctrine, they procured for their Parliament a number of persecuting acts, from the penalty of fining, up to that of capital punishment. Their objects were not only Catholics, but also Church-of-Englandmen, (3) Quakers, Seekers, and Arians. In the mean time, they frequently appointed national fasts to atone for their alleged guilt, in being too tolerant. (4) Warrants for the execution of four English Catholics were extorted from King Charles while he was in power, and near twenty others were publicly executed under the Parliament and the Protector. This hypocritical tyrant afterwards invading Ireland, and being bent on exterminating the Catholic population there, persuaded his soldiers, that they had a divine commission for this purpose, as the Israelites had to exterminate the Canaanites. (5) To make an end of the Clergy he put the same price upon a Priest's as upon a Wolf's head. (6) Those Puritans who, previously

(1) Leland's Hist. of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 482. Neal's Hist. vol. ií. p. 469. (2) Hist. of Churches of Eng. and Scot!. vol. iii. (3) Hist. of Churches of Eng. & Scot, vol. iii.

(4) Ibid. Neal's Hist. (5) Anderson's Royal Gencal. quoted by Curry, vol. ii. p. 11, (6) Ibid. p. 63.

to the Civil War, had sailed to North America, to avoid persecution, set up a far more cruel one there; particularly against the Quakers; whipping them, cropping their ears, boring their tongues with a hot iron, and hanging them. We have the names of four of these sufferers, one of them a woman, who were executed at Boston. (1) X. During the whole of the war, which the Puritans waged against the King and Constitution, the Catholics behaved with unparalleled loyalty. It has been demonstrated, (2) that three-fifths of the Noblemen and Gentlemen who lost their lives on the side of Royalty, were Cath olics, and that more than half of the landed property, confiscated by the rebels, belonged to Catholics. Add to this, that they were chiefly instrumental in saving Charles II. after his defeat at Worcester: they had, consequently, reason to! expect, that the Restoration of the King and Constitution, would have brought an alleviation, if not an end, of their sufferings. But the contrary proved to be the case: for then all parties seemed to have combined to make them the common object of their persecuting spirit and fury. In proof of this, I need allege nothing more, than that two different Parliaments voted the reality of Oates's Plot! and that eighteen innocent and loyal Catholics, one of them a Peer, Suffered the death of traitors, on account of it: to say nothing of seven other priests, who, about that time, were hanged and quartered for the mere exercise of their priestly functions. Among the absurdities of that sanguinary plot, such as those of shooting the King with silver bullets, and invading the country with an army of pil grims from Compostella, &c. (3) it was not the least, to pretend that the Catholics wished to kill the King at all; that King whom they had here.

(1) Neal's Hist. of Churches. (2) Lord Castlemain's Catholic Apology

(3) Echard's Hist.

.

tofore saved in Staffordshire, and whom they well knew to be secretly devoted to their Religion. But any pretext was good which would serve the purposes of a persecuting faction. These purposes were, to exclude Catholics, not only from the throne, but also from the smallest degree of political power, down to that of a constable; and to shut the doors of both houses of Parliament against them. The faction succeeded in its first design by the Test Act, and in its second, by the Act requiring the Declaration against Popery; both obtained at a period of national delirium and fury. What the spirit of the Clergy was, at that time, with respect to the oppressed Catholics, appeared at their solemn procession at Sir Edmunbury Godfrey's funeral, (1) and still appears in the three folio volumes of invective and misrepresentation, then published, under the title of A Preservative against Popery. On the other hand, such was the unchristian hatred of the Dissenters against Catholics, that they promoted the Test Act with all their power, (2) though no less injurious to themselves than to the Catholics; and, on every occasion, they refused a toleration which might extend to the latter. (3)-There is no need of bringing down the history of persecution in this country, to a later period than the Revolution, at which time, as I observed before, a Catholic King was deposed, because he would not be a persecutor. Suffice it to say, that the number of penal laws against the professors of the ancient Religion, and founders of the Constitution of this country, continued to increase in every reign, till that of his late Majesty. In the course of this reign most of the old persecuting laws have been repealed, the two last-mentioned Acts however

(I) North's Exam. Echard.

(2) Neal's Hist, of Puritans, vol. iv. Hist. of Churches, vol. iii, (3) Ibid.

enacted in a moment of delirium, which Hume represents as our greatest national disgrace, I mean the impracticable Test Act, and the unintelligible Declaration against Popery, are rigidly adhered to by men in power under two groundless pretexts. The first is, that they are necessary for the support of the Established Church: and yet it is undeniable, that this Church had maintained its ground, and had flourished much more during the period which preceded these laws, than it has ever done since that event. The second pretext is, that the withholding of honours and emoluments is not persecution. On this point, let a Protestant dignitary of first-rate talents be heard: We agree, says he, that persecution, merely for conscience sake, is against the genius of the gospel: and so is any law for depriving men of their natural and civil rights, which they " claim as men. We are also ready to allow, that 6 the smallest negative discouragements for uni'formity's sake, are so many persecutions. An incapacity by law for any man to be made a 'judge or a colonel, merely on point of conscience, is a negative discouragement, and, consequently, a real persecution,' &c. (1) In the present case, however, the persecution, which Catholics suffer from the disabilities in question, does not consist so much in their being deprived of those common privileges and advantages, as is their being held out by the Legislature, as unworthy of them, and thus being reduced to the condition of an inferior cast, in their own country, the country of freedom, and of a glorious constitution established by their ancestors!-This they deeply feel, and cannot help feeling.

XI. But to return to my subject: I presume, that if the facts and reflections, which I have stated in this letter, had occurred to the R. Rev.

F1 Dean Swift's works, vol, viii. p. 56.