the temper of the times or the supposed necessity of the case required-Papists and Conventiclers have in their turns felt the rigour of Statute Law.

The Statute of 22 Car. 2. c. 1. for preventing Conventicles, and other Statutes of like tendency, existed at the time when the Coronation Oath was framed and enacted by 1 W. & M. c. 6., yet in the same Session of Parliament the Law called the Toleration Act was made.— Several Indulgences both in England and Ireland have been since granted to several Denominations of persons dissenting from the Church of England. Those regulations have been supposed by the makers of them not to be hostile to the Church of England as by Law established, but merely to repeal, or lessen the rigour of, penal Statutes, which, though thought necessary at one season, were deemed inexpedient at another time and under different circumstances.

So long as the King's Supremacy and the main fabrick of the Act of Uniformity, the Doctrine, Discipline, and Government, of the Churchof England, are preserved as the nationalChurch, and the provision for its Ministers kept as an appropriated fund, it seems that any ease given to Sectarists would not militate

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against the Coronation Oath or the Act of Union.

The proviso, which was rejected on 28th March, 1689, as appears in 10th Vol. of Commons' Journals, p. 69, might possibly be rejected as being thought unnecessary; for it is observable from printed History, that in that very Year a commission issued, authorizing several Bishops and other learned men, to revise the Liturgy and Canons, and prepare such alterations as they should think expedient.

Though the Test Act appears to be a very wise Law, and in point of sound policy not to be departed from, yet it seems that it might be repealed, or altered, without any breach of the Coronation Oath, or Act of Union. The temporary Bills of Indemnity, which have so frequently passed, have in effect from time to time dispensed with it in some degree.

It should seem that the Chancellor of Great Britain would incur great risk in affixing the Great Seal to a Bill giving the Pope a concurrent Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction with the King. It would be contrary to the Coronation Oath, and subversive of a fundamental part of the Act of Union.

No. 4.

THE King is much pleased with the diligence shown by the Lord Kenyon in answering the Questions proposed to him; but as he seems not fully apprised of the extent of the present application of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, the King has thought it best to inclose the Petition received yesterday, and the state of the Question as drawn up by a Right Reverend Prelate of that Kingdom, on which the King wishes to have the Lord Kenyon's further opinion in writing.

QUEEN'S HOUSE, March 14th, 1795.

GEORG. R.

No. 5.

Enclosed in No. 4.

It has been confidently reported in Ireland, that, in compliance with the unbounded requisition of the Roman Catholics, à Bill had been prepared to capacitate them to sit in Parliament without making and subscribing the Declaration against Popery, or taking the Oath of

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Supremacy. This appears to be a direct violation of the English Act of the 30th Charles II. statute 2. chap. 1. which enacts, that no person shall sit or vote in Parliament, until he shall have taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, and made, and subscribed, and audibly repeated, the Declaration against Popery therein contained. Which Act, as far as

it relates to the said Oaths and Declarations, was made the Law of Ireland, by the Irish Act of the 21st and 22d of George III. chap. 48. sect. 3.-It also appears to be a repeal of the Declaration of the Bill of Rights, which are expressly enacted and established "to stand. "and remain and be the Law of the Realm for "ever."-It seems to be a repeal of the Act of Settlement," Whereby all the Laws and Sta"tutes of the Realm for securing the Established Religion were ratified and confirmed." Among which Statutes so confirmed, we must place the preceding Statutes of Charles II. and the Declaration of the Bill of Rights. -It appears also to be a direct violation of the Act of Union (5 Anne, chap. 8.), by which the inviolate maintenance and preservation of the Established Religion in Ireland is secured, by providing "that all and singular the Acts of Parliament' "then in force for the establishment and preser

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"vation of the Church, should remain and be "in full force for ever. And it is further "therein enacted, that this Act, and all and

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every the things therein contained, be and "shall for ever be holden to be a fundamental "and essential part of the Union."-It seems also that an inviolable observation of all these Statutes is made obligatory upon every King and Queen of the Realm by the Coronation Oath.

Is it not advisable, therefore, to put an end at once to a claim that is inconsistent and incompatible with the terms of the original contract between the King and the People, and subversive of that part of the Constitution formed for the preservation of the Protestant Religion established by Law? The same great fundamental Statutes, which secure the Rights and Liberties of the People, secure also the Protestant Reformed Religion as by Law established, and if that part of them which secures our Religion is to be repealed now, what security remains for the Preservation of our Civil Rights and Liberties? Is it not therefore necessary to extinguish such vain expectations by an explicit declaration-that they cannot be complied with?