gations to a foreign power: if Protestant ministers in France or Germany took oaths of allegiance, and were otherwise in subjection to the Archbishop of Canterbury, we should probably hear but little of Roman Catholic liberality. Secondly, the Roman ritual has an aggressive publicity, the free exercise of which would be an invasion of the freedom of other religions: Protestants have no procession of a Host, or a crucifix, or a statue of the Virgin; neither do they compel men to a cessation from business, on the festivals of saints or reputed saints.'

"The circumstances, therefore, under which the Protestants exist in France are so dissimilar to those in which the British and Irish Roman Catholics are placed, partly by the tenets which they profess, and partly by their aggressive movements, that no precedent can be drawn for one country from the course which is pursued in the other."

"They tell us of other nations," says Sir J. Copley, and they talk much and loudly of the extraordinary liberality which prevails in several nations of the continent of Europe, with respect to religions which are not established in those states. Austria and France have been referred to as examples of this liberality. In the former of these, I have understood it to be said, that in no country does a spirit of liberality more fully prevail. If we look into the circumstances of that country, we shall see that there is not one point

in which she can be said to be in the same situation as England. It may be true that in that country there are no distinctions as to religion; but every body must know that all the members of the church and hierarchy of Austria are appointed by the civil government of the country. The same observation may be made with respect to France, and it will equally apply to all the other Roman Catholic countries of Europe; and therefore, I say that the arguments founded upon their liberality are not to be pressed upon us, since their situation is not analogous to our ownsince they exercise a control over the choice of the members of the church, and of the hierarchy, which we do not possess. There can, therefore, be no comparison instituted between what is done in the states to which I have alluded and what is done here. In them the church is established by law, and at once pays obedience to and receives support from the civil government.

“But here, wé are required to establish an hierarchy owing no obedience to the crown— holding uncontrolled sway over the minds of a large body of the people-carrying on a correspondence-over which government will possess no check-with a foreign state, to the opinions and maxims of which every man in Ireland will look for the rule of his conduct, and the authority of which he will acknowledge in every respect, while he pays no attention or obedience to our government. I say, therefore, that considering

these circumstances, I am fully justified in asserting that there is no analogy between the state of things in those countries and in this, and consequently, that we are not to be fettered by the arguments which are pressed upon us as drawn from the examples of those states."

"The Protestant religion," observes Lord Stowell, "is not deeply incorporated in their civil constitutions, if civil constitutions they have; most of them being despotic states, in which the prince has a ready corrective in his own hands, for any inconvenience which be apprehended."

may be

"The argument ad verecundiam," says Sir R. Inglis, "by which, looking at the liberality of

all other Protestant States,' as the case is described, we are to be shamed into a concession of the demands of our Roman Catholic countrymen, is founded on the assumption, not merely that the fact is so; namely, that all other Protestant states do admit Roman Catholics to equal civil privileges, but above all, that the situation of the British Empire is, interiorly, the same with that of the several states brought forward as examples; and therefore that it is as wise and safe for her to pull down all those barriers, which all men admit were once necessary for her, as it is for the other states in question not to erect them.

"Mr. Gally Knight assumes in his pamphlet, that England is the most illiberal of all civilized

countries; and, to the same effect, a noble lord states, I think, in his letters to the late Sir George Lee, that the only exceptions in Europe to universal toleration are Spain, Turkey, and England; and that, therefore, it is with Ferdinand VII. and the Grand Seignior, that Great Britain must be content to run the race, and divide the prize of bigotry; that in short, no other States profess to found on the religious distinctions of their subjects any claim on the one hand, or any impediment on the other, to the attainment of civil honours.

"I deny the fact; though even if I admitted it, I could easily show that it is of no use in the argument, unless the circumstances of the several countries shall be precisely the same with those of the United Kingdom.

“It is true, that at the Congress of 1815, the old laws in the several States composing the Germanic body were altered, as stated in papers before this House; but to this day the religion of Sweden is Lutheran ;* and the laws in Sweden against persons of a foreign religion' appear by the papers on the table of this House, to be very severe. (Supplementary Papers, 1817, p. 41-43.) In respect to one provision, there seemed, in 1809, to be some relaxation; but it is immediately followed by this rule, 'such only as profess the true Evangelical

* Charles John, the present king, was compelled to conform to the Lutheran Church on entering the country.

Creed,' (I read from the Supplementary Papers of 1817) can be appointed to be Ministers of State, Counsellors of State, Counsellors of Justice, Secretaries of State, men in all civil offices, and Judges within the kingdom.' And in the following year there appeared another regulation from the Diet, established by the King and States General, Persons professing any other doctrine than the Reformed one cannot be adopted as Members of the Diet; but the right of election cannot be refused to those who are Christians.'

6

"Now, as to Denmark. From a paper drawn up by the celebrated Schlegel, and transmitted to Lord Castlereagh by Mr. Foster, then the King's Minister at the court of Copenhagen, that gentleman draws this conclusion, which I will read from his dispatch: From this paper it appears, that the laws of Denmark prohibit the Roman Catholics generally from exercising their religion within the kingdom, and that whatever liberty of worship particular communions of men may enjoy, exists in virtue of special favours conferred upon them; in Holstein, by the ancient Sovereigns of that country, which were afterwards confirmed by the Kings of Denmark; or, in Denmark itself by the Danish crown, out of regard to the French and Austrian Missions."

"Denmark, it is true, is an almost absolute monarchy; and perhaps the Sovereign who today prohibits the Roman Catholic worship, may