6 to-morrow call a Roman Catholic to his councils, having always the uncontrolled power of dismissing him the next day: but in a small and free State adjoining Denmark, the State of Hamburg, there appears, when the returns which I quote were made to this Government, to have been in 1816, the same system of exclusion which our new authorities tell us is confined to Turkey and to Spain. The right of public exercise of religion, as also the rights of the dominant Church, remain solely reserved to those who profess the Evangelical Lutheran religion; also especially in civilibus, and namely for the faculty of places of honour in this place, burghers, collegiis, officiis, services of the town, and whatever else may be in this way."" (Appendix to Report, 1816, p. 464.) "The subjects of the crown of Portugal,' says Mr. Chamberlain in his dispatch, must be Catholics, at least outwardly: they are not permitted to be otherwise. "Foreigners of different persuasions are not molested on that account; but with the exception of British subjects, who, by the Treaty of 1810, are permitted to have chapels and churches, under certain restrictions, they have no right, nor would they be permitted, publicly to celebrate divine service."* * Dispatch from H. Chamberlain, Esq., Chargé d'Affaires at the Court of the Prince Regent of Portugal. Rio de Janeiro, October 30, 1816. Suppl. Papers, 1817, p. 15. "Now to revert to freer States: let us look to Switzerland. In the Roman Catholic Cantons of Switzerland, with the exception of Soleure, and a late addition to Fribourg, the Roman Catholic religion is the exclusive religion of the State. Even in the democratic cantons, the cradle of Swiss liberty, the Catholic faith is the exclusive religion of these cantons, none other is tolerated.' (Suppl. Papers, 1817, p. 21.)* "I will nowconfine myself to Prussia, on which most stress has been laid. I ask, then, is there no difference between the power enjoyed in Ireland by the Roman Catholics, of bearding the legislature, if not the law, by their association meetings; and the power enjoyed by the Roman Catholics in Prussia, where no public meeting whatever would be allowed? Is there no difference between a country where every product of the Press is free, where all the proceedings of all the incen * "In all the cantons in which Protestantism is dominant, the Roman Catholics are free: except, indeed, I think that in Basle they would not be allowed to have monastic institutions ; more particularly,' says the authority transmitted by the British Minister to his government, since the Pope, forgetting what he owes to Protestant princes, has re-established the Jesuits and the Inquisition, and laughs at the liberties opposed to his own ultra-montane principles.' I may add indeed that in Appenzel the established religion of each half is exclusive : no Catholics are admitted into the Protestant division of the canton.' (p. 32.) I remember two years ago asking a most respectable man in Zurich, within a day's journey of these 'most free of the free States,' whether, by the general international law of the confederacy, the natives of one canton diaries of Ireland are circulated with impunity; and a country where, if technically there be no licenser, it is sufficiently known and felt, that no work obnoxious to the government can be published with safety? Is there no difference between a population of six millions concentrated in one island, with an O'Connell and a Shiel at their head, brandishing their physical force against us, while they urge us to add to it political power; and a population of two-thirds of the number, scattered over an immense area, without any political leader or bond of union, and without a whisper of an expression of hostile design? Is there no difference between a country where nineteen-twentieths of the property is in the hands of one class, perhaps not a third in number; and a country where the population and the property are nearly equally divided, and where, therefore, it is not necessary to keep political power in one scale, in order to maintain the balance of the other? Is there no difference between a country where offices of trust and power in corporations are elective, and a country where all magistrates are nominated by the crown; and where, as Ellys said long ago, the government need not fear having more persons might not settle in any other? He replied, certainly, in law; but, in fact, no Protestant could buy the least land in any of them; and when I urged again the law, he said, the Protestant cantons will not go to war with them to enforce it." than they desire in public posts of a religion different from the established one;' being themselves in this respect absolute, standing laws to keep them out?' they want no Is there no difference between a country, the government of which is itself largely vested in an elective body, (which body, if the power were granted to the Roman Catholics to-morrow, would, in ten years, receive from the popular elections in Ireland, an immense and most influential accession of Roman Catholic members; the Protestants, whether friends or foes, being weeded out one by one;) and a country where there is no elective body, and no power, therefore, except in the king and the law? Is there no difference between a country where the king cannot deprive the meanest subject of his liberty, and cannot check the speeches of an O'Connell, or the letters of a J. K. L., except by tedious and perhaps uncertain processes; and a country where, if a demagogue were to rise up, whether layman or ecclesiastic, he would be sent at once to Spandau or to Magdeburg? Is there no difference between a country, the bishops and the people of which, so far as they are Roman Catholics, resist all interference on the part of the crown with their ecclesiastical appointments, and say that a veto would be death to their faith; and a country, all orders and degrees in which, the Roman Catholic and Protestant hierarchies, are equally and willingly subject to the control of the Sovereign ? » "One of the most common reproaches," observes Lord Bexley, "urged against the opponents of the Catholic claims is, that we are now the only intolerant and persecuting nation remaining, and this sarcasm is repeated till some at least of those who use it must be supposed to believe it. They forget that in Spain and Portugal, with the exception of a very limited toleration to foreigners, no Protestant is allowed to live; that in the new states of Spanish America, though admitting the most revolutionary systems of government, the principle of religious toleration has been uniformly rejected, and that even the right of sepulture was not long since refused to British officers; that in Piedmont the Protestants are confined to a few narrow mountain vallies, beyond which they are not allowed to possess property or exercise professions; that in other parts of Italy they are tolerated by connivance; and that in these, and all other Roman Catholic countries, without exception, the use of the Bible is denied to the laity by the ecclesiastical, and in most by the civil authorities. "There remain," he continues, "the instances so much relied upon of Prussia, France, and Holland, where it is said that all citizens enjoy equal rights, and toleration, philanthropy and concord universally prevail. The government of Prussia is so different from our own, (as having no legislative assembly,) that no analogy can |