LETTER XI.

BESS'S HYPOCRISY AS TO THE DEATH OF MARY STUART. SPANISH ARMADA. POOR-LAWS. BARBAROUS TREATMENT OF IRELAND. BESS'S INQUISITION. HORRID PERSECUTION OF THE CATHOLICS. THE RACKS AND TORTURES SHE EMPLOYED. HER DEATH.

Kensington, 30th Sept., 1825.

MY FRIENDS,

321. DETESTABLY base as was the conduct of "good Queen Bess" in the act of murdering her unfortunate cousin, her subsequent hypocrisy was still more detestable. She affected the deepest sorrow for the act that had been committed, pretended that it had been done against her wish, and had the superlative injustice and baseness to imprison her Secretary, DAVISON, for having dispatched the warrant for the execution, though she, observe, had signed that warrant; and though, as WITAKER has fully proved, she had reviled DAVISON for not having despatched it, after she had, in vain, used all the means in her power to induce him to employ assassins to do the deed. She had, by a series of perfidies and cruelties wholly without a parallel. brought her hapless victim to the block, in that very country to which she had invited her to seek safety; she had, in the last sad and awful moments of that victim, had the barbarity to refuse her the consolations of a divine of her own communion; she had pursued her with hatred and malice that remained unglutted even when she saw her prostrate under the common hangman, and when she saw the blood gushing from her severed neck; unsated with the destruction of her body, she, Satan-like, had sought the everlasting destruction of her soul: and yet, the deed being done, she had the more than Satan-like hypocrisy to affect to weep for the untimely end of her "dear cousin"; and, which was still more diabolical, to make use of her despotic power to crush her humane secretary, under pretence that he had been the cause of the sad catastrophe! All expressions of detestation and honour fall short of our feelings, and our only consolation is, that we are to see her own end ten thousand times more to be dreaded than that of her victim.

322. Yet, such were the peculiar circumstances of the times, that this wicked woman escaped, not only for the present, but throughout her long reign, that general hatred from her subjects, which her character and deeds so well merited; nay, it perversely happened, that, immediately alter this foul deed, there took place an event which rallied all her people round her, and made her life, more than ever, an. object of their solicitude.

323. Philip II., King of Spain, who was also sovereign of the Low Countries, resolved on an invasion of England, with a fleet from Spain and with an army from Flanders. She had given him quite provocation enough; she had fomented rebellions against him, as she long had in France against the King of that country. Philip was the most powerful monarch in Europe; he had fleets and armies vastly superior to hers; the danger to England was really great; but, though these dangers had been brought upon it solely by her malignity, bad faith, and perfidy, England was still England to her people, and they unanimously rallied round her. On this occasion, and, indeed, on all others, where love of country was brought to the test, the Catholics proved, that no degree of oppression could make them forget their duty as citizens, or as subjects. Even from HUME it is extorted, that the Catholic gentlemen, though her laws excluded them from all trust and authority, "entered as volunteers in her fleet or army. Some equipped ships at their own charge, and gave the command of them to Protestants: others were active in animating their tenants and vassals and neighbours, to the defence of their country: and, every rank of men, burying, for the present, all patty distinctions, seemed to prepare themselves with order as well as vigour, to resist these invaders." Charles I., James II., George I. and George II., and even George III., all saw the time, when they might have lamented the want of similar loyalty in Protestants. The first lost his head; the second his throne; the third and fourth were exposed to great danger of a similar loss; and the fifth lost America; and all by the doings of Protestants.

324. The intended invasion was prevented by a tremendous storm, which scattered and half destroyed the Spanish fleet, called the ARMADA, and, in all human probability, the invaders would not have succeeded, even if no storm had arisen. But, at any rate, there was great danger; no one could be certain of the result; the Catholics, had they listened to their just resentment, might have greatly added to the danger; and, therefore, their generous conduct merited some relaxation of the cruel treatment which they had hitherto endured under her iron sceptre. No such relaxation, however, took place: they were still treated with every species of barbarous cruelty; subjected to an inquisition infinitely more severe than that of Spain ever had or ever has been; and, even on the bare suspicion of disaffection, imprisoned, racked, and not unfrequently put to death.

325. As to Ireland, where the estates of the convents, and where the church property had been confiscated in the same way as in England, and where the greater distance of the people from the focus of power and apostacy and fanaticism, had rendered it more difficult to effect their "conversion" at the point of the bayonet, or by the halter, or the rack; as to this portion of her dominions, her reign was almost one unbroken series of robberies and butcheries. One greedy and merciless minion after another were sent to goad that devoted people into acts of desperation; and that, too, not only for the obvious purpose, but for the avowed purpose, of obtaining a pretence for new confiscations. The "Reformation" had, from its very outset, had plunder written on its front; but, as to Ireland, it was all plunder from the crown of its head to the sole of its foot. This horrible lynx-like she-tyrant could not watch each movement of the Catholics there, as she did in England; she could not so harass them in detail; she could find there no means of executing her dreadful police; and therefore she murdered them in masses. She sent over those parsons whose successors are there to the present day. The ever blood stained sword secured them the tithes and the church lands; but even that blood-stained sword could not then, and never did, though at one time wielded by the unsparing and double-distilled Protestant, CROMWELL, obtain them congregations. However, she planted, she watered with rivers of blood, and her long reign saw take fast root in the land, that tree, the fruit of which the unfortunate Irish taste to this hour; and which will, unless prevented by more wise and more just measures than appear to have been yet suggested, finally prove the overthrow of England herself.

326. I am to speak, further on, of the monstrous immoralities produced in England by the "Reformation," and also of the poverty and misery that it produced; and then I shall have to trace (through Acts of Parliament) this poverty and misery up to the "Reformation;" yes, for therein we shall see, clearly as we see the rivulet bubbling out of the bed of the spring, the bread and water of England and the potatoes of Ireland; but, even in this place, it is necessary to state the cause of the greater poverty and degradation of the Irish people. For ages that ill-treated people have, in point of clothing and food, formed a contrast with the English. Dr. FRANKLIN, in speaking of Ireland, says, that "one would think that the cast-off clothes of the working-people of England were sent over to be worn by the working-people here"

327. Whence comes it that this contrast has so long existed? The soil and the climate of Ireland are as good as those of England. The islands are but a few miles asunder. Both are surrounded by the same sea. The people of the. former are as able and as willing to labour as those of the latter; and of this they have given proof in all parts of the world, to which they have migrated, not to carry packs to cheat fools out of their money, not to carry the lash to make others work, but to share themselves, and cheerfully to share, in the hardest labours of those amongst whom they have sought shelter from the rod of unrelenting oppression. Whence comes it, then, that this contrast, so unfavourable to Ireland, has so long existed? The answer to this interesting question we shall find by attending to the different measures, dealt out to the two people, during the long and cruel reign of which we are now speaking; and we, at the same time, trace all the miseries of Ireland back, at once, to that "Reformation," the blessings of which have, with such persevering falsehood and hypocrisy, been dinned in our ears for ages.

328. We have seen in Letter III. of this little work, paragraphs 50, 51, and 52, that the Catholic Church was not, and is not, an affair of mere abstract faith; that it was not so very spiritual a concern as to scorn all cares relative to the bodies of the people; that one part, and that a capital part, of its business was, to cause works of charity to be performed; that this charity was not of so very spiritual a nature as not to be at all tangible, or obvious to the vulgar sense; that it showed itself in good works done to the needy and suffering; that the tithes and offerings and income from real property, of the Catholic Church, went in great part, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to lodge and feed the stranger, to sustain the widow and the orphan, and to heal the wounded and the sick; that, in short, a great part, and indeed one of the chief parts, of the business of this Church was, to take care that no person, however low in life, should suffer from want either of sustenance or care; and that the priests of this Church should have as few selfish cares as possible to withdraw them from this important part of their duty, they were forbidden to marry. Thus, as long as this Church was the national Church, there were hospitality and charity in the land, and the horrid word "pauper" had never been so much as thought of.

329. But, when the Protestant religion came, and along with it a married priesthood, the poorer classes were plundered of their birthright, and thrown out to prowl about for what they could beg or steal. LUTHER and his followers wholly rejected the doctrine, that good works were necessary to salvation. They held, that faith, and faith alone, was necessary. They expunged from their Bible the Epistle of St. JAMES, because it recommends, and insists on the necessity of, good works; which Epistle Luther called, "An Epistle of straw." The "reformers" differed from each other, as widely as the colours of the rainbow, in most other things; but, they all agreed in this, that, good works were unnecessary to salvation, and that the" saints," as they had the modesty to call themselves, could not forfeit their right to heaven by any sins, however numerous and enormous. By those, amongst whom plunder, sacrilege, adultery, polygamy, incest, perjury, and murder were almost as habitual as sleeping and waking; by those, who taught that the way to everlasting bliss could not be obstructed by any of these, nor by all of them put together; by such persons, charity, besides that it was a so well- known Catholic commodity, would be, as a matter of course, set wholly at nought.

330. Accordingly we see that it is necessarily excluded by the very nature of all Protestant establishments; that is to say, in reality; for the name of charity is retained by some of these establishments; but, the substance nowhere exists. The Catholic establishment interweaves deeds of constant and substantial charity with the faith itself. It makes the two inseparable. The DOUAY CATECHISM, which the Protestant parsons so much abuse, says that "the first fruit of the Holy Ghost is charity." And, then, it tells us what charity is; namely, "to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to visit and ransom captives, to harbour the harbourless, to visit the sick, to bury the dead." Can you guess, my friends, why fat Protestant parsons rail so loudly against this "wicked Douay Catechism?" It is in the nature of man to love all this. This is what "the gates of hell will never prevail against." This is what our fathers believed, and what they acted upon; and this it was that produced in them that benevolent disposition which, thank God , has not yet been wholly extirpated from the breasts of their descendants.

331. Returning now to paragraphs 50, 51, and 52, just mentioned; it is there seen that the Catholic Church rendered all municipal laws about the poor wholly unnecessary; but, when that Church had been plundered and destroyed; when the greedy leading "reformers" had sacked the convents and the churches; when those great estates which of right belonged to the poorer classes, had been taken from them; when the parsonages had been first well pillaged, and the remnant of their revenues given to married men; then the poor (for poor there will and must be in every community) were left destitute of the means of existence, other than the fruits of begging, theft, and robbery. Accordingly, when "good Queen Bess" had put the finishing hand to the plundering of the Church and poor, once happy and free and hospitable England became a den of famishing robbers and slaves. STRIPE, a Protestant, and an authority to whom HUME appeals and refers many hundreds of times, tells us of a letter from a Justice of the Peace in Somersetshire to the Lord Chief Justice, saying: "I may justly say, that the able men that are abroad, seeking the spoil and confusion of the land, are able, if they were reduced to good subjection, to give the greatest enemy her Majesty hath a strong battle, and, as they are now, are so much strength to the enemy. Besides, the generation that daily springeth from them, is like to be most wicked. These spare neither rich nor poor; but, whether it be great gain or small, all is fish that cometh to net with them; and yet I say, both they and the rest are trussed up a-pace." The same Justice says: "In default of justice, many wicked thieves escape. For most commonly the most simple countrymen and women, looking no farther than to the loss of their own goods, are of opinion that they would not procure any man's death, for all the goods in the world." And while the "good Bess" complained bitterly of the non-execution of her laws, the same Protestant historian tells us, that "she executed more than five hundred criminals in a year, and was so little satisfied with that number, that she threatened to send private persons to see her penal laws executed for 'profit and gain's sake.' It appears that she did not threaten in vain; for soon after this a complaint was made in Parliament, that the stipendiary magistrate of that day was 'a kind of living creature, who for half a dozen of chickens would dispense with a dozen of penal statutes.'" She did not, however, stop, with this "liberal" use of the gallows. Such was the degree of beggary, of vagabondage and of thievishness and robbery, that she resorted, particularly in London and its neighbourhood, to martial law. This fact is so complete a proof of the horrible effects of the "Reformation" upon the moral state of the people, and it is so fully characteristic of the Government, which the people of England had, in consequence of that "Reformation," become so debased as to submit to, that I. must take the statement as it stands in HUME, who gives the very words of "good and glorious Bess's" commission to her head murderer upon this occasion. "The streets of London were very much infested with idle vagabonds and riotous persons: the Lord Mayor had endeavoured to repress this disorder: the Star-chamber had exerted its authority, and inflicted punishment on these rioters. But the Queen, finding these remedies ineffectual, revived" [ Revived? What does he mean by REVIVED?] "martial law, and gave Sir THOMAS WILFORD a commission as Provost- martial: 'Granting him authority, and commanding him, upon signification given by the justices of the peace in London or the neighbouring counties, of such offenders, worthy to be speedily executed by martial law, to take them, and according to the justice of martial law, to execute them upon the gallows or gibbet.' " And yet, this is she, whom we have been taught to call "good Queen Bess;" this is she, of the "glories" of whose reign there are men of learning base enough to talk, even to this day!

332. But, such were the natural consequences of the destruction of the Catholic Church, and of the plundering of the poor which accompanied that destruction, and particularly of lodging all power, ecclesiastical and civil, in the same hands. However, though this terrible she-tyrant spared neither racks nor halters, though she was continually reproving the executors of her bloody laws for their remissness while they were strewing the country with the carcasses of malefactors or alleged malefactors, all would not do; that hunger, which breaks through stone-walls, set even her terrors and torments at defiance; at last it was found to be absolutely necessary to make some general and permanent and solid provision for the poor; and in the 43rd year of her reign, was passed that Act, which is in force to this day, and which provides a maintenance for indigent persons, which maintenance is to come from the land, assessed and collected by overseers, and the payment enforced by process the most effectual and most summary. And here we have the great, the prominent, the staring, the horrible and ever-durable consequence of the "Reformation;" that is to say, pauperism established by law.

333. Yet this was necessary. The choice that the plunderers had in England was this: legal pauperism, or, extermination; and this last they could not effect, and if they could, it would not have suited them. They did not possess power sufficient to make the people live in a state of three-fourths starvation, therefore they made a legal provision for the poor: not, however, till they had tried in vain all other methods of obtaining a something to supply the place of Catholic charity. They attempted, at first, to cause the object to be effected by voluntary collections at the churches; but, alas! those who now entered those churches, looked upon LUTHER as the great teacher; and he considered St. JAMES's Epistle as an "Epistle of straw." Every attempt of this sort having failed, as it necessarily must, when the parsons who were to exhort others to charity, had enough to do to rake together all they could for their own wives and children; every Act (and there were many passed) short of a compulsory tax, enforced by distraint of goods and imprisonment of person, having failed, to this "glorious Bess" and her "Reformation" Parliament at last came; and here we have it to this day, filling the country with endless quarrels and litigation, setting parish against parish, man against master, rich against poor, and producing, from a desire of the rich to shuffle out of its provisions, a mass of hypocrisy, idleness, fraud, oppression, and cruelty, such as was, except in the deeds of the original "reformers," never before witnessed in the world.

334. Nevertheless, it was, as far as it went, an act of justice. It was taking from the land and giving to the poor, a part, at least, of what they had been robbed of by the "Reformation." It was doing, in a hard and odious way, a part of that which had been done, in the most gentle and amiable way by the Church of our fathers. It was, indeed, feeding the poor like dogs, instead of like one's children; but it was feeding them. Even this, however, the "good Bess" and her plundering minions thought too much to do for the savagely-treated Irish people; and here we come to the real cause of that contrast, of which I have spoken in paragraph 235; here we come to that which made Dr. FRANKLIN suppose, or, to say that any one might naturally suppose, that "the old clothes of the working classes in England had been sent over to be worn by the same class in Ireland."

335. We have seen how absolute necessity compelled "good Bess" and her plunderers to make a legal provision for the relief of the indigent in England; we have seen, that it was only restoring to them a part of that of which they had been plundered; and upon what principle was it, that they did not do the same with regard to the people of Ireland? These had been plundered in precisely the same manner that the former had; they had been plunged into misery by precisely the same means used under precisely the same hypocritical pretences; why were not they to be relieved from that misery in the same manner; and why was not the poor-law to be extended to Ireland?

336. Base and cruel plunderers! They grudged the relief in England; but, they had no compulsory means to be obtained out of England; and they found it impossible to make Englishmen to compel one another to live in a state of three-fourths starvation. But, they had England to raise armies in to send to effect this purpose in Ireland, especially when those English armies were urged on by promised plunder, and were (consisting as they did of Protestants) stimulated by motives as powerful, or nearly so, as the love of plunder itself. Thus it was, that Ireland was pillaged without the smallest chance of even the restoration which the English obtained; and thus have they, down unto this our day, been a sort of outcasts in their own country, being stripped of all the worldly goods that God and nature allotted them, and having received not the smallest pittance is return. We talk of "the outrages in Ireland;" we seem shocked at the violences committed there; and that sapient, profound, candid and modest gentleman, Mr. ADOLPHUS, the other day, in pleading at one of the police-offices in London (a sphere to which his talents are exceedingly well adapted,) took occasion, sought occasion, went out of his way to find occasion, to "thank God" that we, on this side of St. George's Channel, knew nothing of those outrages, which, when they were mentioned to the Irish, they ascribed to the misrule of ages. Now, it might be a little too much to expect an answer of any sort from a lawyer so dignified as this police-pleader; but, let me ask any English gentleman, or, any Englishman of any rank, except Mr. ADOLPHUS, what he thinks would be the consequences here, if the poor-laws were abolished to-morrow? Mr. ADOLPHUS can hardly help knowing, that Parson MALTHUS and his tribe have been preaching up the wisdom of such abolition; he may remember, too (for the example was terrific), that Mr. SCARLETT was "twisted down" in consequence of his having had the folly to mould this proposition of Malthus into the form of a BILL; but, Mr. ADOLPHUS may not know, that petitions were preparing against that Bill, and that, too, from the payers of the poor-rates, stating, that, if such Bill were passed, there would be no safety for their property or their lives. Let us, then, have a little justice, at any rate; and, above all things, let us not, adding blasphemy to ignorance, insolence, and low, mob-courting sycophancy, "thank God" for the absence of outrages amongst us, as the wolf, in the fable, "thanked God" that he was not ferocious.

337. Why, there have been "ages of misrule" in Ireland, many, many ages too; or the landholders of England have, during those ages, been most unjustly assessed. But, they are sensible, or, at least, the far greater part of them, that a provision for the indigent, a settled, certain, legal provision, coming out of the land, is a right which the indigent possess, to use the words of BLACKSTONE, "in the very nature of civil society." Every man of reflection must know, that the labours, which the affairs of society absolutely demand, could never be performed but by persons who work for their bread; he must see, that a very large part of these persons will do no more work than is necessary to enable them to supply their immediate wants; and, therefore, he must see, that there always must be, in every community, a great number of persons who, from sickness, old age, from being orphans, widows, insane, and from other causes, will need relief from some source or other, This is the lot of civil society, exist wherever and however it may, and it will require a solider head than that which is on the shoulders of Mr. SCARLETT, to show, that this need of relief, to which all are liable, is not a necessary ingredient in the cement of civil society. The United States of America is a very happy country. The world has never yet seen a people better off. But, though the Americans cast off their allegiance to our king; though they abolished the monarchical rights; though they cast off the aristocracy of England; though they cast off the Church of England; they did not cast off the English poor-laws; and this very act of turbulent Bess, extorted from her by their English forefathers, is, at this moment, as completely in force in New York as it is in Old York, in New London as in Old London, in New Hampshire as in Old Hampshire, and in that whole country, from one end to the other, as it is in Old England herself.

338. Has it not, then, been a "misrule of ages" in Ireland? Have not that people been most barbarously treated by England? An Irishman, who has a thousand times been ready to expire from starvation in his native land, who has been driven to steal sea-weed to save himself from death, goes to America, feels hunger without having the means of relieving it; and there, in that foreign land, he finds, at once, be he where he may, an overseer of the poor, ready to give him relief! And, is such monstrous, such crying injustice as this still to be allowed to exist? The folly here surpasses, if possible, the injustice and the cruelty. The English landholders make the laws: we all know that. They subject, justly subject, their own estates to assessments for the relief of the poor in England; and, while they do this, they exonerate the estates of the Irish landowners from a like assessment, and choose rather to tax themselves and to tax us and tax the Irish besides, for the purpose of paying an army to keep that starving people from obtaining relief by force! Lord LIVERPOOL, when the Scotch Lords and others applied to him, in 1819, for a grant out of the taxes, to relieve the starving manufacturers in Scotland, very wisely and justly said, "No: have poor-laws, such as ours, and then your poor will be sure of relief." Why not say the same thing to the Irish landholders? Why not compel them to give to the people that which is their due? Why is Ireland to be the only civilised country upon the face of the earth, where no sort of settled, legal provision is made for the indigent, and where the Pastors are, at the same time, total strangers to the flocks, except in the season of shearing? Let us, at least, as long as this state of things should be suffered to exist, have the decency not to cry out quite so loudly against the "outrages of the Irish."

339. I must now return from this digression (into which the mention of "good Bess's" barbarous treatment of Ireland has led me), in order to proceed with my account of her "reforming" projects. Betsy was a great Doctor of Divinity. She was extremely jealous of her prerogatives and powers, but particularly in what regarded her headship of the Church. She would make all her subjects be of her religion, though she had solemnly sworn, at her coronation, that she was a Catholic, and though, in turning Protestant. she had made a change in Cranmer's prayer-book and in his articles of faith. In order to bend the people's con sciences to her tyrannical will, which was the more unjust, because she herself had changed her religion, and had even changed the Protestant articles, she established an inquisition the most horrible that ever was heard of in the world. She gave what she called a Commission to certain Bishops and others, whose power extended over the whole kingdom, and over all ranks and degrees of the people. They were empowered to have an absolute control over the opinions of all men, and to punish all men according to their discretion, short of death. They might proceed legally, if they chose, in the obtaining of evidence against parties; but, if they chose, they were to employ imprisonment, the rack, or torture of any sort, for this purpose. If their suspicions alighted upon any man, no matter respecting what, and they had no evidence, nor even any hearsay, against him, they might administer an oath, called ex- officio, to him, by which he was bound, if called upon, to reveal his thoughts, and to accuse himself, his friend, his brother, or his father, upon pain of death. These subaltern monsters inflicted what fines they pleased; they imprisoned men for any length of time that they pleased. They put forth whatever new articles of faith they pleased; and, in short, this was a Commission exercising, in the name and for the purposes of "good Queen Bess," an absolute control over the bodies and the minds of that people, whom the base and hypocritical and plundering "reformers" pretended to have delivered from a "slavish subjection to the POPE," but whom they had, without any pretending, actually delivered from freedom, charity and hospitality.

340. When one looks at the deeds of this foul tyrant, when one sees what abject slavery she had reduced the nation to, and especially when one views this Commission, it is impossible for us not to reflect with shame on what we have so long been saying against the Spanish Inquisition, which, from its first establishment to the present hour, has not committed so much cruelty as this ferocious Protestant apostate committed in any one single year of the forty- three years of her reign. And, observe again, and never forget, that Catholics, where they inflicted punishments inflicted them on the ground, that the offenders had departed from the faith in which they had been bred and which they had professed; whereas the Protestant punishments have been inflicted on men because they refused to depart from the faith in which they had been bred, and which they had professed all their lives. And, in the particular case of the brutal hypocrite, they were punished, and that, too, in the most barbarous manner, for adhering to that very religion, which she had openly professed for many years of her life, and to which she, even at her coronation , had sworn that she belonged!

341. It is hardly necessary to attempt to describe the sufferings that the Catholics had to endure during this murderous reign. No tongue, no pen is adequate to the task. To hear mass, to harbour a priest, to admit the supremacy of the POPE, to deny this horrid virago's spiritual supremacy. and many other things, which an honourable Catholic could scarcely avoid, consigned him to the scaffold and to the bowel-ripping knife. But, the most cruel of her acts, even more cruel than her butcheries, because of far more extensive effect, and far more productive of suffering in the end, were the penal laws inflicting fines for recusancy, that is to say, for not going to her new-fangled Protestant church. And, was there ever tyranny equal to this? Not only were men to be punished for not confessing that the new religion was the true one; not only for continuing to practise the religion in which they and their fathers and children bad been born and bred; but also punished for not actually going to the new assemblages, and there performing what they must, if they were sincere, necessarily deem an act of open apostacy and blasphemy! Never, in the whole world, was there heard of before tyranny equal to this.

342. The fines were so heavy, and were exacted with such unrelenting rigour, and, for the offence of recusancy alone the sums were so enormous, that the whole of the conscientious Catholics were menaced with utter ruin. The priests who had never been out of England, and who were priests before the reign of this horrible woman, were, by, the 20th year of her reign, few in number, for the laws forbade the making of any new ones on pain of death, and, indeed none could be made in England, where there was no clerical authority to ordain them, the surviving Catholic bishops being forbidden to do it on pain of death. Then she harassed the remainder of the old priests in such a way, that they were, by the 20th year of her reign, nearly exterminated; and as it was death for a priest to come from abroad, death to harbour him, death for him to perform his functions in England, death to confess to him, there appeared to be an impossibility of preventing her from extirpating, totally extirpating from the land, that religion, under which England had been so great and so happy for ages so numerous; that religion of charity and hospitality; that religion which made the name of pauper unknown; that religion which had built the churches and cathedrals, which had planted and reared the Universities, whose professors had made Magna Charta and the Common Law, and who had performed all those glorious deeds in legislation and in arms, which had made England really "the "envy of surrounding nations and the admiration of the world": there now appeared to be an impossibility, and especially if the termagant tyrant should live for another twenty years (which she did), to prevent her from effecting this total extirpation. From accomplishing this object she was prevented by the zeal and talents of WILLIAM ALLEN, an English gentleman, now a priest, and who had before been of the University of Oxford. In order to defeat the she-tyrant's schemes for rooting out the Catholic religion, he formed a Seminary at DOUAY, in Flanders, for the education of English priests. He was joined by many other learned men; and, from this depot, though at the manifest hazard of their lives, priests came into England; and thereby the malignity of this inexorable apostate was defeated. There was the sea between her and ALLEN, but, while he safely defied her death-dealing power, she could not defy his, for she could not erect a wall round the island, and into it priests would come and did come; and, in spite of her hundreds of spies and her thousands of "pursuivants," as were called the myrmidons who executed her tormenting and bloody behests, the race of English priests was kept in existence, and the religion of their fathers along with it. In order to break up the seminary of ALLEN, who was afterwards made a Cardinal, and whose name can never be pronounced but with feelings of admiration, she resorted to all sorts of schemes; and, at last, by perfidiously excluding from her ports the fleet of the Dutch and Flemish insurgents, to whom she stood pledged to give protection, she obtained from the Spanish Governor, a dissolution of ALLEN's college; but, he found protection in France, from the House of Guise, by whom he and his college were, in spite of most bitter remonstrances from "good Bess" to the King of France, re-established at RHEIMS.

343. Thus defeated in all her projects for destroying the missionary trunk, she fell with more fury than ever on the branches and on the fruit. To say mass, to hear mass, to make confession, to hear confession, to teach the Catholic religion, to be taught it, to keep from her church service: these were all great crimes, and all punished with a greater or less degree of severity; so that the gallowses and gibbets and racks were in constant use, and the gaols and dungeons choking with the victims. The punishment for keeping away from her church was 20l. a lunar month, which, of money of the present day, was about 250l. Thousands upon thousands refused to go to her church; and thus she sacked their thousands upon thousands of estates; for, observe, here was, in money of this day, a fine of 3,250l. a year. And now, sensible and just reader, look at the barbarity of this "Protestant Reformation." See a gentleman of, perhaps, sixty years of age or more; see him, born and bred a Catholic, compelled to make himself and his children beggars, actual beggars, or to commit, what he deemed, an act of apostacy and blasphemy. Imagine, if you can, barbarity equal to this; and yet even this is not seen in its most horrible light, unless we take into view, that the tyrant who committed it, had, for many years of her life, openly professed the Catholic religion, and had, at her coronation, sworn that she firmly believed in that religion.

344. In the enforcing of these horrible edicts, every insult, that base minds could devise, was resorted to and in constant use. No Catholic, or reputed Catholic, had a moment's security or peace. At all hours, but generally in the night-times, the ruffians entered his house by breaking it open; rushed, in different divisions, into the rooms; broke open closets, chests, and drawers; rummaged beds and pockets; in short, searched every place and thing for priests, books, crosses, vestments, or any person or thing appertaining to the Catholic worship. In order to pay the fines, gentlemen were compelled to sell their estates piece by piece; when they were in arrear, the tyrant was, by law, authorised to seize all their personal property, and two thirds of their real estate every six months; and they were in some cases suffered, as a great indulgence, to pay an annual composition for the liberty of abstaining from what they deemed apostacy and blasphemy. Yet, whenever she took it into her suspicious head that her life was in danger, from whatever cause, and causes, and just causes enough there always were, she had no consideration for them on account of the fines or the composition. She imprisoned them, either in gaol, or in the houses of Protestants, kept them banished from their own homes for years. The Catholic gentleman's own house afforded him no security; the indiscretion of children or friends, the malice of enemies, the dishonesty or revenge of tenants or servants, the hasty conclusions of false suspicion, the deadly wickedness of those ready to commit perjury for gain's sake, the rapacity and corruption of constables, sheriffs, and magistrates, the virulent prejudice of fanaticism; to every passion hostile to justice, happiness, and peace; to every evil against which it is the object of just laws to protect a man, the conscientious Catholic gentleman lived continually exposed; and that, too, in that land which had become renowned throughout the world by those deeds of valour and those laws of freedom which had been performed and framed by his Catholic ancestors.

345. As to the poor conscientious "recusants," that is to say, keepers away from the tyrant's church, they, who had no money to pay fines with, were crammed into prison, until the gaols could (which was very soon) hold no more, and until the counties petitioned to be relieved from the charge of keeping them. They were then discharged, being first publicly whipped, or having their ears bored with a hot iron. This not answering the purpose, an act was passed to compel all "recusants," not worth twenty marks a year, to quit the country in three months after conviction, and to punish them with death, in case of their return. The old "good Bess," defeated herself here; for, it was found impossible to cause the law to be executed, in spite of all her menaces against the justices and sheriffs, who could not be brought up to her standard of ferociousness; and they, therefore, in order to punish the poor Catholics, levied sums on them at their pleasure, as a composition for the crime of abstaining from apostacy and profanation.

346. The Catholics, at one time, entertained a hope, that, by a declaration of their loyalty, they should obtain from the Queen some mitigation, at least, of their sufferings. With this view they drew up a very able and most dutiful petition, containing an expression of their principles, their sufferings, and their prayers. Alas! they appealed to her to whom truth and justice and mercy were all alike wholly unknown. The petition being prepared, all trembled at the thought of the danger of presenting it to her. At last, RICHARD SHELLEY, of Michael Grove, Sussex, assumed the perilous charge. She had the (as it would have been in any other human being) incomparable baseness to refer him, for an answer, to the gloomy echoes of a pestiferous prison, where he expired, a victim to his own virtue and to her implacable cruelty.

347. Talk of Catholic tyrants! Talk of the Catholics having propagated their faith by acts of force and cruelty! I wonder that an English Protestant, even one whose very bread comes from the spoliation of the Catholics, can be found with so little shame as to talk thus. Our lying Protestant historians tell us, that the ships of the Spanish Armada were "loaded with RACKS," to be used upon the bodies of the English, who were preserved from these by the wisdom and valour of "good and glorious Queen Bess." In the first place, it was the storm, and not "glorious Bess," that prevented an invasion of the country; and, in the next place, the Spaniards might have saved themselves the trouble of importing RACKS, seeing that gentle Betsy had always plenty of them, which she kept in excellent order, and in almost daily use. It is to inflict most painful feelings on Protestants, to be sure; but, justice demands, that I describe one or two of her instruments of torture; because in them we see some of the most powerful of those means which she made use of for ESTABLISHING HER PROTESTANT CHURCH; and here I thank Dr. LINGARD for having, in note U of volume V. of his History, enabled me to give this description. One kind of torture, which was called "The Scavenger's Daughter, was a broad hoop of iron, consisting of two parts, fastened by a hinge. The prisoner was made to kneel on the pavement and to contract him self into as small a compass as he could. Then the executioner, kneeling on his shoulders, and having introduced the hoop under his legs, compressed the victim close together, till he was able to fasten the feet and hands together over the small of the back. The time allotted to this kind of torture was an hour and a half, during which time the blood gushed from the nostrils, and, sometimes, from the hands and feet." There were several other kinds of arguments of conversion that gentle Betsy made use of to eradicate the "damnable errors" of popery; but, her great argument was, the RACK. "This was a large open frame of oak, raised three feet from the ground. The prisoner was laid under it, on his back, on the floor. His wrists and ankles were attached by cords to two rollers at the ends of the frame: these were moved by levers in opposite directions till the body rose to a level with the frame. Questions were then put; and, if the answers did not prove satisfactory, the sufferer was stretched more and more till the bones started from their sockets."

348. There, Protestants; there, revilers of the Catholic religion; there are some of the means which" good Queen Bess" made use of to make her Church, "established by law." Compare, oh! compare, if you have one particle of justice left in you; compare these means with the means made use of by those who introduced and established the Catholic Church!

349. The other deeds and events of the reign of this ferocious woman are now of little interest, and, indeed, do not belong to my subject; but, seeing that the pensioned poet, JAMMY THOMPSON, in that sickly stuff of his, which no man of sense ever can endure after he gets to the age of twenty, has told us about "the glories of the maiden reign," it may not be amiss, before I take my leave of this "good" creature, to observe, that "her glories" consisted in having broken innumerable solemn treaties and compacts; in having been continually bribing rebel subjects to annoy their sovereigns; in having had a navy of freebooters; in having had an army of plunderers; in having bartered for a little money the important town of Calais; and in never having added even one single leaf of laurel to that ample branch which had, for ages, been seated on the brows of England; and that, as to her maiden virtues, WITAKER (a Protestant clergyman, mind) says, that "her life was stained with gross licentiousness, and she had many gallants, while she called herself a maiden Queen." Her life, as he truly says, was a life of "mischief and of misery"; and, in her death (which took place in the year 1603, the 70th of her age and the 45th of her reign) she did all the mischief that it remained in her power to do, by sulkily refusing to name her successor, and thus leaving to a people, whom she had been pillaging and scourging for forty-five years, a probable civil war, as "a legacy of mischief after her death." Historians have been divided in opinion, as to which was the worst man that England ever produced, her father, or Cranmer; but, all mankind must agree, that this was the worst woman that ever existed in England, or in the whole world, Jezebel herself not excepted.

LETTER XII

ACCESSION OF JAMES I. HORRID PERSECUTION OF THE CATHOLICS. GUNPOWDER PLOT. CHARLES I. QUALIFIED FOR THE RANK OF MARTYR. "REFORMATION" THE SECOND, OR "THOROUGH GODLY REFORMATION." CHARLES II. THE PLOTS AND INGRATITUDE OF HIS REIGN. JAMES II.. HIS ENDEAVOURS TO INTRODUCE GENERAL TOLERATION. DAWN OF "GLORIOUS" REVOLUTION.

Kensington, 31st October, 1825.

My FRIENDS,

350. IN the foregoing Letters, it has been proved, beyond all contradiction, that the "Reformation," as it is called; was, "engendered in beastly lust, brought forth in hypocrisy and perfidy, and cherished and fed by rivers of "innocent English and Irish blood." There are persons who publish what they call answers to me: but these answers (Which I shall notice again before I have done) all blink the main subject: they dwell upon what their authors assert to be errors in the Catholic Religion; this they do, indeed, without attempting to show how that Protestant Religion, which has about forty different sects, each at open war with all the rest, can be free from error; but, do they deny, that this new religion began in beastly lust, hypocrisy and perfidy; and do they deny, that it was established by plunder, by tyranny, by axes, by gallowses, by gibbets and by racks? Do they face with a direct negative either of these important propositions? No: there are the facts before them; there is the history; and (which they cannot face with a negative) there are the Acts of Parliament, written in letters of blood, and some of these remaining in force, to trouble and torment the people and to endanger the State, even to the present day. What do these answerers do, then? Do they boldly assert, that beastly lust, hypocrisy, perfidy, that the practice of plunder, that the use of axes, gallowses, gibbets and racks, are good things, and outward signs of inward evangelical purity and grace? No: they give no answer at all upon these matters; but rail against the personal character of priests and cardinals and popes, and against rites and ceremonies and articles of faith and rules of discipline, matters with which I have never meddled, and which have very little to do with my subject, my object, as the title of my work expresses, being to "show, that the 'Reformation' has impoverished and degraded the main body of the people of England and Ireland." I have shown that this change of religion was brought about by some of the worst, if not the very worst, people, that ever breathed: I have shown that the means were such as human nature revolts at; so far I can receive no answer from men not prepared to deny the authenticity of the statute-book; it now remains for me to show, from the same sources, the impoverishing and degrading consequences of this change of religion, and that, too, with regard to the nation as a whole, as well as with regard to the main body of the people.

351. But, though we have now seen the Protestant religion established, completely established, by the gibbets, the racks and the ripping knives, I must, before I come to the impoverishing and degrading consequences, of which I have just spoken, and of which I shall produce the most incontestable proofs; I must give an account of the proceedings of the Reformation-people after they had established the system. The present Letter will show us the Reformation producing a second, and that, too (as every generation is wiser than the preceding), with "vast improvements;" the first being only "a godly Reformation," while the second we shall find to be "a thorough godly" one. The next (or thirteenth) Letter will introduce us to a third Reformation, commonly called the "glorious" Reformation, or revolution. The 14th Letter will give us an account of events still greater; namely, the American Reformation, or revolution, and that of the French. All these we shall trace back to the first Reformation as clearly as any man can trace the branches of a tree back to its root. And, then we shall in the remaining Letter, or Letters, see the fruit in the immorality, crimes, poverty and degradation of the main body of the people. It will be curious to behold the American and French Reformations, or revolutions, playing back the principles of the English Reformation-people upon themselves; and, which is not less curious, and much more interesting, to see them force the Reformation-people to begin to cease to torment the Catholics, whom they had been tormenting without mercy for more than two hundred years.

352. The "good and glorious and maiden" and racking and ripping-up Betsy, who, amongst her other "godly" deeds, granted to her minions, to whom there was no longer church-plunder to give, monopolies of almost all the necessaries of life, so that salt, for instance, which used to be about 2d. a bushel, was raised to 15s. or about seven pounds of our present money; the "maiden" Betsy, who had, as Witaker says, expired in sulky silence as to her successor, and had thus left a probable civil war as a legacy of mischief, was, however, peaceably succeeded by JAMES I., that very child of whom poor Mary Stuart was pregnant, when his father Henry Stuart, Earl of Darnley, and associates, murdered RIZZIO in her presence, as we have seen in paragraph 308, and which child, when he came to man's estate, was a Presbyterian, was generally a pensioner of Bess, abandoned his mother to Bess's wrath, and, amongst his first acts in England, took by the hand, confided in and promoted, that CECIL, who was the son of the Old Cecil, who did, indeed, inherit the great talents of his father, but who had also been, as all the world knew, the deadly enemy of this new King's unfortunate mother.

353. like all the Stuarts, except the last, was at once prodigal and mean, conceited and foolish, tyrannical and weak; but the staring feature of his character was insincerity. It would be useless to dwell in the detail on the measures of this contemptible reign, the prodigalities and debaucheries and silliness of which did, however, prepare the way for that rebellion and that revolution, which took place in the next, when the double-distilled "Reformers" did, at last, provide a "martyr" for the hitherto naked pages of the Protestant Calendar. Indeed, this reign would, as far as my purposes extend, be a complete blank, were it not for; that "gunpowder plot," which alone has caused this Stuart to he remembered, and of which, seeing that it has been, and is yet, made a source of great and general delusion, I shall take much more notice than it would otherwise be entitled to.

354. That there was a plot in the year 1605 (the second year after James came to the throne), the object of which was to blow up the King and both Houses of Parliament, on the first day of the session; that Catholics, and none but Catholics, were parties to this plot; that the conspirators were ready to execute the deed; and that they all avowed this to the last; are facts which no man has ever attempted to deny, any more than any man has attempted to deny that the parties to the Cato-street plot did really intend to cut off the heads of Sidmouth and Castlereagh, which intention was openly avowed by these parties from first to last, to the officers who took them, to the judge who condemned them, and to the people who saw their heads severed from their bodies.

355. But, as the Parliamentary Reformers in general were most falsely and basely accused of instigating to the commission of the last mentioned intended act, so were the Catholics in general, and so are they to this day, not less falsely and less basely accused of instigating to the intended act of 1605. But, as to the conspirators themselves; as to the extent of their crime, are we wholly to leave out of our consideration the provocation they had received? To strike a man is an assault; to kill a man is murder; but, are striking and killing always assault and murder? Oh, no; for we may justifiably assault and kill a robber or a house breaker. The Protestant writers have asserted two things; first, that the Catholics in general instigated to, or approved of, the gunpowder plot; and, second, that this is a proof of the sanguinary principles of their religion. As to the first, the contrary was fully and judicially proved to be the fact; and, as to the second, supposing the conspirators to have had no provocation, those of Cato-street were not Catholics at any rate, nor were those Catholics who qualified Charles I., for a post in the Calendar, and that, too, observe, after he had acknowledged his errors, and had made compensation to the utmost of his power.

356. However, these conspirators had provocation: and now let us see what that provocation was. The King, before he came to the throne, had promised to mitigate the penal laws, which, as we have seen, made their lives a burden. Instead of this, those laws were rendered even more severe than they had been in the former reign. Every species of insult as well as injury which the Catholics had had to endure under the persecutions of the Established Church was now heightened by that leaven of Presbyterian malignity and ferocity, which England had now imported from the North, which had then poured forth upon this devoted country endless hordes of the most greedy and rapacious and insolent wretches that God had ever permitted to infest and scourge the earth. We have seen, in paragraphs 340, 341, 342, 343, 344, how the houses of conscientious Catholic gentlemen were rifled, how they were rummaged, in what constant dread these unhappy men lived, how they were robbed of their estates as a punishment for recusancy and other things called crimes; we have seen, that, by the fines, imposed on these accounts, the ancient gentry of England, whose families had, for ages, inhabited the same mansions and had been venerated and beloved for their hospitality and charity; we have seen how all these were gradually sinking into absolute beggary in consequence of these exorbitant extortions; but, what was their lot now! The fines, as had been the practice, had been suffered to fall in arrear, in order to make the fined party more completely at the mercy of the Crown; and JAMES, whose prodigality left him not the means of gratifying the greediness of his Scotch minions out of his own exchequer, delivered over the English Catholic gentry to these rapacious minions, who, thus clad with royal authority, fell, with all their well-known hardness of heart, upon the devoted victims, as the kite falls upon the defenceless dove. They entered their mansions, ransacked their closets, drawers and beds, seized their rent-rolls, in numerous instances drove their wives and children from their doors, and, with all their native upstart insolence, made a mockery of the ruin and misery of the uoffending persons whom they had despoiled.

357. Human nature gave the lie to all preachings of longer passive obedience, and, at last, one of these oppressed and insulted English gentlemen, ROBERT CATESBY, of Northamptonshire, resolved on making an attempt to deliver himself and his suffering brethren from this almost infernal scourge. But, how was he to obtain the means? From abroad, such was the state of things; no aid could possibly be hoped for. Internal insurrection was, as long as the makers and executors of the barbarous laws remained, equally hopeless. Hence he came to the conclusion, that to destroy the whole of them afforded the only hope of deliverance; and to effect this there appeared to him no other way than that of blowing up the parliament-house when, on the first day of the session, all should be assembled together. He soon obtained associates; but, in the whole, they amounted to only about thirteen; and all, except three or four, in rather obscure situations in life, amongst whom was GUY FAWKES, a Yorkshireman who had served as an officer in the Flemish wars. He it was, who undertook to set fire to the magazine, consisting of two hogsheads and thirty-two barrels of gunpowder; he it was, who, if not otherwise to be accomplished, had resolved to blow himself up along with the persecutors of his brethren; he it was, who, on the 5th of November, 1605, a few hours only before the Parliament was to meet, was seized in the vault, with two matches in his pocket and a dark lantern by his side, ready to effect his tremendous purpose; he it was, who, when brought before the King and Council, replied to all their questions with defiance; he it was, who, when asked by a Scotch Lord of the Council, why he had collected so many barrels of gunpowder, answered, "To blow you Scotch beggars back to your native mountains," and, in this answer, proclaimed to the world the true immediate cause of this memorable conspiracy; an answer, which, in common justice, ought to be put into the mouth of those effigies of him, which crafty knaves induce foolish boys still to burn on the 5th of November. JAMES (whose silly conceit made him an author) was just, in one respect, at any rate. In his works, he called FAWKES, "the English SCÆVOLA"; and history tells us that that famous Roman, having missed his mark in endeavouring to kill a tyrant, who had doomed his country to slavery, thrust his offending hand into a hot fire, and let it burn, while he looked defiance at the tyrant.

358. Catesby and the other conspirators were pursued; he and three of his associates died with arms in their hands fighting against their pursuers. The rest of them (except Gresham, (who was poisoned in prison) were executed, and also the famous Jesuit, GARNET, who was wholly innocent of any crime connected with the conspiracy, and who, having come to a knowledge of it, through the channel of confession, had, on the contrary, done everything in his power to prevent the perpetrating of its object. He was sacrificed to that unrelenting fanaticism, which, encouraged by this and other similar successes, at last, as we are soon to see, cut off the head of the son and successor of this very King. The King and Parliament escaped from feelings of humanity in the conspirators. Amongst the disabilities imposed on the Catholics, they had not yet, and were not until the reign of Charles II., shut out of Parliament. So that, if the House were blown up, Catholics, Peers and Members, would have shared the fate of the Protestants. The conspirators could not give warning to the Catholics without exciting suspicions. They did give such warning where they could; and this led to the timely detection; otherwise the whole of the two Houses, and the King along with them, would have been blown to atoms; for, though CECIL evidently knew of the plot long before the time of intended execution; though he took care to nurse it till the moment of advantageous discovery arrived; though he was, in all probability, the author of a warning letter, which, being sent anonymously to a Catholic nobleman, and communicated by him to the Government, became the ostensible cause of the timely discovery; notwithstanding these well-attested facts, it by no means appears, that the plot originated with him, or, indeed, with any body but CATESBY, of whose conduct men will judge differently according to the difference in their notions about passive obedience and non- resistance.

359. This would be enough. of the famous gunpowder plot; but, since it has been ascribed to bloody-mindedness, as the natural fruit of the Catholic religion; since, in our COMMON PRAYER-BOOK, we are taught, in addressing God, to call all Catholics indiscriminately, "our cruel and blood-thirsty enemies," let us see a little what Protestants have attempted, and done, in this blowing-up way. This King James, as he himself averred, was nearly being assassinated by his Scotch Protestant subjects, Earl GOWRY and his associates; and, after that, narrowly escaped being blown up, with all his attendants, by the furious Protestant burghers of Perth. See COLLIER's Church History, vol. ii. p. 663, and 664. Then again the Protestants, in the Netherlands, formed a plot to blow up their governor, the Prince of Parma, with all the nobility and magistrates of those countries, when assembled in the city of Antwerp. But the Protestants did not always fail in their plots, nor were those who engaged in them obscure individuals. Fur, as we have seen in paragraph 310, this very King James's father, the King of Scotland, was, in 1567, blown up by gunpowder and thereby killed. This was doing the thing effectually. Here was no warning given to anybody; and all the attendants and servants, of whatever religion and of both sexes, except such as escaped by mere accident, were remorselessly murdered along with their master. And who was this done by? By "blood-thirsty Catholics?" No; but by the lovers of the "Avangel," as the wretches called themselves; the followers of that KNOX, to whom a monument has just been erected, or is now erecting at Glasgow. The conspirators, on this occasion, were not thirteen obscure men, and those, too, who had received provocation enough to make men mad; but a body of noblemen and gentlemen, who really had received no provocation at all from MARY STUART, to destroy whom was more the object than it was to destroy her husband. Let us take the account of these conspirators in the words of WITAKER; and, let the reader recollect, that WITAKER, who published his book in 1790, was a parson of the Church of England, Rector of Ruhan-Lanyhorne in Cornwall, and that he was amongst those clergymen who were most strenuously opposed to the rites and ceremonies and tenets of the Catholic Church: but he was a truly honest man, a most zealous lover of truth and hater of injustice. Hear this staunch Church-Parson, then, upon the subject of this Protestant Gunpowder-Plot, concerning which he had made the fullest inquiry and collected together the clearest evidence. He (Vindication, of Mary, Queen of Scots, vol. iii. p. 235,) says, in speaking of the Plot, "The guilt of this wretched woman, ELIZABETH, and the guilt of that wretched man, CECIL, appear too evident, at last, upon the far of the whole. Indeed, as far as we can judge of the matter, the whole disposition of the murderous drama was this. The whole was originally planned and devised betwixt Elizabeth, Cecil, Morton and Murray; and the execution committed to Lethington, Bothwell, and Balfour; and Elizabeth, we may be certain, was to defend the original and more iniquitous part of the conspirators, Morton and Murray, in charging their own murder upon the innocent Mary." Did hell itself, did the devil, who was, as LUTHER himself says, so long the companion and so often the bed-fellow of this first "Reformer," ever devise wickedness equal to this Protestant plot? Let us hear no more, then, about the blood-thirstiness of the Catholic religion; and, if we must still have our 5th of November, let the "moral" disciples of KNOX, the inhabitants of "Modern Athens," have their tenth of February. Let them, too, (for it was Protestants that did the deed) have their 30th of January, the anniversary of the killing of the son of this same King James. Nobody knew better than James himself the history of his father's and his mother's end. He knew that they had both been murdered by Protestants, and that, too, with circumstances of atrocity quite unequalled in the annals of human infamy; and there fore he himself was not for vigorous measures against the Catholics in general, on account of the plot; but love of plunder in his minions prevailed over him; and now began to blaze, with fresh fury, that Protestant Reformation spirit, which, at last, gave him a murdered son and successor, as it had already given him a murdered father and mother.

360. CHARLES I., who came to the throne on the death of his father, in 1625, with no more sense and with a stronger tincture of haughtiness and tyranny than his father, seemed to wish. to go back, in church matters, towards the Catholic rites and ceremonies, while his parliaments and people were every day becoming more and more puritanical. Divers were the grounds of quarrel between them, but the great ground was that of religion. The Catholics were suffering all the while, and especially those in Ireland, who were plundered and murdered by whole districts, and especially under WENTWORTH, who committed more injustice than ever had before been committed even in that unhappy country. But all this was not enough to satisfy the Puritans; and LAUD, the Primate of the Established Church, having done a great many things to exalt that church in point of power and dignity, the purer Protestants called for "another Reformation," and what they called "a thorough godly Reformation."

361. Now, then, this Protestant Church and Protestant King had to learn that "Reformations," like comets, have tails. There was no longer the iron police of Old Bess, to watch and crush all gainsayers. The puritans artfully connected political grievances, which were real and numerous, with religious principles and ceremonies; and, having the main body of the people with them as to the former, while these were, in consequence of the endless change of creeds, become indifferent as to the latter, they soon became, under the name of "The Parliament," the sole rulers of the country; they abolished the Church and the House of Lords, and, finally brought, in 1649, during the progress of their "thorough godly Reformation," the unfortunate King himself to trial and to the block!

362. All very bad, to be sure; but all very natural, seeing what had gone before. If "some such man as Henry VIII.," were, as BURNET says he was, necessary to begin a "Reformation," why not "some such man" as CROMWELL to complete it? If it were right to put to death More, Fisher, and thousands of others, not forgetting the grand mother of Charles, on a charge of treason, why was Charles's head to be so very sacred? If it were right to confiscate the estates of the monasteries, and to turn adrift, or put to death, the abbots, priors, monks, friars, and nuns, after having plundered the latter of even the ear-rings and silver thimbles, could it be so very wrong to take away merely the titles of those who possessed the plundered property? And, as to the Protestant Church, if it were right to establish it on the ruins of the ancient Church, by German bayonets, by fines, gallowses and racks, could it be so very wrong to establish another newer one on its ruins by means a great deal milder? If, at the time we are now speaking of, one of "good Bess's" parsons, who had ousted a priest of Queen Mary, had been alive, and had been made to fly out of his parsonage-house, not with one of Bess's bayonets at his back, but on the easy toe of one of Cromwell's godly Bible-reading soldiers, could that parson have reasonably complained?

363. CROMWELL (whose reign we may consider as having lasted from 1649 to 1659), therefore, though he soon made the Parliament a mere instrument in his hands; though he was tyrannical and bloody; though he ruled with a rod of iron; though he was a real tyrant, was nothing more than the "natural issue," as "maiden" Betsy would have called him, of the "body" of the "Reformation." He was cruel towards the Irish; he killed them without mercy; but, except in the act of selling 20,000 of them to the West Indies as slaves, in what did he treat them worse than Charles, to whom and to whose descendants they were loyal from first to last? And, certainly, even that sale did not equal, in point of atrociousness, many of the acts committed against them during the three last Protestant reigns; and, in point of odiousness and hatefulness, it fell far short of the ingratitude of the Established Church in the reign of Charles II.

364. But, common justice forbids us to dismiss the Cromwellian reign in this summary way; for, we are now to behold "Reformation" the second, which its authors and executors call "a thorough godly Reformation;" insisting that "Reformation" the first was but a half- finished affair, and that the "Church of England as by law established" was only a daughter of the "Old Whore of Babylon." This "Reformation" proceeded just like the former: its main object was plunder. The remaining property of the Church was now, as far as time and other circumstances would allow, confiscated and shared out amongst the "Reformers," who, if they had had time, would have resumed all the former plunder (as they did part of it) and have shared it out again! It was really good to see these "godly" persons ousting from the abbey-lands the descendants of those who had got them in "Reformation" the first, and, it was particularly good to hear the Church-bishops and parsons crying "sacrilege," when turned out of their palaces and parsonage-houses; ay, they who and whose Protestant predecessors had, all their lives long, been justifying the ousting of the Catholic bishops and priests who held them by prescription, and expressly by Magna Charta.

365. As if to make "Reformation" the second as much as possible like "Reformation" the first, there was now a change of religion made by laymen only; the Church clergy were calumniated just as the Catholic clergy had been; the bishops were shut out of Parliament as the abbots and Catholic bishops had been; the cathedrals and churches were again ransacked; Cranmer's tables (put in place of the altars) were now knocked to pieces; there was a general crusade against crosses, portraits of Christ, religious pictures, paintings on church windows, images on the outside of cathedrals, tombs in these and the churches. As the mass-books had been destroyed in "Reformation" the first, the church-books were destroyed in "Reformation" the second, and a new book, called the "DIRECTORY," ordered to be used in its place, a step which was no more than an imitation of Henry VIIIth's "CHRISTIAN MAN," and Cranmer's "PRAYER-BOOK." And, why not this "DIRECTORY"? If the mass-book, of nine hundred years' standing, and approved of by all the people, could be destroyed; surely, the Prayer-Book, of only one hundred years' standing, and never approved of by one half of the people, might also be destroyed. If it were quite right to put the former down, and that, too, as we have seen in paragraph 212, with the aid of the sword, wielded by German troops, it might naturally enough be thought, that it could not be very wrong to put the latter down with the aid of the sword, wielded by English troops, unless, indeed, there were, which we have not been told, something peculiarly agreeable to English men, in the cut of German steel.

366. It was a pair of "Reformations," as much alike as any mother and daughter ever were. The mother had a CROMWELL (see paragraph 157) as one of the chief agents in her work, and the daughter had a CROMWELL, the only difference in the two being, that one was a Thomas and the other an Oliver; the former Cromwell was commissioned to make "a godly reformation of errors, heresies and abuses in the church," and the latter was commissioned to make" a thorough godly reformation in the church;" the former Cromwell confiscated, pillaged and sacked the church, and just the same did the latter Cromwell, except that the latter did not, at the same time, rob the poor, as the former had done; and, which seems a just distinction, the latter died in his bed, and the former, when the tyrant wanted his services no longer, died on a scaffold.

367. The heroes of "Reformation" the second were great Bible- readers, and almost every man became, at times, a preacher. The soldiers were uncommonly gifted in this way, and they claimed a right to preach as one of the conditions upon which they bore arms against the King. Every one interpreted the Bible in his own way: they were all for the Bible without note or comment. ROGER NORTH (a Protestant) in his "EXAMEN" gives an account of all sorts of blasphemies and of horrors committed by these people, who had poisoned the minds of nearly the whole of the community. Hence all sorts of monstrous crimes. At Dover a woman cut off the head of her child, alleging that, like Abraham , she had a particular command from God. A woman was executed at York, for crucifying her mother. She had, at the same time, sacrificed a calf and cock. These are only amongst the horrors of that "thorough godly Reformation;" only a specimen. And why not these horrors? We read of killings in the Bible; and, if every man be to be his own interpreter of that book, who is to say that he acts contrary to his own interpretation? Why not all these new and monstrous sects? If there could be one new religion, one new creed made, why not a thousand? What right had Luther to make a new religion, and then Calvin another new one, and Cranmer one differing from both these, and then "good Bess" to make an improvement upon Cranmer's? Were all these to make new religions, and were the enlightened soldiers of Cromwell's army to be deprived of this right? The former all alleged, as their authority, the "inspiration of the Holy Ghost." What, then, were Cromwell and his soldiers to be deprived of the benefit of this allegation? Poor "godly" fellows, why were they to be the only people in the world not qualified for choosing a religion for themselves and for those whom they had at the point of their bayonets? One of Cromwell's "godly" soldiers went, as NORTH relates, into the church of Walton-upon-Thames with a lantern and five candles, telling the people, that he had a message to them from God, and that they would be damned if they did not listen to him. He put out one light, as a mark of the abolition of the Sabbath; the second, as a mark of the abolition of all tithes and church dues; the third, as a mark of the abolition of all ministers and magistrates; and then the fifth light he applied to setting fire to a Bible, declaring that that also was abolished! These were pretty pranks to play; but, they were the natural, the inevitable, consequence of "Reformation" the first.

368. In one respect, however, these new reformers differed from the old ones. They did, indeed, make a new religion, and command people to follow it; and they inflicted punishments on the refractory; but, those punishments were beds of down compared with oak-planks, when viewed by the side of those inflicted by "good Bess" and her Church. They forbade the use of the Common Prayer-book in all churches, and also in private families; but, they punished the disobedient with a penalty of five pounds for the first offence, ten pounds for the second, and. with three years' imprisonment for the third; and did not hang them and rip out their bowels, as the Church of England sovereigns had done by those who said or heard mass. Bad as these fanatics were, wicked and outrageous as were their deeds, they never persecuted, nor attempted to persecute, with a hundredth part of the cruelty that the Church of England had done; ay, and that it did again, the moment it regained its power, after the restoration of Charles II., when it became more cruel to the Catholics even than it had been in the reign of "good Queen Bess "; and that, too, notwithstanding that the Catholics, of all ranks and degrees, had signalized themselves, during the civil war, in every way in which it was possible for them to aid the royal cause.

369. This, at first sight, seems out of nature; but, if we consider, that this Church of England felt conscious, that its possessions did once belong to the Catholics, that the cathedrals and churches and the colleges, were all the work of Catholic piety, learning and disinterestedness; when we consider this, can we be surprised at these new possessors, who had got possession by such means, too, as we have seen in the course of this work; when we consider this, are we to be surprised, that they should do every thing in their power to prevent the people from seeing, hearing, and contracting a respect for those whom these new possessors had ousted? here we have the true cause of all the hostility of the Church of England clergy towards the Catholics. Take away the possessions, and the hostility would cease to-morrow; though there is, besides that, a wide, and, on their side, a very disadvantageous difference, between a married clergy, and one not married. The former will never have an influence with the people, any thing like approaching that of the latter. There is, too, the well-known superiority of learning on the side of the catholic clergy; to which may be added the notorious fact, that, in fair controversy, the Catholics have always triumphed. Hence the deep- rooted, the inflexible, the persevering and absolutely implacable hostility of this Established Church to the Catholics; not as men, but as Catholics. To what else are we to ascribe, that, to this day, the Catholics are forbidden to have steeples or bells to their chapels? They, whose religion gave us our steeples and our bells! To what else are we to ascribe, that their priests are, even now, forbidden to appear in the streets, or in private houses, in their clerical habiliments, and even when performing their functions at funerals? Why all this anxious pains to keep the Catholic religion out of sight? Men may pretend what they will, but these pains argue anything but consciousness of being right, on the part of those who take those pains. Why, when the English nuns came over to England, during the French revolution, and settled at Winchester, get a bill brought into Parliament (as the Church clergy did) to prevent them from taking Protestant scholars, and give up the bill only upon a promise that they would not take such scholars? Did this argue a conviction in the minds of the Winchester parsons, that Bishop North's was the true religion and that William of Wykham's was the false one? The Church parsons are tolerant enough towards the sects of all descriptions: quite love the Quaker, who rejects baptism and the sacrament; shake hands with the Unitarian, and allow him openly to impugn that, which they tell us in the Prayer-book, a man cannot be saved if he do not firmly believe in; suffer these, ay, and even JEWS, to present to church-livings, and refuse that right to Catholics, from whose religion all the church-livings came!

170. Who, then, can doubt of the motive of this implacable hostility, this everlasting watchfulness, this rancorous jealousy that never sleeps? The common enemy being put down by the restoration of Charles, the Church fell upon the Catholics with more fury than ever. This King, who came out of exile to mount the throne in 1660, with still more prodigality than either his father or grandfather, had a great deal more sense than both put together, and, in spite of all his well-known profligacy, he was, on account of his popular manners, a favourite with his people; but, he was strongly suspected to be a Catholic in his heart, and his more honest brother, JAMES, his presumptive heir, was an openly declared Catholic. Hence the reign of Charles II. was one continued series of plots, sham or real; and one unbroken scene of acts of injustice, fraud, and false-swearing. These were plots ascribed to the Catholics, but really plots against them. Even the great fire in London, which took place during this reign, was ascribed to them, and there is the charge, to this day, going round the base of "the Monument," which POPE justly compares to a big, lying bully.

"Where London's column, pointing to the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts its head, and lies."

The words are these: "This monument is erected in memory of the burning of this Protestant city, by the Popish faction, in Sept. AD. 1666, for the destruction of the Protestant religion and of old English liberty, and for the introduction of Popery and slavery. But the fury of the Papists is not yet satisfied." It is curious enough, that this inscription was made by order of Sir PATIENCE WARD, who, as ECHARD shows, was afterwards convicted of perjury. BURNET (whom we shall find in full tide by-and-by) says, that one HUBERT, a French Papist, '"confessed that he began the fire;" but HIGGONS (a Protestant, mind,) proves that HUBERT was a Protestant, and RAPIN agrees with Higgons! Nobody knew better than the King the monstrousness of this lie; but Charles II. was a lazy, luxurious debauchee. Such men have always been unfeeling and ungrateful; and this King, who had twice owed his life to Catholic priests, and who had, in fifty-two instances, held his life at the mercy of Catholics (some of them very poor) while he was a wandering fugitive, with immense rewards held out for taking him, and dreadful punishments for concealing him; this profligate King, whose ingratitude to his faithful Irish subjects is without a parallel in the annals of that black sin, had the meanness and injustice to suffer this lying inscription to stand. It was effaced by his brother and successor; but, when the Dutchman and the "glorious revolution" came, it was restored; and there it now stands, all the world, except the mere mob, knowing it to contain a most malignant lie.

371. By conduct like this, by thus encouraging the fanatical part of his subjects in their wicked designs, Charles II. prepared the way for those events by which his family were excluded from the throne for ever. To set aside his brother, who was an avowed Catholic, was their great object. This was, indeed, a monstrous attempt; but, legally considered, what was it more than to prefer the illegitimate Elizabeth to the legitimate Mary Stuart? What was it more, than to enact, that any "natural issue" of the former should be heir to the throne? And, how could the Protestant Church complain of it, when its great maker, Cranmer, had done his best to set aside both the daughters of Henry VIII., and to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne? In short, there was no precedent for annulling the rights of inheritance, for setting aside prescription, for disregarding the safety of property and of person, for violating the fundamental laws of the kingdom, that the records of the, "Reformation" did not amply furnish: and this daring attempt to set aside JAMES on account of his religion, might be truly said, as it was said, to be a Protestant principle; and it was, too, a principle most decidedly acted upon in a few years afterwards.

372. JAMES II. was sober, frugal in his expenses, economical! as to public matters, sparing of the people's purses, pious, and sincere; but weak and obstinate, and he was a Catholic, and his piety and sincerity made him not a match for his artful, numerous, and deeply- interested foes. If the existence of a few missionary priests in the country, though hidden behind wainscots, had called forth thousands of pursuivants, in order to protect the Protestant Church; if to hear mass in a private house bad been regarded as incompatible with the safety of that Church; what was to be the fate of that Church, if a Catholic King continued to sit on the throne! It was easy to see that the ministry, the army, the navy, and all the offices under the government, would soon contain few besides Catholics; and it was also easy to see that, by degrees, Catholics would be in the parsonages and in the episcopal palaces, especially as the King was as zealous as he was sincere. The "Reformation" had made consciences to be of so pliant a nature, men had changed, under it, backward and forward so many times, that this last (the filling of the Church with Catholic priests and bishops) would, perhaps, amongst the people in general, and particularly amongst the higher classes, have produced but little alarm. But, not so with the clergy themselves, who soon saw their danger, and who, "passive" as they were, lost no time in preparing to avert it.

373. James acted, as far as the law would let him, and as far as prerogative would enable him to go beyond the law, on principles of general toleration. By this he obtained the support of the sectaries. But the Church had got the good things, and it resolved, if possible to keep them. Besides this, though the abbey lands and the rest of the real property of the Church and the poor, had been a long while in the peaceable possession of the then owners and their predecessors, the time was not so very distant but that able lawyers, having their opinions backed by a well organised army, might still find a flaw in, here and there, a grant of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Old Betsy. Be their thoughts what they might, certain it is, that the most zealous and most conspicuous and most efficient of the leaders of the "Glorious Revolution" which took place soon afterwards, and which drove James from the throne, together with his heirs and his house, were amongst those whose ancestors bad not been out of the way at the time when the sharing of the abbey lands took place.

374. With motives so powerful against him, the King ought to have been uncommonly prudent and wary. He was just the contrary. He was severe towards all who opposed his views, however powerful they might be. Some bishops who presented a very insolent, but artful, petition to him, he sent to the Tower, had them prosecuted for a libel, and had the mortification to see them acquitted. As to the behaviour of the Catholics, prudence and moderation was not to be expected from them. Look at the fines, the burning-irons, the racks, the gibbets, and the ripping-knives of the. late reigns, and say if it were not both natural and just, that their joy and exultation should now be without bounds. These were, alas! of short duration, for a plan (we must not call it a plot) having been formed for compelling the King to give up his tolerating projects, and "to settle the kingdom," as it was called, the planners, without any act of Parliament, and without consulting the people in any way whatever, invited WILLIAM, the Prince of Orange, who was the Stadtholder of the Dutch, to come over with a Dutch army to assist them in "settling" the kingdom. All things having been duly prepared, the Dutch guards (who had been suffered to get from Torbay to London by perfidy in the English army) having come to the King's palace and thrusted out the English guards, the King, having seen one "settling" of a sovereign, in the reign of his father, and, apparently, having no relish for another settling of the same sort, fled from his palace and his kingdoms and took shelter in France, instead of fleeing to some distant English city and there rallying his people round him, which, if he had done, the event would, as the subsequent conduct of the people proved, have been very different from what it was.

375. Now came, then, the "glorious Revolution," or Reformation the third; and, when we have taken a view of its progress and completions we shall see how it, in its natural consequences, extorted, for the long-oppressed Catholics, that relief, which, by appeals to the justice and humanity of their persecutors, they had sought in vain for more than two hundred years.

LETTER XIII.

"GLORIOUS" REVOLUTION, OR REFORMATION THE THIRD. THE DUTCH KING AND HIS DELIVERING ARMY. THE "CRIMES" OF JAMES II., WITH ELUCIDATIONS. PARLIAMENTARY PURITY. THE PROTESTANT BISHOP, JOCELYN. SIDNEY, AND OTHERS OF THE PROTESTANT PATRIOTS. HABEAS CORPUS ACT. SETTLEMENT OF AMERICAN COLONIES.

Kensington, 31st Oct., 1825.

MY FRIENDS,

376. AT the close of the last Letter, we saw a Dutchman invited over with an army to "settle" the kingdom; we saw the Dutch guards come to London and thrust out the English guards; we saw the King of England flee for his life, and take refuge in France, after his own army had been seduced to abandon him. The stage being now clear for the actors in this affair, we have now to see how they went to work, the manner of which we shall find as summary and as unceremonious as heart, however Protestant, could have possibly wished.

377. The King being gone, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London with a parcel of Common Councilmen, and such Lords and members of the late King Charles's Parliaments as chose to join them, went, in February 1688, without any authority from King, Parliament or people, and forming themselves into "a Convention," at Westminster, gave the Crown to William (who was a Dutchman) and his wife (who was a daughter of James, but who had a brother alive), and their posterity FOR EVER; made new oaths of allegiance for the people to take; enabled the new King to imprison, at pleasure, all whom he might suspect; banished, to ten miles from London, all Papists, or reputed Papists, and disarmed them all over the kingdom; gave the advowsons of Papists to the Universities; granted to their new Majesties excise duties, land-taxes and poll-taxes for the "necessary defence of the realm"; declared themselves to be the "Two Houses of Parliament as legally as if they had been summoned according to the usual form:" and this they called a "glorious Revolution," as we Protestants call it to this present day. After "Reformation" the second, and upon the restoration of CHARLES, the palaces and livings and other indestructible plunder, was restored to those from whom the "thorough godly" had taken it, except, however, to the Catholic Irish, who had fought for this King's father, who had suffered most cruelly for this King himself, and who were left still to be plundered by the "thorough godly," which is an instance of ingratitude such as, in no other case, has been witnessed in the world. However, there were, after the restoration, men enough to contend, that the episcopal palaces and other property, confiscated and granted away by the "'thorough godly," ought not to he touched; for that, if those grants were resumed, why not resume those of Henry VIII? Ay, why not indeed! Here was a question to put to the Church Clergy, and to the abbey- land owners! If nine hundred years of quiet possession, and Magna Charta at the back of it; if it were right to set these at nought for the sake of making only "a godly Reformation," why should not one hundred years of unquiet possession be set at nought for the sake of making "a thorough godly Reformation"? How did the Church Clergy answer this question? Why, Dr. HEYLIN, who was Rector of Alresford in Hampshire, and afterwards Dean of Westminster, who was a great enemy of the "thorough godly," though not much less an enemy of the Catholics, meets the question in this way, in the Address, at the head of his History of Reformation the First, where he says, "that there certainly must needs be a vast disproportion between such contracts, as were founded upon acts of Parliament, legally passed by the King's authority, with the consent and approbation of the three estates, and those which have no other ground but the bare votes, and orders, of both Houses only. By the same logic it might be contended, that the two Houses alone have authority to depose a king."

378. This Church Doctor died a little too soon; or, he would have seen, not two Houses of Parliament, but a Lord Mayor of London, a parcel of Common Councilmen, and such other persons as chose to join them, actually setting aside one King and putting another upon the throne, and without any authority from King, Parliament, or people; he would have heard this called "a glorious" thing; and, if he had lived to our day, he would have seen other equally "glorious" things grow directly out of it; and, that notwithstanding BLACKSTONE had told the Americans, that a "glorious" revolution was a thing never to be repeated, Doctor Heylin would have heard them repeating, as applied to George III., almost word for word, the charges which the "glorious" people preferred against James II., though. they, naughty Yankees, knew perfectly well, that, after the "glorious" affair, a King of England (being a Protestant) could "do no wrong!" The Doctor's book, written to justify the "Reformation," did, as PIERRE ORLEANS tells us, convert James II. and his first wife to the Catholic religion; but his preface, above quoted, did not succeed so well with Protestants.

879. We shall, in due time, see something of the COST of this "glorious" revolution to the people; but, first, seeing that this revolution and the exclusion acts which followed it were founded upon the principle, that the Catholic religion was incompatible with public freedom and justice, let us see what things this Catholic King had really done, and in what degree they were worse than things that had been and that have been done under Protestant sovereigns. As William and his Dutch army have been called our deliverers, let us see what it really was, after all, that they delivered the people from; and, here, happily, we have the statute-book to refer to, in which there still stands the list of charges, drawn up against this Catholic King. However, before we examine these charges, we ought, in common justice, to notice certain things that James did not do. He did not, as PROTESTANT EDWARD VI. had done, bring German troops into the country to enforce a change of religion; nor did he, like that young Saint, burn his starving subjects with a hot iron on the breast or on the forehead and make them wear chains as slaves, as a punishment for endeavouring to relieve their hunger by begging. He did not, as PROTESTANT BETSY had done, make use of whips, boring- irons, racks, gibbets, and ripping-knives to convert people to his faith; nor did he impose even any fines for this purpose but, on the contrary, put, as far as he was able, an end to all persecution on account of religion: oh! but, I am forgetting: for this we shall find amongst his Catholic crimes: yes, amongst the proofs of his being a determined and intolerant Popish tyrant! He did not as PROTESTANT BETSY had done, give monopolies to his court-minions, so as to make salt, for instance, which, in his day, was about fourpence a bushel, fourteen pounds a bushel, and thus go on, till, at last, the Parliament feared, as they did in the time of "good Bess," that there would be a monopoly even of bread. These were amongst the things which, being purely of Protestant birth, James, no doubt from "Catholic bigotry," did not do. And, now, let us come to the things which he really did, or, at least, which he was charged with having done.

380. Indictments do not generally come after judgment and execution; but, for some cause or other, the charges against James were postponed until the next year, when the crown had been actually given to the Dutchman and his wife. No matter: they came out at last; and there they stand, 12 in number, in Act 2, Sess. Wm. and M. chap. 2. We will take them one by one, bearing in mind, that they contained all that could even be said against this Popish King.

CHARGE I. "That he assumed and exercised a power of dispensing with and suspending laws, and the execution of laws, without consent of Parliament."-- That is to say, he did not enforce those cruel laws against conscientious Catholics, which had been enacted in former reigns. But, did not Betsy and her successor James I. dispense with, or suspend, laws, when they took a composition from recusants? Again, have we ourselves never seen any suspension of or dispensing with laws without consent of Parliament! Was there, and is there, no dispensing with the law, in employing foreign officers in the English army, and in granting pensions from the Crown to foreigners? And was there no suspension of the law, when the Bank stopped payment in 1797? And, did the Parliament give its assent to the causing of that stoppage? And, has it ever given its assent to the putting of foreigners in offices of trust, civil, or military, or to the granting of pensions from the Crown to foreigners? But, did James ever suspend the Habeas Corpus Act? Did his Secretaries of State ever imprison whom they pleased, in any gaol or dungeon that they pleased; let the captives out when they pleased? Ah! but what he and his Ministers did in this way (if they did any thing) was all done "without consent of Parliament;" and who is so destitute of discrimination as not to perceive the astonishing difference between a dungeon with consent of Parliament, and a dungeon without consent of Parliament!

CHARGE II. "That he committed and prosecuted divers worthy prelates, for humbly petitioning to be excused from concurring to the said assumed powers." He prosecuted them as libellers, and they were acquitted. But he committed them before trial and conviction; and, why? because they refused to give bail. And they contended that it was tyranny in him to demand such bail! Oh, heavens! How many scores of persons have been imprisoned for a similar refusal, or for want of ability to give bail on a charge of libel, during the last eight years! Would not Mr. CLEMENT have been imprisoned, the other day only, if he had refused to give bail, not on a charge of libel on a King upon his throne, but on a Protestant professor of humanity? And, do not six ACTS, passed by a Parliament, from which tyrannical Catholics are so effectually excluded, declare to us free Protestants, that this has always been the law of the land! And, is that all? Oh, no! For we may now be banished for life not only for libelling a King on his throne, but for uttering anything that has a TENDENCY to bring either House of Parliament into contempt!

CHARGE III. "That he issued a commission for erecting a Court, called the Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes." Bless us! What! was this worse than "good Betsy's" real inquisition, under the same name? And, good God! have we no court of this sort now? And was not (no longer than about nine months ago) SARAH WALLIS (a labourer's wife of Hargrave in Norfolk), for having "brawled" in the churchyard, sentenced by this Court to pay 24l. 0s. 5d. costs; and was she not sent to gaol, for non-payment; and must she not have rotted in gaol, having not a shilling in the world, if humane persons had not stepped forward to enable her to get out by the Insolvent Act? And, cannot this Court now, agreeably to those of young Protestant Saint Edward's Acts, in virtue of which the above sentence was passed, condemn any one who attempts to fight in a church-yard, to have one ear cut off, and, if the offender "have no ears" (which speaks volumes as to the state of the people under PROTESTANT EDWARD) , then to be burnt with a hot iron in the cheek, and to be excommunicated besides? And, did not the revolution Protestants, who drew up the charges against James, leave this law in full force for our benefit?

CHARGE IV. "That he levied money for and to the use of the Crown by pretence of prerogative, for other time, and in other manner, than was granted by Parliament.." It is not pretended that he levied more money than was granted; but he was not exact as to the time and manner. Did the Parliament grant Betsy the right to raise money by the sale of monopolies, by compositions with offenders, and by various other of her means? But did we not lately hear of the hop- duty payment being shifted from one year to an other? Doubtless, with wisdom and mercy; but I very much doubt of James's ever having, in this respect, deviated from strict law to a greater amount, seeing that his whole revenue did not exceed (taking the difference in the value of money into account) much above sixteen times the amount of a good year's hop duty.

CHARGE V. "That he kept a standing army, in time of peace, without consent of Parliament." Ah! without consent of Parliament, indeed! That was very wicked. There were only seven or eight thousand men, to be sure, and such a thing as a barrack had never been heard of. But, without consent of Parliament! Think of the vast difference between the prick of a bayonet coming without consent of Parliament, and that of one coming with such consent! This King's father had been dethroned and his head had been cut off by an army kept up with consent of Parliament, mind that, however. Whether there were, in the time of James, any such affairs as that at Manchester, on the memorable 16th of August, 1819, history is quite silent; nor are we told, whether any of James's priests enjoyed military half-pay; nor are we informed, whether he gave half-pay, or took it away, at his pleasure, and without any "consent of Parliament": so that, as to these matters, we have no means of making a comparison. We are in the same situation with regard to foreign armies; for we do not find any account whatever of James's having brought any into England, and especially of his having caused foreign generals to command even the English troops, militia and all, in whole districts of England.

CHARGE VI. "That he caused several good subjects," being Protestants, to be disarmed, at the same time that papists were both armed and employed contrary to law." SIX ACTS disarmed enough of the King's subjects: ay, but, then, these were not "good" ones; they wanted a reform of the House of Commons. And besides, there was "law" for this. And, if people will not see what a surprising difference there is between being disarmed by law and disarmed by proclamation, it really is useless to spend valuable Protestant breath upon them.

CHARGE VII, "That he violated the freedom of election of Members to serve in Parliament." Oh, monstrous! Ay, and "notorious as the sun at noonday!" Come up, shades of sainted Perceval and Castlereagh; come, voters of Sarum and Gatton; assemble, ye sons of purity of election, living and dead, and condemn this wicked King for having "violated the freedom of elections"! But, come, we must not suffer this matter to pass off in the way of joke. Protestant reader, do you think that this violating of "the freedom of elections for Members to serve in Parliament" was a crime in King James? He is not accused of having done all these things with his own tongue, pen, or hands; but with having done them with the aid of "divers wicked ministers and councillors." Well; but do you, my Protestant readers, think that this violation of the freedom of elections was a bad thing, and a proof of the wicked principles of Popery? If you do, take the following facts, which ought to have a place in a work like this, which truth and honour and justice demand to be recorded, and which I state as briefly as I possibly can. Know, then, and be it for ever remembered, THAT Catholics have been excluded from the throne for more than a hundred years: THAT they have been excluded from the English Parliament ever since the reign of Charles II., and from the Irish Parliament ever since the 22d year of George III.: THAT therefore, the throne and the Parliament were filled exclusively with Protestants in the year 1809: THAT in 1779, long and long after Catholics had been shut out of the English Parliament, the House of Commons resolved, "That it is HIGHLY CRIMINAL for any Minister or Ministers, or any other servant of the Crown in Great Britain, directly or indirectly, to make use of the power of his office, in order to influence the election of Members of Parliament, and that an attempt to exercise that influence is an attack upon the dignity, the honour, and the independence of Parliament, an infringement of the rights and the liberties of the people, and an attempt to sap the basis of our free and happy constitution."-- THAT, in 1809, Lord Castlereagh, a Minister and a Privy Councillor, having been charged before the House with having had something to do about bartering a seat in the House, the House on the 25th of April of that year, resolved, "That while it was the bounden duty of that House to maintain at all times a jealous guard upon its purity, and not to suffer any attempt upon its privileges to pass unnoticed, the attempt, in the present instance (that of Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Reding), not having been carried into effect, that House did not think it then necessary to proceed to any criminating resolutions respecting the same." -- THAT on the 11th of May, 1809 (only sixteen days after this last resolution was passed), WILLIAM MADOCKS, Member for Boston, made a charge in the following words, to wit: "I affirm, then, that Mr. DICK purchased a seat in the House of Commons, for the Borough of Cashel, through the agency of the Honourable Henry Wellesley, who acted for, and on behalf of, the Treasury; that, upon a recent question of the last importance, when Mr. DICK had determined to vote according to his conscience, the noble Lord, CASTLEREAGH, did intimate to that gentleman the necessity of either his voting with the Government, or resigning his seat in that House; and that Mr. DICK, sooner than vote against his principles, did make choice of the latter alternative, and vacate his seat accordingly; and that to this transaction, I charge the right honourable gentleman, Mr. PERCEVAL, as being privy, and having connived at it. This I engage to prove by witnesses at your bar, if the House will give me leave to call them." -- THAT, having made his charge, Mr. MADOCKS made a motion for INQUIRY into the matter;-- THAT, after a debate, the question was put to the vote: -- THAT there were three hundred and ninety-five Members in the House, all Protestants, mind:- - THAT (come up and hear it, you accusers of James and the Catholic religion!) there were EIGHTY-FIVE for an inquiry, and THREE HUNDRED AND TEN against it! -- THAT, this same PROTESTANT Parliament, did, in 1819, on the MOTION OF THAT VERY SAME LORD CASTLEREAGH, pass a law by which any of us may now be BANISHED FOR LIFE for publishing anything having a TENDENCY to bring THAT VERY HOUSE into CONTEMPT! -- THAT this LORD CASTLEREAGH was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.-- THAT he continued to be the leading Minister in the House of Commons (exclusively Protestant) until the close of the session of 1822, which took place on the 6th of August of that year.-- THAT, on the 12th of that same month of August, he cut his own throat, and killed himself, at North Cray, in Kent; that a coroner's jury declared him to have been insane, and that the evidence showed, that he had been insane for several weeks, though he had been the leader of the House up to the 6th of August, and though he was, at the moment when he killed himself, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and also temporary Secretary for the Home Department and that of the Colonies! -- THAT his body was buried in Westminster Abbey-church, mourned over by his colleagues, and that, as it was taken out of the hearse, a great assemblage of the people gave loud and long-continued cheers of exultation.

CHARGE VIII. "That he promoted prosecutions in the Court of King's Bench for matters and things cognizable only in Parliament; and that he did divers other arbitrary and unlawful things." That is to say, that he brought before a jury matters which the Parliament wished to keep to itself! Oh, naughty and arbitrary King! to have jury-trial for the deeds of Parliament-men instead of letting them try, themselves! As to the divers other such arbitrary things, they not being specified, we cannot say what they were.

CHARGE IX. "That he caused juries to be composed of partial, corrupt, and unqualified persons, who were not freeholders." Very bad, if true, of which, however, no proof, and no instance, is attempted to be given. One thing, at any rate, there were no special juries in those days. They, which are "appointed" by the Master of the Crown- office, came after Catholic Kings were abolished. But, not to mention that Protestant Betsy dispensed with juries altogether, when she pleased, and tried and punished even vagabonds and rioters by martial law, do we not now, in our own free and enlightened and liberal Protestant days, see many men transported for seven years WITHOUT ANY JURY AT ALL? Ay, and that, too, in numerous cases, only for being more than 15 minutes at a time out of their houses (which the law calls their castles) between sunset and sunrise? Ah! but this is with consent of Parliament! Oh! I had for gotten that. That's an answer.

CHARGE X. "That excessive bail hath" (by the Judges of course) "been required of persons committed in criminal cases, to elude the benefit of the laws made for the liberty of the subject."

CHARGE XI. "That excessive fines have been imposed, and illegal and cruel punishments inflicted."

CHARGE XII. "That he had made promises and grants of fines before conviction and judgment on the party."

381. I take these three charges together. As to fines and bail, look at Protestant Betsy's and Protestant James I.'s reigns. But, coming to our own times; I, for having expressed my indignation at the flogging of English local-militia men, in the heart of England, under a guard of German troops, was two years imprisoned in a felon's gaol, and, at the expiration of the time, had to pay a fine of a thousand pounds, and to give bail for SEVEN YEARS, myself in three thousand pounds, with two sureties in two thousand pounds each. The" Convention," who gave us the "Protestant Deliverer" does not cite any instances; but, while we cannot but allow, that the amiable lenity of our Protestant bail-works appeared most conspicuously, in 1822, in the 500l. bail taken of the Protestant Right Reverend Father in God, Percy Jocelyn, Bishop of Clogher, brother of the late and uncle of the present Earl of RODEN, which Protestant Bishop stood, on the oaths of seven witnesses, accused of (in conjunction with JOHN MOVELLY, a soldier of the Foot Guards in London) an unnatural offence, and which Protestant Bishop finally fled from trial; though our Protestant bail-works appeared so gentle and so amiable here, and exacted only a bail of five hundred pounds, with two sureties in two hundred pounds each, from a PROTESTANT BISHOP (charged, on the oaths of seven witnesses, with such an enormous offence), whose income had, for many years, been about twelve or fifteen thousand a year; though our Protestant bail-works appeared so amiable, so dove-like in this case, and also in the case of the Soldier (partner of the Bishop), from whom bail of 200l. with two sureties in 100l. each was taken, and the Soldier, who was at once let out of prison, did, in imitation of the Bishop, flee from trial, though he was an enlisted soldier, and though his regiment was stationed in London: -- That, while we cannot but allow, that our Protestant bail-works were characterised by gentleness and mildness in these memorable cases; yet they have not always been in the same dove-like mood; for, THAT, in the year 1811 , JAMES BYRNE, a Catholic, who had been. a coachman in the Jocelyn family, having asserted that this same Protestant Bishop attempted to commit an unnatural offence on him, the said James Byrne was imprisoned at once, before indictment, and was, from his prison, brought to trial as a criminal: -- THAT, at this trial, the Protestant Bishop aforesaid, declared on his OATH, that Byrne had charged him FALSELY: -- THAT Byrne was sentenced, for this alleged libel, proved on the oath of this Protestant Bishop, to be imprisoned in a felon's gaol for two years, to be three times publicly whipped, and, at the end of the two years, to give bail for life, in 500l. himself, with two sureties in 200l. each: -- THAT James Byrne was carried into the gaol, having been first flogged half to death: -- THAT, at the end of two years, Byrne lay several months more in gaol for want of sureties: -- THAT this Protestant Bishop was, at this time, Bishop of FERNS, and that he was, after this, promoted to be Bishop of CLOGHER, and made a Commissioner of the Board of Education. So that our Protestant bail-works have not always been so very gentle. Nay, if we were to look into our gaols, even at this moment, we might find a man who has hardly a penny in the world, whose crime was libel, who has a fine of 600l. to pay, who has more than 500l. bail to find, with two sureties FOR LIFE, whose period of imprisonment has expired years ago, and who may, not only possibly but probably, end his life in that gaol from inability to pay his fine and to find the requisite bail. Until, therefore, some zealous admirer of the "glorious Revolution" will be pleased to furnish us with something specific as to the bail and fines in James's reign, we ought, in prudence, to abstain from even any mention of this charge against the unfortunate King; for, to talk of them in too censorious a strain, may possibly receive a no very charitable interpretation. - - But there had been illegal and cruel punishments in his reign. What punishments? There had been no people burnt, there had been no racks, as there had been in the reigns of Protestants Betsy and James 1. Why, Sir John Cox Hippesley, in a petition to Parliament, a year or two ago, asserted that the tread-mill was "cruel and illegal." Yet it stands, and that, too, for very trifling offences. Sir John might be wrong; but this shows that there might also be two opinions about punishments in the time of James; and we have to lament that those who brought in "the deliverer" were so careless as to specify none of those instances, which might have enabled us to make, as to this matter, a comparison between a Catholic King and a Protestant one. -- But, he granted away fines before the conviction of the party. Indeed! What, then, we have, in our happy day, under a Protestant King, no fines granted before-hand to informers of any sort? Ah! but this is with consent of Parliament! I had forgotten that again. I am silenced!

382. These were the offences of King James; these were the grounds, as recorded in the statute-book of the "glorious Revolution," made, as" the same Act expresses, to "deliver this kingdom from Popery and arbitrary power, and to prevent the Protestant religion from being subverted;" and, seeing that this was immediately followed by a perpetual exclusion of Catholics, and those who should marry with Catholics, from the throne, it is clear that this was a revolution entirely Protestant, and that it was an event directly proceeding from the "Reformation." This being the case, I should now proceed to take a view of the consequences, and particularly of the costs of this grand change, which was "Reformation" the third. But there are still to notice some things, which lying history and vulgar prejudice urge against this unfortunate Catholic King, who has been asserted to have been the adviser of his late brother, in all those deeds which have been deemed wicked, and especially in the putting of Lord RUSSELL and ALGERNON SIDNEY to death for high treason.

383. Alas! how have we been deluded upon this subject! I used to look upon these as two murdered men. A compulsion to look into realities, and discard romance, has taught me the contrary. The Protestants were, in the reign of Charles II., continually hatching Popish plots, and, by contrivances the most diabolical, bringing innocent Catholics to the scaffold and the gibbet; and, in the course of these their proceedings, they were constantly denying the prerogative of the King to pardon, or to mitigate the punishment of, their victims. But, at last, the King got real proof of a Protestant plot! The King was ill, and a conspiracy was formed for setting aside his brother by force of arms, if the King should die. The King recovered, but the Protestant plot went on, The scheme was, to rise in arms against the Government, to pay and bring in an army of Protestants from Scotland, and, in short, to make now that sort of "Reformation" the third, which did not take place till, as we have seen, some years afterwards. In this Protestant plot, RUSSELL and SIDNEY were two great leaders. Russell did not attempt to deny that he had had a part in the conspiracy; his only complaint was, that the indictment was not agreeable to law; but, he was told, which was true, that it was perfectly agreeable to numerous precedents in cases of trials of Popish plotters! When brought to the place of execution, Russell did not deny his guilt, but did not explicitly confess it. That part of his sentence, which ordered his bowels to be ripped out, while he was yet alive, and his body to he quartered, was, at the intercession of his family, remitted by the King, who, in yielding to their prayer, cuttingly said, "My Lord Russell shall find, that I am possessed "of that prerogative, which, in the case of Lord Stafford, "he thought fit to deny me."

384. As to SIDNEY, he had been one of the leading men in the "thorough godly" work of the last reign, and had even been one of the Commissioners for trying Charles I. and bringing him to the block, though, it is said by his friends, he did not actually sit at the trial. At the restoration of Charles II., he had taken refuge abroad. But, having confessed the errors of his younger years, and promised to be loyal in future, this King, under the guidance of a Popish brother, pardoned him, great as his offences had been. Yet, after this, he conspired to destroy the Government of that King, or, at the very least, to set aside that brother, and this, too, observe, by force of arms, by open rebellion against the King who had pardoned him, and by plunging into all the horrors of another civil war of that country, which he had before assisted to desolate. If any man ever deserved an ignominious death, this SIDNEY deserved his. He did not deny, he could not deny, that the conspiracy had existed, and that he was one of its chiefs. He had no complaint but one, and that related to the evidence against him. There was only one parole witness, to his acts, and, in cases of high treason, the law of England required two. And, here it was that a blush might (if it were possible) have been raised upon the cheeks of these revilers of Popery; for, this very law, this law, which has saved the lives of so many innocent persons; this law which ought to engrave gratitude to its author on the heart of every Englishman; this law came from that very Popish QUEEN MARY, whom artful knaves have taught generations of thoughtless people to call "the bloody," while, too, she was the wife of, and had for coadjutor, that PHILIP II. whom to hold up as a sanguinary Popish tyrant has been a great object with all our base deluders.

385. Seeing, however, that SIDNEY had such a strong attachment to this Popish law, and that there really was but one witness against him; seeing that he could not bear the thought of dying without two witnesses against him, the Crown lawyers (all Protestants, mind, who had abjured the "damnable errors of Popery") contrived to accommodate him with a couple, by searching his drawers and making up a second witness out of his own papers! It was in vain, that he rested upon this flaw in the proceedings; all men knew that hundreds of Catholics had suffered death upon evidence slight, indeed, compared with that against him: men were not to be amused with this miserable special plea; and all men of sense and justice concurred in the opinion, that he received substantial justice, and no more.

386. So much for the "good old cause, for which Hampden died in the field and Sidney on the scaffold." What credulous creatures we have been; and who more so than myself! Ay, but these Protestant patriots on]y contemplated insurrection and the introduction of foreign armies. And with what more was O'QUIGLY charged, only about twenty seven years ago? With what more were the SHEARSES and Lord EDWARD FITZGERALD and WATT and DOWNIE and DESPARD, and scores of others charged? And were THISTLEWOOD, INGS, BRUNT and TIDD charged with more? Oh, no: but with a great deal less; and they suffered, not for compassing the death of the King, but of his Ministers, a crime made high treason, for the first time, in our own Protestant days, and by a Parliament from which tyrannical Popish people are wholly excluded. There was one KEILING, who, from a Protestant plotter, became an informer, and he, in order to fortify his own evidence, introduced his brother-in-law to the conspirators, in order to betray them, and bring them to justice. Well, but have we not had our CASTLESES, our OLIVERS and our EDWARDSES, and has not Mr. BROUGHAM said in the House of Commons, that while "there are such men as INGS in the world, there must be such men as EDWARDS "? However, no historian, Protestant as he may have been, enemy as he may have been of Charles's and James's memory, ever had the impudence to impute to either of them the having employed people to instigate others to commit acts of high treason, and then bringing those others to the block, while they rewarded the instigators.

387. It is said, and I think truly, that Charles II. was, at one time, in pecuniary treaty with the King of France, for the purpose of re-establishing the Catholic Church in England. Well, had he not as much right to do this, as Edward VI. had to bring over German troops to root out that ancient Church which had been established for 900 years, and which was guaranteed to the people by Magna Charta? And, if doing this by means of French troops were, intended by Charles, can that be complained of by those who approve of the bringing in of Dutch troops to "settle" the kingdom? After all, however, if it were such a deadly sin for a popishly-advised King of England to be in a pecuniary treaty with the King of France, which treaty neither King nor Catholics ever acted upon, what was it in the Protestant and Catholic-hating Sidney, and the younger Hampden and Armstrong and others to be real and bonâ fide and money-touching pensioners of that same King of France, which fact has become unquestionable from Dalrymple's Memoirs, page 315 of Appendix?

388. But, now, if James be to be loaded with all those which have been called the bad deeds of his brother's reign, we cannot, with common justice, refuse him the merit of the good deeds of that reign. This reign gave us, then, the Act of Habeas Corpus, which Blackstone calls "the second great charter of English liberty." There are many other acts of this reign, tending to secure the liberties and all the rights of the people; but, if there had been only this one Act, ought it not alone to have satisfied the people, that they had nothing to apprehend from a popishly-inclined King on the throne? Here these "Popish tyrants," Charles and James, gave up, at one stroke of the pen, at a single writing of Charles's name, all prerogatives enabling them, as their predecessors had been enabled, to put people into prison, and to keep them there in virtue of a mere warrant, or order, from a Minister. And, was this a proof of that arbitrary disposition, of which we hear them incessantly accused? We are always boasting about this famous act of Habeas Corpus: but, never have we the gratitude to observe, that it came from those against whom Russell and Sidney conspired, and the last of whom was finally driven from his palace by the Dutch guards, in 1688.

389. Then, again, was this act ever suspended during the reigns of these Popish kings? Never; not even for a single day. But, the moment the "glorious Revolution," or Reformation the third came, the Dutch "deliverer" was, by the Protestant "Convention," whose grand business it was to get rid of "arbitrary power"; the moment that this "glorious" affair had taken place, that moment was the Dutch "deliverer" authorised to put in prison, and to keep there, any Englishman that he or his Ministers might suspect! But, why talk of this? We ourselves have seen this "second great charter of English liberty" suspended for seven years at a time; and, besides this, we have seen the King and his Ministers authorised to imprison any one whom they chose to imprison, in any gaol that they chose, in any dungeon that they chose; to keep the imprisoned person from all communication with friends, wives, husbands, fathers, mothers and children; to prevent them from the use of pen, ink, paper and books; to deny them the right of being confronted with their accusers; to refuse them a specification of their offence and the names of their accusers; to put them out of prison (if alive) when they pleased, without any trial; and, at last, to hold them to bail for good behaviour, and that too, mind, still without stating to them the names of the witnesses against them, or even the nature of their offence! All this we have seen done in our own dear Protestant times, while our Parliament House and our pulpits ring with praises of the "glorious Revolution" that "delivered us from Popery and slavery."

390. There was another great thing, too, done in the reigns of these Popish kings; namely, the settling of the Provinces (now States) of America. Virginia had been attempted to be settled under "good Bess," by that unprincipled minion, Sir WALTER RALEIGH, who, in the next reign, lost, on the scaffold, that life which he ought to have lost thirty years before; but the attempt wholly failed. A little, and very little, was done, in the two succeeding reigns. It was not until that of Charles II. that charters and patents were granted, that property became real, and that consequent population and prosperity came. This was a great event; great in itself, and greater in its consequences, some of which consequences we have already felt, others we are now feeling, but others, and by far of greater moment, we have yet to feel.

391. All these fine colonies were made by this popishly-inclined King, and by his really Popish brother. Two of them, the Carolinas, take their name from the King himself; another, and now the greatest of all, New York, from the King's brother, who was duke of the city of that name in Old England. These were the men who planted these the finest and happiest colonies that the sun ever lighted and warmed. They were planted by these Popish people; from them, from their "mere motion," as the law calls it, came those charters and patents, without which those countries might, to this hour, have been little better than a wilderness. From these Popish kings the colonies came. By whom were they lost? Not by abused and calumniated Papists, at any rate. Our Popish ancestors had, at different times, made England mistress of different parts of France. Protestant Edward VI. lost Boulogne, and Protestant Betsy bartered away Calais and the county of Oye for 100,000 crowns, and thus put her Protestant seal to England's ever lasting expulsion from the Continent of Europe! After one more Protestant reign, inglorious beyond all example, came these two Popish kings, who planted countries which were more than a compensation for the European loss. Then came that " lorious" affair, and it furnished all those principles, by which, at the end of only about seventy years, this compensation was wrested from us; and not only this, but by which was created a power, a great maritime power, at the very name of which, affect what they may, Englishmen, once so high and daring, now grow pale.

392. We shall, before the close of the next Letter, and after we have taken a view of the torments inflicted on the Catholics (Irish and English) in the reigns of William, Anne, and the Georges, trace this "Reformation" the fourth, directly back to "Reformation" the third; we shall show, that, in spite of the fine reasoning of BLACKSTONE, the deeds of the "Convention" were things to be imitated; we shall find that the List of Charges against James, drawn up by the "Lord Mayor of London, Aldermen, Common-Councilmen, and others," was as handy in 1776 as it had. been in 1688; we shall find this Reformation the third producing, in its progress, that monster in legislation, that new and heretofore unheard-of species of tyranny, called Bills of Pains and Penalties, which are of pure Protestant origin; and we shall finally see, that this famous and "glorious" affair, all Protestant as it was, did, at last, bring, though it crossed the Atlantic to fetch it, that dawn of liberty, which the Catholics began to behold at the end of a night of cruel slavery, which had lasted for more than two hundred years. But, I must not even here, lest it should not occur to my mind again, omit to notice, and to request the reader to notice, that, of the above mentioned colonies, the only ones that wholly abstained from religious persecution, the only ones that, from the first settling, proclaimed complete religious liberty, were those granted by patent to the Duke of YORK (afterwards the Catholic James II.) to Lord BALTIMORE, a Catholic nobleman, and to WILLIAM PENN, who suffered long imprisonment for his adherence to this Popish King. We shall, by-and- by, find all the colonies cordially united in declaring the character of a Protestant King to be "marked by every act that may define a tyrant;" but, this much we know, at any rate, that the colonies granted to and settled by Catholics, and by PENN, an adherent of James, were the only ones that had, from first to last, proclaimed and strictly adhered to, complete freedom as to matters of religion; and that, too, after the Protestants, at home, had, for more than a hundred years, been most cruelly and unremittingly persecuting the Catholics.

LETTER XIV.

WILLIAM'S TRIUMPH OVER JAMES AND THE CATHOLICS. A "NO-POPERY" WAR REQUIRES MONEY TO CARRY IT ON. BURNET'S SCHEME OF BORROWING AND FUNDING. ORIGIN OF BANKS AND BANK NOTES. HEAVY TAXES, EXCISE, SEPTENNIAL BILL. ATTEMPT TO TAX THE AMERICANS. AMERICANS REVOLT IN THE FACE OF THE DOCTRINES OF BLACKSTONE. THEIR CHARGES AGAINST GEORGE III.

Kensington, 31st Dec., 1825.

MY FRIENDS,

393. WE have seen, in the foregoing Letter, that Reformation the Third, commonly called the "Glorious Revolution," grew directly out of Reformation the Second; and we are now to see Reformation the Fourth, commonly called "the American Revolution," grow directly out of Reformation the Third; and we are, before we get to the end of this present Letter, to see how severely the English people have been scourged, and how much more severely they are likely still to be scourged, in consequence of these several "Reformations," which have all proceeded from Reformation the First, as naturally as the stem and the branches of the tree proceed from the root.

394. We have seen, that King James and his family were set aside, because they were Catholics; and we are to bear that in mind, not forgetting at the same time, that ALFRED the Great was a Catholic, and that those Kings of England, who really conquered France, and won that title of King of France, which George III. gave up, were also Catholics. But we are now particularly to bear in mind, that James, an Englishman , was set aside, that William, a Dutchman, was made King in his stead, and that James's heirs were set aside, too, because he and they were Catholics. Bearing these things constantly in mind, we shall now see what took place, and how the " PROTESTANT REFORMATION" worked, till it produced the DEBT, the BANKS, the STOCK- JOBBERS, and the American Revolution.

395. James found faithful adherents in his IRISH subjects, who fought and bled in his cause with all that bravery and disregard of life of which so many Irishmen have given proof. But, with the aid of Dutch and German armies, paid by England, the "deliverer" finally triumphed over James and the Irish, and the whole kingdom submitted to the sway of the former. It is hardly necessary to say, that the Catholics were now doomed to suffer punishments heretofore unknown; and that, if their faith still existed in the kingdom, it could scarcely be owing to any thing short of the immediate superintendence of Providence. The oppressions which they had had to endure under former sovereigns were terrible enough; but now began a series of acts against them, such as the world never heard of before. I shall, further on, have to give a sketch, at least, of these acts, which we shall find going on increasing in number and in severity, and, at last, presenting a mass of punishments which, but to think of makes one's blood run cold, when, all of a sudden, in the 18th year of GEORGE III., came the American Revolution, which grew out of the English Revolution, and (mark the justice of God!) which produced the first relaxation in this most dreadfully penal code.

396. But now did the American Revolution grow out of the Dutch Deliverer's, or "Glorious" Revolution? A very pertinent and important questions my friends, and one that it is my duty to answer in the fullest and most satisfactory manner; for this points to the very heart of my subject. We shall, by-and-by, see the American Revolution producing wonderful events; and therefore we must, with the greatest possible care, trace it to its true source; especially as, in all human probability, this nation has yet to receive from that quarter blows far heavier than it has ever yet had to sustain.

397. The "Protestant Deliverer" had, in the first place, brought over a Dutch army for the English nation to support. Next, there were the expenses and bloodshed of a civil war to endure for the sake of the "deliverance from Popery." But these, though they produced suffering enough, were a mere nothing compared to what was to follow; for this was destined to scourge the nation for ages and ages yet to come, and to produce, in the end, effects that the human mind can hardly contemplate with steadiness.

398. King James had, as we have seen, been received in France. Louis XIV. treated him as King of England, Scotland and Ireland. Willam hated Louis for this; and England had to pay for that hatred. All those who had assisted, in a conspicuous manner, to bring in the "deliverer," were now embarked in the same boat with him. They were compelled to humour and to yield to him. They, historians say, wished to give the crown solely to his wife, because, she being James's daughter, there would have been less of revolution in this than in giving the crown to an utter alien. But he flatly told them, that he "would not hold his power by the apron strings;" and, the dispute having continued for some time, he cut the matter short with them by declaring, that if they did not give him the crown, he would go back to Holland, and leave them to their old sovereign! This was enough: they gave him the crown without more hesitation; and they found, that they had got not only a "deliverer," but a master at the same time.

399. The same reasons that induced a submission to this conduct in the "deliverer," induced the same parties to go cordially along with him in his war against France. There was James in France; a great part of his people were still for him; if France were at peace with England, the communication could not be cut off. Therefore, war with France was absolutely necessary to the maintenance of William on the throne; and, if he were driven from the throne, what was to become of those who had obtained from him, as the price of their services in bringing him in, immense grants of Crown lands and various other enormous emoluments, none of which they could expect to retain for a day, if James were restored? Besides this, there was the danger, and very great danger too, to their own estates and their lives; for, though that which they did was, and is, called a "glorious Revolution," it would, if James had been restored, have been called by a very different name; and that name would not have been an empty sound; it would have been applied to very practical purposes; and, the chances are, that very few of the principal actors would have wholly escaped. And there were, moreover, the possessors of the immense property of the Church, founded and endowed by our fathers. The confiscation of this was not yet of so ancient a date as to have been forgotten. Tradition is very long-lived. Many and many, then alive, knew all the story well. They had heard their grandfathers say, that the Catholic Church kept all the poor; that the people were then better off; and, they felt, the whole of the people felt, that England had lost by the change. Therefore, in case of the restoration of James, the possessors of Church property, whether they were lay or clerical, might reasonably have their fears.

400. Thus, all these deeply interested parties, who were also the most powerful parties in the kingdom, were for a war with France, which they rightly regarded as absolutely necessary to the keeping of William on the throne, and to the quiet enjoyment of their great possessions, if not actually to the safety of their lives. This war ought, therefore, to have been, called, "a war to preserve Church- property, Crown-lands, and other great emoluments, to their present "possessors." But, those who make wars, like those who make confiscations of property belonging to the Church and poor, generally know how to give them a good name; and, accordingly, this was called, and proclaimed, as a war, "to preserve the Protestant Religion, and to keep out Popery and slavery." It was a real "no-popery" war; and, though attended with the most dreadful consequences to the nation, it answered all the purposes of its inventors. The history of this war, as an affair of fighting, is of little con sequence to us. It was, indeed, attended, in this respect, with disgrace enough; but, it answered the great object of its inventors. It did not hurt France; it did not get rid of James and his son; but, it made the English people IDENTIFY their old King and his son with the FOREIGN ENEMIES of England! That was what the inventors of the war wanted; and that they completely got. It was in vain that King James protested, that he meant no harm to England; it was in vain that he reminded the people, that he had been compelled to flee to France; in vain his declarations, that the French only wanted to assist in restoring him to his rights. They saw him in France; they saw the French fighting for him and against England: that was quite sufficient. Men do not reason in such a case; and this the inventors of this war knew very well.

401. But, though passion muddles the head, though even honest feeling may silence the reasoning faculties, the PURSE is seldom to be quieted so easily: and, this war, though for "the preservation of the Protestant religion, and for keeping out Popery and slavery," soon began to make some most dreadful tugs at this most sensitive part of those accoutrements that almost make part and parcel of the human frame. The expenses of this famous "no-popery" war.... Good God! what has this kingdom not suffered for that horrid and hypocritical cry!.... The expenses of this famous "no-popery" war were enormous. The taxes were, of course, in proportion to those expenses; and the people, who already paid more than four times as much as they had paid in the time of James, began not only to murmur, but to give no very insignificant, signs of sorrow for having been "delivered!" France was powerful; the French king liberal and zealous; and the state of things was ticklish. Force, as far as law, and the suspension of law, could go, was pretty fairly put in motion; but, a scheme was, at last, hit upon, to get the money, and yet not to tug so very hard at that tender part, the purse.

402. An Act of Parliament was passed, in the year 1694, being the 5th year of William and Mary, chap. 20, the title of which Act is in the following words; words that every man should bear in mind; words fatal to the peace and the happiness of England; words which were the precursor of a scourge greater than ever before afflicted any part of God's creation. -- "An Act for granting to their Majesties several rates and duties upon Tonnage of Ships and Vessels, and upon Beer, Ale, and other Liquors, for securing certain RECOMPENCES and ADVANTAGES in the said Act mentioned, to such persons as shall VOLUNTARILY ADVANCE the sum of fifteen hundred thousand pounds, towards carrying on the war against France." This Act lays certain duties, sufficient to pay the interest of this sum of 1,500,000l. Then it points out the manner of subscribing; the mode of paying the interest, or annuities; and then it provides, that, if so much of the whole sum be subscribed by such a time, the subscribers shall have a charter, under the title of "THE GOVERNOR AND COMPANY OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND"!

403. Thus arose loans, funds, banks, bankers, bank notes, and a NATIONAL DEBT; things that England had never heard or dreamed of, before this war for "preserving" the Protestant religion as by law established; things without Which she had had a long and glorious career of many centuries. and had been the greatest and happiest country in the world; things which she never would, and never could, have heard of, had it not been for what is audaciously called the "REFORMATION," seeing that to lend money at interest; that is to say, for gain; that is to say, to receive money for the use of money; seeing that to do this was contrary, and still is contrary to the principles of the Catholic Church; and, amongst Christians, or professors of Christianity, such a thing was never heard of before that which is impudently called "THE REFORMATION." The Reverend Mr. O'CALLAGHAN, in his excellent little work, which I had the honour to re-publish last winter, and which ought to be read by every man, and especially every young man, in the kingdom, has shown, that the ancient philosophers, the Fathers of the Church, both Testaments, the Canons of the Church, the decisions of POPE and Councils, all agree, all declare, that to take money for the use of money is sinful. Indeed no such thing was ever attempted to be justified, until the savage Henry VIII. had cast off the supremacy of the POPE. JEWS did it; but, then Jews had no civil rights. They existed only by mere sufferance. They could be shut up, or banished, or even sold, at the King's pleasure. They were regarded as a sort of monsters, who professed to be the lineal descendants and to hold the opinions of those who had murdered the SON OF GOD AND OF MEN. They were not permitted to practise their blasphemies openly. If they had synagogues, they were unseen by the people. The horrid wretches them selves were compelled to keep out of public view on Sun days, and on Saints' days, They were not allowed to pollute with their presence the streets or the roads of a Christian country, on days set apart for public devotion. In degraded wretches like these USURY, that is, receiving money for the use of money, was tolerated, just for the same cause that incest is tolerated amongst dogs.

404. How far the base spirit of usury may now have crept in, even amongst Catholics themselves, I know not, nor is it of importance as to the matter immediately before me. It is certain, that, before the "Reformation" there was no such thing known amongst Christians as receiving money, or profit in any shape, merely for the use of money. It would be easy to show, that mischiefs enormous are inseparable from such a practice; but, we shall see enough of those mischiefs in the end. Suffice it, for the present, that this national usury, which was now invented for the first time, arose out of the "Reformation."

405. This monstrous thing, the usury, or funding system, was not only a Protestant invention; not only arose out of the "Reformation"; not only was established for the express purpose of carrying on a war for the preservation of this Church of England against the efforts of Popery; but, the inventor, BURNET, was the most indefatigable advocate for the "Reformation" that had ever existed. So that the thing was not only invented by Protestants to do injury to Catholics; it was not only intended by them for this purpose; it was not only destined, by the wisdom and justice of God to be a scourge, to be the most terrible of all scourges, to the Protestants themselves; it was not only destined to make, at last, the "Church by law established" look at the usurers with no very quiet feelings; the thing was not only thus done and thus destined to operate; but, the instrument was the fittest, the very fittest, that could have been found in the whole world,

406. BURNET, whose first name, as the Scotch call it, was GILBERT, was, in the first place, a POLITICAL CHURCH PARSON; next, he was a MONSTROUSLY LYING HISTORIAN; next, he was a SCOTCHMAN; and, lastly, he RECEIVED THE THANKS OF PARLIAMENT for his "History of the Reformation"; that is to say, a mass of the most base falsehoods and misrepresentations that ever were put upon paper. So that, the instrument was the very fittest that could have been found on earth. This man had, at the accession of JAMES II., gone to Holland, where he became a Secretary to WILLIAM (afterwards the "deliverer"); and where he corresponded with, and "aided the Glorious Revolutionisers" in England; and, in 1689, the year after the "deliverance," the "deliverer" made him BISHOP OF SALISBURY, as a reward for his "glorious revolution "services!

407. This was the fittest man in the world to invent that which was destined to be a scourge to England. Though become a Bishop, he was still a most active politician; and, when the difficulty of carrying on the "no-popery" war arose, and when those fears, mentioned in paragraph 401, began to be powerful this Bishop of the "law- established Church" it was, who invented, who advised, and who, backed by the "deliverer," caused to be adopted the scheme of borrowing, of mortgaging the taxes, and of pawning the property and labour of future generations. Pretty "deliverance"! Besides sparing the purses of the people, and quieting their discontents on account of taxes, this scheme had a further and still more important object in view; namely, to make all those who had money to lend wish to see the new king and new dynasty and all the grants and emoluments of the "glorious revolution" folks upheld! That was the permanent object of this "no-popery" project.

408. The case was this, and we ought clearly to under stand it, seeing that here is the true origin of all our present alarms, dangers and miseries. James II., and his son, had been set aside, because they were Catholics: a "glorious revolution" had been made; the great makers of it had immense possessions, which had been public or church possessions. If James were restored, all these would he taken from them, together with all the titles of nobility, all the bishoprics, and, in short, every thing granted by the "deliverer." And as the "deliverer" was liable to die, it was necessary to these great possessors and "glorious" actors to take care, if possible, that James, or his son should not be the successors of "the deliverer." Acts of Parliament were passed to provide against this danger; but still, experience had shown that Acts of Parliament were in some cases, of but little avail, when the great body of the people, feeling acutely, were opposed to them. Therefore, something was wanted to bind great numbers of the people fast to the new dynasty. The cry of "no-popery" had some power; but it had not power sufficient to weigh down that which, in later times, CASTLEREAGH had the insolence to call, the "ignorant impatience of taxation;" and for which impatience the English were, in former times, always remarkable.

469. The "deliverer," and all those who had brought him in, together with all those who had been fattened or elevated by him, were, as I said before, embarked in the same boat; but the great body of the people were not yet thus embarked. Indeed, very few of them, comparatively, were thus embarked. But, if all, or a great part, of those who had money to lend, could, by the temptation of great gain, he induced to lend their money on interest to the Government; if they could be induced to do this, it was easy to see that all this description of persons would then be embarked in the same boat, too; and that they, who must necessarily be a class having great influence in the community, would be amongst the most zealous supporters of the "deliverer," and the "glorious" aiders, abettors, and makers of the "revolution" which had just taken place.

410. For these purposes this funding-system was invented. It had the twofold object, of raising money to carry on the "no-popery" war; and, of binding to the "no-popery" Government all those persons who wished to lend money at high interest; and these were, as is always the case, the most greedy, most selfish, least public-spirited, and most base and slavish and unjust part of the people. The scheme, which was quite worthy of the mind of the Protestant Bishop BURNET, answered its purposes: it enabled the "deliverer" to carry on the "no-popery" war; it bound fast to the "deliverer" and his bringers-in all the base and selfish and greedy and unfeeling part of those who had money. The scheme succeeded in effecting its immediate object; but, good God! what a scourge did it provide for future generations! What troubles, what shocks, what sufferings it had in store for a people, whose rulers, in an evil hour, resorted to such means for the purpose of causing to be trampled under foot those whose only crime was that of adhering to the faith of their fathers!

411. The sum at first borrowed was a mere trifle. It deceived by its seeming insignificance. But, it was very far from being intended to stop with that trifle. The inventors knew well what they were about. Their design was to mortgage, by degrees, the whole of the country, all the lands, all the houses, and all other property, and even all labour, to those who would lend their money to the State The thing soon began to swell at a great rate; and before the end of the "glorious" no-popery war, the interest alone of the DEBT, the annual interest, amounted to 1,310,942l. a-year, which, observe, was a greater sum than the whole of the taxes had yearly amounted to in the reign of the Catholic James II.! So that here were taxes laid on for ever; mind that: here were, on account of this grand no-popery affair; merely on account of this "glorious revolution," which was expressly made for the purpose of getting rid of a Catholic King: here were additional taxes, laid on for ever, to a greater amount than the whole of the taxes raised by that Catholic King! Thus does the justice of God work! The treatment of the Catholics, at this time, was truly horrible; the main body of the English people either approved of this treatment, or winked at it: this debt-scheme was. invented by a Protestant Bishop for the purpose of utterly extirpating the Catholic religion: and, that religion still lives in the kingdom; nay, there are in the kingdom a greater number of Catholics than there are persons of any one other religion; while the scheme, the crafty, the cunning, the deep scheme, has, from its ominous birth, been breeding swarms of Jews, Quakers, usurers of every description, feeding and fattening on the vitals of the country; till, at last, it has produced what the world never saw before; starvation in the midst of abundance! Yes, verily; this is the picture we now exhibit to the world: the Law-Church Parsons putting up, in all the churches, thanksgiving for a plenteous harvest; and, the main mass of the labouring people fed and clad worse than the felons in the gaols!

412. However, we must not anticipate. We shall, further on, see something of the probable ultimate effects of this dreadful scheme. At present we have to see how it, together with the "glorious revolution," out of which it arose, led to and produced the AMERICAN REVOLUTION, "Reformation" the fourth, by which two things were accomplished; FIRST, the lopping off of a large and valuable part of the dominions of England; SECOND, the creating of a new mercantile and naval power, capable of disputing with her that dominion of the sea, which has, for so many ages, been her chief glory, and without possessing which she must become a second-rate power in Europe. These were the things which were accomplished by the American Revolution; and, therefore, let us now see what it was that produced that revolution; or, rather, let us see how it grew directly out of the "glorious revolution" and its "no-popery" wars and debts..

413. BURNET's contrivance did very well for present use: it made the nation deaf to the voice of all those who foreboded mischief from it: made all those who were interested in the funds advocates for taxation; the deep scheme set the rich to live upon the poor, and made the former have no feeling for those who bore the burden of the taxes: in short, it divided the nation into two classes, the tax- payers and the tax-eaters, and these latter had the Government at their back. The great protection of the people of England always had been, that they could not be taxed without their own consent.! This was always, in Catholic times, the great principle of the English Government; and, it is expressly and most explicitly asserted in MAGNA CHARTA, which was the work of a Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, more than of anybody else. But, how was it to be expected, that this grand principle would be maintained, when a large part of the rich people themselves lived upon the taxes? When a man's next-door neighbour received the taxes paid by that man? When, in short, the community was completely divided, one part having a powerful interest in upholding that which was oppressive and ruinous to the other part?

414. Taxes, of course, went on increasing, and the debt went on in the same way. The Protestant interest demanded more wars, and brought on a couple of civil wars. Taxation marched on with dreadful strides. The people did not like it. At the "glorious revolution" it had been settled and enacted, that there should be a new Parliament called every THREE YEARS at least: and this had been held forth as one of the great gains of the "glorious revolution." Another "great gain" was, that no pensioner and no placeman were to sit in the House of Commons. These things were enacted; they were laws of the land; they were held forth to the people as great things, gained by "Glorious." This last Act was soon repealed; and placemen and pensioners have sitten in the House of Commons ever since! But the other Act, the Act securing the people a fresh choice every three years, at least; that was a vital law. That law was, in the new state of things, a state of taxes and debts; a state of things which demanded new taxes almost every year: in such a state of things frequent and new Parliaments, new choosings at short intervals, were absolutely necessary to give the people a chance, even so much as a chance, of avoiding oppressive taxation, and oppression, indeed, of every sort. It was, in short, the only means of protection that was left to the people.

415. Yet, to uphold the new system it was necessary to demolish even this barrier of liberty and property; and in the year 1715, being the first year of the reign of George 1., chap. xxxviii., this law, this vital law, this solemn compact between the Protestant dynasty and the people, was repealed and for ever abolished; and the THREE YEARS were changed for SEVEN; and that, too, observe, by the very men whom the people had chosen to sit only for THREE YEARS! Yes, men chosen by the people to sit for three years enacted that they would sit for SEVEN; that they themselves would sit for seven; and that those who had chosen them, together with their descendants for ever, should have no choice at all, unless they voted for men who might, at the King's pleasure, sit for seven years.

416. It is useless for us to feel indignation and rage. They can do us no good. We shall do well to keep ourselves cool. But, we ought to bear in mind, that this thing, which has scourged us so famously, was not done by Catholics; that they had no hand in it; nay, that it was not only done under the new Protestant dynasty; but that this thing also; this thing, the like of which the world never had and never has heard of, that this thing also was done from hostility to the religion of our fathers! Good God! What has not this nation suffered, and what has it not yet to suffer, for this hostility! There is hardly one great calamity, or disgrace, that has befallen England during the last three hundred years which we do not clearly trace to this fatal source.

417. But this SEPTENNIAL BILL; this measure, which is perfectly matchless in its nature, and which has led to such dreadful effects; this is a thing which we must have in its original black and white; and we must have every word of it too; for here we have a complete "no-popery" law; and of this law we are tasting the effects to the present hour, and we shall taste them for a long while yet to come. The following are the words, all the words, of this memorable Act.

418. "Whereas in and by an Act of Parliament made in the sixth year of the reign of their late Majesties King William and Queen Mary (of ever blessed memory), intitulated, An Act for the frequent meeting and calling of Parliaments: It was among other things enacted, that from thenceforth, no Parliament whatsoever, that should at any time then after be called, assembled or held, should have any continuance longer than for three years only at the farthest, to be accounted from the day on which by the writ of summons the said Parliament should be appointed to meet: And whereas it has been found by experience, that the said clause hath proved very grievous and burthensome, by occasioning much greater and more continued expense in order to elections of Members to serve in Parliament, and more violent and lasting heats and animosities among the subjects of this realm than were ever known before the said clause was enacted; and the said Provision, if it should continue, may probably at this juncture, WHEN A RESTLESS AND POPISH FACTION ARE DESIGNING and endeavouring to renew the rebellion within this kingdom, and an invasion from abroad be destructive to the peace and security of the Government. Be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, That this present Parliament, and all Parliaments that shall at any time hereafter be called, assembled or held, shall and may respectively have continuance for seven years and no longer, to be accounted from the day on which by the writ of summons this present Parliament hath been, or any future Parliament shall be appointed to meet, unless this present or any such Parliament hereafter to be summoned, shall be sooner dissolved by his Majesty, his heirs, or successors."

419. So, here it is again! The "restless Popish faction" was at work! So that the rights, the most precious rights, of the whole of the people, were to be taken away merely on account of the designs and wishes of a "Popish faction"! What harm could a mere "faction" do at an election? The truth is, these pretences were false: the people, the great body of the people, smarting under the lash of enormous taxation, became disaffected towards the new order of things; they were strongly disposed to revert to their former state: it was suspected, and, indeed, pretty well known, that they would, at the next election, have chosen, almost everywhere, members having the same sentiments: and, therefore, it was resolved, that they should not have the power of doing it. However, the deed was done; we have felt the effects of it from that day to this; and we have now to remember, that even this terrible curtailment of English liberty we owe to the hostility to the religion of our fathers; that religion, during the dominance of which, there was always a new House of Commons every time the Parliament was assembled: that religion, along with which were bound up the people's civil and political rights; that religion, the followers of which, while it was predominant, never heard of Parliaments for seven years or for three years or even for one year; but who, as often as they saw a Parliament called, saw a Commons' House chosen for that one session, and for no more.

420. After the passing of the Septennial Act, the people would, of course, lose nearly all the control that they had ever had with regard to the laying on of taxes and to the expending of the public money. Accordingly taxes went on increasing prodigiously. The EXCISE- SYSTEM which had had a little beginning in former Protestant reigns, and the very name of which had never been heard of in Catholic times, now assumed somewhat its present form; and the "castles" of Englishmen became thenceforth things to be visited by excisemen. Things went on in this way, until the reign of George III., when, by means of "no-popery" wars, and other measures for "preserving the Protestant Religion as by law established," the debt from 1,500,0001. had swelled up to 146,682,844l. The yearly interest of it had swelled up to 4,840,821l., which was about four times as much as the whole annual amount of the taxes in the reign of the Popish James II.! And the whole of the yearly taxes had swelled up to 8,744,6821. That is to say. about eight times as much as James had raised yearly on this same no-popery" people!

421. Now, though men will do much in the way of talk against "Popery," or against many other things; they are less zealous and active, when it comes to money. The nation most sensibly felt the weight of these burdens; and the burdens received no alleviation from the circumstance of their being most righteously merited. The people looked back with aching hearts to former happy days; and the nobility and gentry began to perceive, with shame and fear, that, already, their estates were beginning to pass quietly from them (as SWIFT had told them they would) into the hands of the Jews, Quakers, and other money-changers, created by the "no-popery" war, and by the scheme of the Scotchman, BURNET. But, it was now too late to look back; and yet, to look forward to this certain, and not very slow, ruin, was dreadful, and especially to men of ancient family and by no means destitute of pride. Fain would they, even at that time, have applied a sponge to the score brought against them by BURNET's tribes. But this desire was effectually counteracted by the same motive which led to the creation of the debt; the necessity of embarking, and of keeping embarked, great masses of the money-owners in the same boat with the Government.

422. in this dilemma, namely, the danger of touching the interest of the debt, and the danger of continuing to pay that interest, a new scheme was resorted to, which, it was hoped, would obviate both these dangers. It was, to tax the American colonies, and to throw a part, first, and, perhaps the whole, in the end, of the "no-popery" debt, upon their shoulders! Now, then, came "Reformation" the fourth, having for cause the measures necessary to affect the "glorious revolution," taking the principles and the manner of that revolution as its example in these respects, beginning with a "CONVENTION," assembled without authority of King, Parliament, or People; proceeding with CHARGES against the king, with making it HIGH TREASON TO ADHERE TO HIM; and ending with setting aside his authority, and extinguishing his rights and those of his family FOR EVER! Ay, but besides all this, bringing the first dawn of relief to the longsuffering Catholics of England, Scotland, and Ireland! What it was that these, our countrymen, had to suffer for the crime of adhering to the religion of their and our fathers, I shall leave, to state further on; but I now proceed to show how this "Reformation" the fourth commenced. and proceeded.

423. The Septennial gentlemen proceeded, at first, very slowly in their attempts to shift the pressure of the debt from their own shoulders to that of the Americans. They sent out tea to pay a tax; they imposed a stamp duty on certain things in the colonies; but they had a clever, a sharp-sighted, and a most cool and resolute and brave people to deal with. The Americans had seen debts, and funds, and taxation, and abject submission, creep, by slow degrees, over the people of England; and they resolved to resist, at once, the complicated curse. The money people there were not, like those in England, the owners of stock and funds. They were not, as the money people of England were, embarked in the same boat with the government: if they had been, there would have been more hesitation on the subject of resistance; if they had been entangled in BURNET's awful web, the Americans might, at this day, have been hardly known in the world; might have been a parcel of bands of poor devils, doomed to toil for haughty and insolent masters. Happily for them, the Scotch Bishop's deadly trammels had not reached them; and, therefore, they, at once, resolved not to submit to the Septennial commands.

424. It is curious enough that they should, as the "glorious" people had done, call themselves Whigs! But the Septennial people were Whigs too; so that there were now Whigs resisting Whigs. A Whig means, in England, one who approves the setting of JAMES and his heirs aside. A Whig means, in America, one who approves of the setting of GEORGE and his heirs aside. The English Whigs called a convention; so did those of America. The English Whigs published a declaration, containing, as we have seen in paragraph 380, CHARGES against JAMES: so did those of America against GEORGE. The charges against JAMES were twelve in number. This is a favourite number. with Whigs; for the American Whigs had twelve charges against GEORGE. We have seen, in paragraph 380, what Protestants accused a Popish King of; and it is but fair for us to see what Protestants and Catholics too accused a Protestant King of. BLACKST0NE, in justifying the "glorious" affair, took good care to say, that the like was never to take place again; and the Septennial gentlemen declared, and, I think, enacted, that the King in future (being, of course, a Protestant) could do no wrong. Now, the Americans seemed to think it hard, that they should thus be positively forbidden to do what was so "glorious" in Englishmen. BLACKSTONE had told them, that, to justify another revolution, all the same circumstances must exist: not a part of them, but the whole of them. The King must not only endeavour to subvert the laws; he must not only commit acts of tyranny; but he must be a Catholic, and must have a design to overthrow the Protestant religion and he must, into the bargain, have abdicated his authority by going out of the kingdom. So that, according to this lawyer, there never could, by any possibility, be a "glorious" revolution again, seeing that two essential circumstances must, in any future case, be wanting, as no Catholic was ever to be king again, and as no king was ever to do wrong any more.

425. But, alas! these American Whigs did not listen to BLACKSTONE, though he had talked so piously about the "dark ages of monkish ignorance and superstition." They thought, nay, they said, that a Protestant King might do wrong, and had done wrong. They thought, or at least, they said, that a king might abdicate his authority, not only without going out of the country, but also without ever having been in it! In short, they drew up, à la "glorious," charges against their Protestant King, his late Majesty; and as the charges against James II. are found in an Act of Parliament, so the charges against George III. are found in an Act of Congress, passed on the memorable 4th of July, 1776. These charges were as follows:

426. "The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

I. He has refused to pass laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the Legislature -- a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

II. He has called the legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the repository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

III. He has dissolved representative houses, repeatedly, For opposing with firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

IV. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

V. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

VI. He has created a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat their substance

VII. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

VIII. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, civil power.

IX. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation.

X. He has imposed taxes on us without our consent.

XI. He has deprived us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury.

XII. He has ABDICATED government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us. In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which defines a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

427. Now, justice to the memory of' the late King demands, that we expressly assert, that here are some most monstrous exaggerations, and especially at the close; but, does not that same justice demand of us, then, to be cautious how we give full credit to the charges made against James II.? However, the question with us, at the present moment, is, not whether the grounds of one of these revolutions were better than those of the other: but, whether the last revolution grew directly out of the former; and, of the affirmative of this question no man, who has read this Letter, can, I think, entertain a doubt.

428. I should now proceed to show, that the French Revolution, or" Reformation" the fifth, grew immediately out of the American Revolution; and then to sum up the consequences; but I am at the end of my paper.