petitions were presented both for and against the claims of the Roman Catholics. Mr. Hart Davis having presented a petition from the clergy of Bristol against those claims, Mr. Leycester avowed it as his opinion, that the persons who had so strongly expressed sentiments hostile to any further concession to the Catholics, had done so in profound ignorance of the subject, and labouring under great mistakes as to the religious belief of the Roman Catholics. His own errors on the subject were of the same description, until the investigation of the committee on Irish affairs had thrown a new light upon the question. Until that information had been communicated, he had believed, that all those monstrous mummeries, so long attributed to the Popish faith, were articles of faith with all Roman Catholics. That was now entirely denied. But all denial was useless; the opinions which the Catholics entertained centuries ago were supposed by the petitioners against their claims to be the opinions which they still cherished. Their cry was— "Delicta majorum immeritus lues, affairs, he would have arrived at a very different conclusion. He disclaimed all disposition to stir up religious animosities; but, when he was incited by such statements as those which had fallen from the hon. gentleman, he felt the necessity of standing forward, and declaring his opinion of the unchanged character of the religion of Rome. Mr. A. Smith presented a petition from Portsmouth and Portsea, against further concessions to the Catholics. subject; and that it might be safely left to the wisdom of the legislature. Mr. Carter begged to say a few words as to the mode in which this petition was produced, in order to show that the declaration that these anti-Catholic petitions generally spoke the sense of the country was unfounded. In the original advertisement to call together a meeting for the purpose of framing this petition, the mayor of Portsmouth had introduced an expression intimating that the meeting was for the purpose of " discussing" the question. As the day of meeting, however, approached, discussion was thought to be dangerous to the cause of anti-Catholicism; and an attempt was made to prevent the meeting. It took place, however, and a counter resolution was carried, expressive of the Mr. Bright denied that the opinions of sense of the meeting, and, he firmly bethe petitioners had been formed in the lieved, the sense of the great majority of ignorance attributed to them by the hon. the population of the country, that it was gentleman. The petitioners had read-inexpedient to express any opinion on the what the hon. gentleman seemed to have neglected, the history of this country and the Christian world. In that history. they had seen the real character of Catholicism. Could the Protestant people of this country forget the times that were past? When had the Catholics shown themselves favourable to the religious and civil liberties of the people of England? Never. And as to intolerance, let the House observe on which side it lay. Whenever a petition was presented unfavourable to the Catholic Claims, with what accuracy was it not criticised, with what scorn was it not treated? Let the House look back to what had taken place on the continent but a few years after the peace. Let them recollect the motion made in the year 1815, by a learned and lamented individual, sir S. Romilly, with respect to the prosecution of the Protestants at Nismes. Did not that event show that persecution was the essence of popery, whenever popery was restored to power? If the hon. gentleman who had just spoken had looked to general history, instead of the ex-parte examination of individuals before the committee on Irish Mr. A. Smith observed, that the petition was most numerously and respectably signed. Colonel Johnson rose, to present a petition from a Roman Catholic gentleman of the name of Newton, residing in the county of Lincoln, against the pending bill for the relief of the Roman Catholics. The petitioner begged to represent, that if such a bill should pass into a law, it would not materially benefit the condition of the Roman Catholics, at the same time that it would certainly be most degrading to them as a body. The hon. gentleman took that opportunity of declaring, that were he himself a Roman Catholic, he certainly could not take the oath to be enjoined by the bill in question. Sir Robert Heron, in presenting two petitions in favour of the bill, complained of the manner in which a petition from Grantham had been got up, that was presented on Friday. That petition did not at all represent the sense of the inhabitants of the town. Mr. Brougham begged to thank his hon. given to them. In short, they were convicts [a laugh]-he begged pardon of the House, he should more correctly say, that two of the four were convicts, the other two were keepers of brothels. Perhaps the latter two had been induced, from a religious horror of the rival trade of the lady of Babylon, to protest that they could not bear any other religion but their own. Many of the other petitioners had been previously in the receipt of Sir M. Cholmeley was here about to address the chair, but was called to order. Mr. Brougham resumed. He had his information from a party of whose accuracy he had no doubt, and who could not be mistaken. He understood that every one of these 198 persons [a cry of "No"] friend for the light he had thrown upon perhaps the hon. baronet knew them all, and could distinctly state whether such was the fact or not-every one of them had made his cross. Possible it was that they could write; but, at any rate, they had not chosen to favour the House with a specimen of their penmanship. Surely the hon. baronet knew as well as he did what a marksman was; and thus, therefore, he must allow, that as marksmen 198 of these petitioners were disposed of. In respect of the other four, he dared to say that the hon. baronet could give his negative evidence, at least to the character of those two housekeepers whom he had before named; if not, it did not follow that other gentlemen might not have been in their houses, and be able to speak more directly to the matter. Altogether there were in this way 242 out of the 439 petitioners' names accounted for; leaving a per centage of somewhat less that 5 per cent as upon the whole population, whose sentiments this petition affected to represent. Sir Montague Cholmeley said, that he knew of no such proceedings, in the manufacture of the petitions in question, as had been just stated. He could only say for himself, that he had never entered a house of the description mentioned by the hon. and learned gentleman [a laugh]. He was very sure that the attack which had been made by the hon. and learned gentleman and the hon. baronet was most unjust as to the petitioners, and most unfair in the absence of the hon. member who had presented their petition. For his own part, he was rather warm at present; and, though he felt disposed to speak upon the subject of the Catholic claims, he considered that he was too much excited to address himself to it with all that calmness which so important a question demanded. Lord Nugent said, he had received similar information to that which his hon. and learned friend had submitted to the House, from a person of high respectability, whose name, he was sure, must be well known to the hon. baronet [" name, name"]. He was not authorized to declare who the individual was; but he would communicate his name with pleasure to the hon. baronet. Mr. Brougham said, that in his information the 198 persons who had signed with a cross were marked "illiterate;" by which he conceived he was to understand, either that they could not write their names, and had therefore put a cross, or that some person had signed for a great number of others. Mr. Secretary Peel said, he had been surprised when he heard the statements made by hon. gentlemen on the other side, and, conceiving that they must have gone upon information on which they could rely, he had felt it necessary to send for the petition itself. That petition he held in his hand; and, after strict examination, he could find no more than one name to which a cross was affixed [hear, hear!]. Sir R. Heron said, it was not his intention to make any observation upon the nature of the signatures, nor the manner in which they had been obtained, as he did not know whether the parties had signed themselves, or had procured others to sign for them. This, however, he could say, that be it as it might, it was never dreamt of to impute the slightest blame to the hon. member who presented the petition, or those who supported it. The original petition, presented on Friday last, having been handed over the table by the clerk, to Mr. Brougham and lord Nugent, the latter quitted the House for a few moments. On his return, Lord Nugent said, he wished to take that opportunity of explaining to the House an error into which he had been led with respect to the petition. Having heard what had been stated, he had felt it his duty to apply to the party for information, and he found that it was totally incorrect. He regretted that he had led the House astray upon such information. Mr. Brougham said, it had been originally his intention to look into a petition, described as having been signed in such an extraordinary manner, but other avocations had prevented him from doing so. Having said thus much, he had only to add, that he should in future use more caution in receiving information from a quarter upon which he had hitherto relied; as the gentleman was not only a supporter but a member of the Catholic body, yet even there he should receive his information with that grain of allowance and caution which the experience of that night had taught him. He had looked over the petition, and it certainly contained no more than one name to which a cross was affixed. There were, indeed, perhaps forty names, in all, subscribed by one and the same hand; but, upon the whole, the names said to be signed by crosses were as good specimens of average penmanship as were usually found in petitions of this nature. Mr. Secretary Peel said, he had several petitions to present against this bill, all of which had been forwarded to him under the circumstances he had mentioned on the preceding evening. One of these he begged particularly to call the attention of the House to. It was from the ministers, elders, and provincial synod of Glasgow, and was signed by Mr. McFarlane, their moderator; and a written claim had been transmitted by that gentleman to have this petition considered, not as that of the individuals by whom it was so signed, but as that of a part of the established church of Scotland. Now, he was not exactly certain whether the House could, in point of form, receive this petition with this single signature, though he found a similar one entered as received upon their Journals in 1813. Perhaps the House made a distinction between corporate bodies having seals, and corporate bodies, like that from which the petition in his hand professed to emanate, having no seal. The Speaker thought the safer course would be, to be governed by the precedent on their Journals, upon the understanding, that though this corporation did not possess, like either of the universities, a common seal, their petition was to be received as the petition of a corporation, but of a corporation having no seal. Mr. Wynn coincided in the opinion of the Speaker. Mr. J. P. Grant stated, that, to render the petition fit to be received by the House, it was not necessary that the body presenting it should possess a seal. Many of the corporations of Scotland, particu- | larly the ecclesiastical corporations, had no seal. Mr. W. Smith said, he did not object to the exercise of the right of petition on the part of any of those individuals who had thought proper to address the House on this occasion, whether Dissenters or others, whatever their opinions might be. Neither did he object to any thing they had done, in order to show their feelings with reference to the Catholic question. It certainly did, however, happen yesterday, that his learned friend (Mr. Brougham) was so far mistaken, as to attribute to the Protestant dissenters a strong feeling against the bill for the relief of the Roman Catholics. Now, he believed, that up to yesterday, not more than nine or ten petitions from Protestant dissenters had been presented. He had that morning looked over an alphabetical list of 2,000 congregations in England; and amongst those he could find but five or six congregations that had appeared before the House. Gentlemen might easily calculate how small a proportion this number bore to the general mass of Protestant dissenters. He held in his hand a list (comprising the period from the year 1732 down to the present time) of Protestant dissenters, properly so called. These were divided into three classes-Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists. When they agreed on any public act, that act was performed by a number deputed from the general body. In that list he found ninetyseven congregations. He had dissected the list of petitions as well as the time would allow him, and he could discover no more than five which came from persons who could be said to belong to the sects he had mentioned. There were a great number of persons who belonged to the class of Methodists (which was chiefly divided into the Whitfieldite and Wesleyan connexion), who were sometimes confounded with the Protestant dissenters, but did not in reality belong to them. He meant to cast no reflection on those parties. He merely wished to put every gentleman on his guard, lest he should be led to suppose that, because twenty petitions, emanating from this heterogeneous mixture, had been presented against the Catholic Claims, that therefore the great body of Protestant dissenters were opposed to them. They had, in fact, expressed no opinion about it. He would maintain, that not one in a hundred of the Protestant dissenting congregations in England had given any opinion at all upon this question. He believed the feeling of the Protestant dissenters throughout the country, was, to leave the subject to be dealt with as parliament in its wisdom should think fit. Speaking of them as a body, he believed they were desirous that justice should be done to the Roman Catholics. He should be sorry if the suspicion which appeared to have entered the minds of some gentlemen near him, as to the feelings of the Protestant dissenters, was in any degree well-founded. It would give him much pain, if the body of which he was speaking stood forward as the foes of religious liberty in its widest extent. If they came forward and demanded that the claims of the Catholics should be refused, he should be both surprised and grieved. The Protestant dissenters were not so bound together as to have amongst them but one opinion. They, of course, had their own opinions on political matters. They were tied up to no one common opinion, except that which was connected with the religion they professed. They maintained most liberal opinions in politics; and he knew no shorter or better mode of expressing their feelings, than by quoting the rule of their conduct; namely, that of doing unto others as they wished others to do unto them. This, the best of all possible maxims, was their motto, and he believed they were most anxious to act up to it. Mr. Spring Rice said, he held in his hand a declaration in favour of the Catholic Claims, which had emanated from a most respectable body of the Protestant dissenters of Ireland. The Presbyterians of the north of Ireland were as ready as any set of men to admit the claims which the Catholics had on the justice of that House. They were as liberal a body of men as any in the empire. He said this, because an idea had gone forth, and was, indeed, embodied in the evidence given relative to the state of Ireland, that the Presbyterians of the north of Ireland had become more than ever adverse to the claims of the Catholics. He had that day, in contradiction to that assertion, to lay before the House a statement (for the parties had not time to put it in the shape of a petition) from the ministers and elders of the Presbyterian profession in the county of Down and Belfast, to which they requested him to call the attention of parliament. Those individuals said, that, so far from being adverse to the Catholic Claims, if the Presbyterians declared themselves hostile to civil and religious liberty, they would belie the principles of the church to which they belonged. On all occasions they had declared their opinions in favour of that liberality which became them as followers of the Christian faith. In 1812, no less than 139 members of the synod of Ulster had called on the House to do away with all civil disabilities on account of religious opinions. The individuals whose sentiments he was now speaking, begged of him to state, that any person acting as moderator could express nothing more than his own opinion. If he assumed a representative capacity, he passed the line and boundary of his office; since he had a right only to act in his individual capacity. The parties stated that, as the cause of Catholic emancipation was gaining ground in the north, they wished, both in justice to the Dissenters and to the Catholics, to record these their opinions. If a general declaration on the subject had been necessary, they could have procured thousands of respectable signatures to it; and they stated, that they never felt greater chagrin than they did on the publication of the evidence, in which the Protestant dissenters were described as entertaining hostility against the Roman Catholics. He should certainly think very ill of any of that class, who, having a monopoly of toleration, endeavoured to prevent others from enjoying those benefits which they themselves possessed. Mr. Scarlett said, that the petition which he rose to present, in favour of the bill for removing the disabilities under which the Roman Catholics laboured, was signed by 163 individuals; and he believed that a greater mass of intelligence than was to be found amongst the petitioners could not be met with amongst those who affixed their names to many other petitions, though the number of signatures might be ten times as great. There were not 163 gentlemen in that House, or out of it, who could form a more competent judgment on the subject of this petition than those individuals to whose sentiments he begged leave to call the attention of the House. No body of men were better fitted to give an opinion on this momentous question, uninfluenced by any of those motives which might be supposed to attach themselves to other petitions which had been presented on this subject, than the gentlemen whose petition he then held in his hand. It was the petition of a number of sergeants and barristers at law, of that part of the united kingdom called England; and, as it was very short, he would take the liberty of reading it. [The learned gentleman here read the petition, which briefly prayed, that the civil disabilities which affected his majesty's Roman Catholic subjects should be forthwith removed. This petition, he observed, was signed by 163 gentlemen of the description he had mentioned; but the House must by no means conclude, that the whole number of the individuals at the bar of England who were favourable to Catholic emancipation, was comprised in those signatures. He could speak from his own observation, of individuals of high character, and of profound knowledge, who, concurring entirely in the prayer of this petition, had nevertheless, from a dislike to affix their names to it, lest the petition might be supposed to come from the bar of England as a body, declined signing the document. They, however, desired most anxiously, that the House should sanction the measure now in progress. If this petition was worthy of consideration, on account of the respectability of the gentlemen who had signed it, he would ask, were there not other cir cumstances which ought more especially to direct the attention of the House towards those petitioners? He would say, that if there were any body of men, to whom, more than to any others, it was beneficial to exclude as much as possible all competitors from their honours, emoluments, and dignities, that body was the bar of England. Another circumstance to which he would call the attention of the House was this-that the gentlemen signing this petition, as well as many others professing sentiments favourable to Catholic emancipation, knew perfectly well, that an avowal of those sentiments was not now, and had not been for some years back, the most ready road to preferment. It was not necessary to allude to facts which were matter of history; but perhaps it would be found, that the best mode which a barrister of intelligence could take, for the purpose of securing honours, was to become an apostate from those principles of liberality and tolerance which he might have professed at a former period of his life. The House, he thought, would agree with him when he said, that |