[prehend that no noble Lord was capable of affording-an explanation of the oath different from what I had given. I regretted the circumstance the more, as although interesting to myself, the soughtfor explanation would have been of the greatest importance to a large proportion of the public-under present circumstances not a little excited upon the subject. The question, in fact, being whether the oaths taken by Members of Parliament, involve any obligation beyond that of allegiance to the Sovereign; and if so, what further obligations are implied. They have, by myself and others, been heretofore commonly viewed as likewise binding the Legislature to certain principles in legislation, on matters appertaining to religion, favourable to the Protestant Establishment, and opposed alike to Roman Catholic doctrine, and to any recognition of papal authority within this realm. And, no doubt could have arisen upon the subject, but for the opposite line of policy that has of late years been pursued, and which, particularly in the discussions upon this Bill, has found so many advocates within the walls of Parliament. I do not advert to this question, my Lords, with any desire struction; and he showed you what had been the effect of that instruction upon the Maynooth students; and all that he stated he was prepared to prove by the most competent witnesses. What stronger case could have been made? I should have thought none; but the noble Lord (Lord St. Germans) showed that the case could be yet stronger, and unconsciously he made it so. My noble Friend, in order to show how little of real gratitude was felt by the Roman Catholic priests for this proposed endowment of Maynooth, quoted, among other things, the letter of Dr. Higgins (the titular Bishop of Ardagh), and the noble Earl thought he had a great triumph over my noble Friend, when he stated that this Dr. Higgins was not a pupil of Maynooth College. Why, my noble Friend never said he was; but the noble Earl was probably not aware that this Dr. Higgins, though not a pupil, had been a professor and teacher at the College; and the fact that he had from thence been promoted to a bishopric in the Roman Catholic Church, shows, I think, the kind of professor that the ecclesiastical authorities deem most deserving of favour and reward. I do not think my noble Friend could have had his Mo-of preventing your giving a fair consition more ably seconded, than by the deration to this Bill. But, impressed as I speech which the noble Earl has made for am-and I am sure your Lordships are all purpose of opposing it. In the course equally so-with the paramount duty of a of this debate, much has been said re- strict and faithful adherence to every specting the obligation of oaths. My sworn obligation, and being of opinion Lords, I as a Member of this House can- that the question of the obligation of the not forget that I am bound by certain Oath of Supremacy is necessarily raised oaths; that in common with most of your by the nature of the measure under consiLordships I have declared," that no Fo-deration, I have felt it right again to draw reign Prince, person, Prelate, State, or your Lordships' attention to the subject; Potentate, hath, or ought to have, any and I anxiously pray that this House, to jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-emi- which the country looks up with so much nence or authority, ecclesiastical or spi- confidence, as the most faithful guardian ritual, within this realm. So help me of the principles of the British ConstituGod." Now, my Lords, it does appear to tion, and as a sure defence against any me, that the obligation of this oath would encroachment, by hasty legislation or be violated, were I to give my assent to otherwise, upon the civil and religious any measure founded as this is, upon the liberty which that Constitution at present principle of upholding the Roman Catho- secures to all classes of Her Majesty's lic religion; and by a necessary conse-subjects, will not allow this Bill to pass quence, the authority of the Pope as head of that Church, within this kingdom. And this opinion is certainly not weakened by the fact, that when I upon a late occasion expressed it in this House, and challenged correction if I was considered in error, no noble Lord was prepared to give a satisfactory solution of the difficulty. I repeat it, no noble Lord did afford-I ap the without its having been clearly shown that it is strictly in accordance both with the principles of the Constitution, and with the obligations of Members of Parliament respecting it. One mode of interpreting the oath has, indeed, been privately suggested to me, and I believe it is that which is in general adopted by those who deny its more stringent operation; it is that the oath only implies on the part of pable of being vindicated upon its own the person taking it a repudiation of any merits. If the original institution of Maypersonal subjection to papal authority. To nooth was a violation of principle, as the this view of it, my Lords, I can by no measure before you most certainly is, it means subscribe. Clearer and less equivo- was not the less so because Pitt recomcal language might and would have been mended it, nor because Mr. Perceval chosen for the purpose, had it been in- afterwards acquiesced in it; but the truth tended thus to limit its application. But is, that although the original Act of instilooking at the history of the oath, the cir- tuting that College has proved in its cumstances under which it was originally effects upon Ireland to have been most framed, and at the express object for impolitic, in principle it bears no analogy which it was enacted, as set forth in the to the measure you are now called upon 1st Eliz. c. 1, viz., for the better observa- to sanction. From the provisions of the tion and maintenance of that Act; i. e. of Act of 1795, it would appear not that it a certain policy expressed in a series of was a College intended, as represented by enactments, excluding the Pope from the noble Lord (St. Germans), for the inevery exercise of ecclesiastical or spiritual struction of the Roman Catholic priestauthority within the realm, and transfer- hood, but that it was little more than an ring all such authority to the Crown; and Act of Toleration, enabling Roman Cacoupling these with the plain grammatical tholics to endow, at their own expense, and most obvious import and meaning of an institution for the education of persons the form of words in which the oath, as of their own communion. It was deemed since amended, is now required to be at the time of importance, that such pertaken by Members of Parliament-it cer- sons should not be obliged, as before, to tainly does appear to me, that it is inca- resort to French and other continental pable of being restricted to the mere per- seminaries, where infidelity and Jacobinism sonal feelings and acknowledgments of the had poisoned all the streams of education; person taking it; that as a qualification and as the Roman Catholics of Ireland for office, or for a seat in Parliament, it readily lent themselves to what appeared could never have been intended to be so to be for the general interest, it was an utterly inoperative and nugatory, and act of grace, not ill merited, that the that if of any force or obligation whatever, Irish Parliament, in the year '95, and the it must have a bearing upon such a ques- three following years, made grants for tion as that now submitted to Parliament, completing the buildings. These grants which is practically whether Parliament ceased in 1799; but in 1800, the last Apwill bind this country by a perpetual propriation Act of the Irish Parliament, Statute to maintain out of the public funds having included a sum towards defraying a College for the education of Roman Ca- the charges of the Establishment for one tholic priests, and in direct connexion year, this by the Seventh (the financial) with the Church of Rome, and in absolute Article of the Act of Union, became nesubjection to papal authority; thus de- cessarily an annual charge upon the priving the Sovereign of her rightful su United Kingdom for the next twenty premacy and due power of control over years. If the Executive has failed of an ecclesiastical Establishment within this looking to the proper application of this realm. The noble Duke and others who annual grant, or of exercising a proper have advocated this measure, have referred control over the College, and if in conseto the Act of 1795 as confirming the prin- quence of such neglect the institution has ciple of it; and great reliance has been become as objectionable as all agree, placed upon the fact that Maynooth Col- though from various causes, in representlege has been supported through half a ing it to be; yet the power of State concentury by successive Parliaments and the trol still existed, and Parliament might most distinguished statesmen that have and ought, since the year 1820, to have inadorned the page of history; and that in sisted upon the College being placed this number are to be classed the name of under proper regulation, or to have aboPitt, as the Minister under whom it ori-lished the institution altogether. But it ginated, and that of Perceval, by whom it was subsequently continued. I cannot, my Lords, admit that any weight of human authority can justify an act inca cannot be said with truth, that those who acquiesced in the support of an institution wholly under the power of the State control, laid down any precedent for an Act by which such control is wholly surrendered into the hands of Roman Catholic ecclesiastics. It is also stated in justification of this Bill by the noble Earl behind me (Lord Hardwicke), that it is a necessary consequence of another Act already upon the Statute Book, I mean the Charitable Bequests Act of last Session, by which the titles, orders, and pastoral functions of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland have been legally recognised, and a corporate character conferred upon them, for holding in perpetual succession the endowments bequeathed to them. I do not, my Lords, feel myself called on to undertake the defence of that Act, which has undoubtedly laid the foundation of an ecclesiastical establishment in Ireland, not of a mission, as stated by the noble Duke, but of a Church, subject to no other authority than that of the Pope; and so fully impressed am I with the belief that it belies what is affirmed in the Oath of Supremacy, viz., that no Foreign State or Prelate hath jurisdiction ecclesiastical within this realm, that, feeling the impossibility under these circumstances of taking the oath, I was lately compelled to forego the privilege and pleasure of voting for my noble Friend, the last elected Representative of the Irish Peerage. It is for those to vindicate the Bequests Act who brought it in, and would now found upon it a still more flagrant violation of principle. I was not in the House last Session to take any part in the debates upon the Bill; otherwise-although as a relaxation of the Statute of Mortmain, it contained many excellent and salutary enactments -I should have felt it my duty to have voted against it, on account of the principle involved in it. The Act, nevertheless, so far differs from the present measure, that by many it might be viewed-and by Parliament I believe it has been viewed-only as an Act of more extended toleration; whereas the present Bill is one of direct favour and encouragement to the propagation of Roman Catholic doctrines. It may be perfectly true, in the restricted sense of the oath, to deny any personal subjection to papal authority; but further to declare, on oath, that no such authority ought to exist within the realm, surely implies, if words can do so, an obligation to resist the enactment of any laws calculated to uphold or extend such authority. No noble Lord will, I am sure, deny that the object of this Bill is to give encouragement to the spread of the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland, and that the increased number of young men for whose education at Maynooth this Bill provides, are to be trained in absolute subjection to the discipline of the Church of Rome; and that the object of their education is, that they should afterwards go forth as the authorized teachers of the population to disseminate through the length and breadth of the land, those principles in which they themselves have been educated; and, among others, the doctrine of the Pope's rightful supremacy over Her Majesty's realm. [The Earl of Mornington: No, no.] Yes, I say, that such is the Ultramontane doctrine, as taught at present at Maynooth College; and if the House does not grant the Committee of Inquiry asked for by my noble Friend (the Earl of Roden), the course of education must remain the same as now. No one surely will stand up and say that it is consistent to vote for such a measure, and yet to call God to witness your solemn declaration that this ought not to be. The expediency of the measure-if indeed any sound principle of expediency can be urged in favour of it, cannot in my opinion outweigh the religious obligation that opposes it. Let the oaths, or at least the Oath of Supremacy, be repealed, and a new Parliament summoned to carry out, if the nation be so disposed, the recently announced policy of Her Majesty's Government; but let Parliament be henceforth unembarrassed by tests and obligations of no practical value, originally designed to maintain a policy which has long ceased to be the policy of the country; and affirmative of a principle of Protestant ascendancy which every Act for the last fifteen years has belied, and which Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department has upon a late occasion, and in reference to this Bill, declared must be henceforth wholly at an end. While oaths continue to be taken as at present, they will be considered by many as involving corresponding obligations, the disregard of any of which (though perhaps but apparent and capable of explanation), will not fail to impair the confidence and respect with which it is so desirable that every Act of the Legislature should be viewed. Entertaining the opinions I have expressed of my obligation as a Member of Parliament, and not unmindful of what is due to my Roman Catholic countrymen, I shall give my And this shows either of two things, either "The Chancellor and chief Judges are, with some Roman Catholic clergy and noblemen, nominally visitors; but their visitatorial power, by the terms of the Statute under which they act, is a mere farce. They are bound, once in every three years, to exhibit themselves as a spectacle at Maynooth, in a state of ridiculous nullity. They can do nothing but view a set of young men, trained up in a system of obedience more degrading, perhaps, than was ever practised in a College of Jesuits in South America; and it is impossible to avoid remarking in the countenances of those young men the degradation in which they are kept, and the stern enthusiasm for the Catholic cause planted in their minds. Not one of those young men dare lift up a complaint to the visitors, whatever injuries they may suffer, however improperly they may be treated. They are generally the sons of the lowest description of peasants; they have no friend, no protector; and are compelled to submit to the most absolute despotism. No College of Jesuits was dom, or so completely in the power of their ever half so dangerous to any Catholic kingmasters. Their education is said to be very imperfect; much worse than in the foreign colleges: and the friends of some youths hav ing taken them from the College to give them | the right rev. Prelate, (the Bishop of a better education abroad, the resentment of London) the principles of strict rectitude. the College, and of the Catholic hierarchy in Too long, my Lords, has it been the Ireland, has been severely felt. What may be the consequences of this institution to the practice of successive Governments to peace of Ireland, it is difficult to foretell in overlook the interests of Ireland, while their full extent. It is easy to perceive that courting the support of the Roman Cait must ever be the greatest obstacle to the ex- tholic priests by weak and unavailing tension of the Protestant religion, and to the concessions, injurious to the institutions quiet settlement of the country." of the country. beginning of a new policy. My Lords, it is no such thing; the first and most fatal step was the concessions made upon national education; the removal, in deference to the wishes of the Roman Catholic clergy, of the best and surest foun This is said to be the cessary ingredient of Christian education I mean the instruction of youth in the Holy Scriptures, which was the recognised basis of the national system of education up to the year 1831, and which, but for the intolerance of the Roman Catholic priests, and the sanction which their opposition received at the hands of the English Government of that day-and still more since, I regret to say, from Her Ma The question, my Lords, before the House should not be considered as one of pounds, shillings, and pence; the greater or the less amount of your annual grant makes no essential difference in the principle of your support of Maynooth College; for a good institution funds would not be want-dation of religious liberty, the most neing. They would, I am sure, be voted with cheerfulness and unanimity; for if I have derived any satisfaction from the debates that have taken place upon this Bill, it has arisen from my conviction that Parliament, although not well advised in the matter, is actuated by an anxious interest for the welfare of Ireland, and with a kind sympathy for the Irish people. The thing is, to ascertain whether the institution is really calculated for their benefit.jesty's present Ministers would have Connected as I am with Ireland, not alone by birth, property, and residence, but yet more by the ties of the most friendly intercourse with all classes of its inhabitants, I may say from my own knowledge of them, that my countrymen are not undeserving of your best sympathies. If Ireland has presented, and still presents, difficulties in the eyes of Ministers; if your Lordships have heard of outrages, bloodshed, and agrarian disturbance-these, my Lords, are to be looked upon as the effects of misgovernment; of misgovernment the less excusable, because upon the face of the earth there does not exist a people who more eminently possess the qualities that are congenial to good government. None more than they combine love of country with devoted loyalty to their Sovereign; none are more disposed to yield respect where respect is due, or are more alive to the principles of justice, upright-now you are called upon to pass an Act ness, and consistency; but on the other hand, none have a keener sense of injustice or oppression-a more ready discernment of a weak and timeserving policy, or more profound contempt for inconsistency and tergiversation, whether political or religious. Such a people, I contend, are the easiest in the world to be governed; for it is only necessary to hold in view with them, as suggested by been ere this in full and beneficial operation; and productive-as in every place it has been found to be-where it has met with due countenance and support, of social happiness, civilization, and general improvement. The next step in the course of conciliation was the undue favour shown to Roman Catholic priests in the scale of remuneration allowed to them as chaplains of workhouses, over Protestant clergymen--a step important, however, only from the principle it affirmed; that numbers, not truth, should, henceforth give a preference to one form of religion over another. I have already adverted to the Bequests Act of last Session; and have only, therefore, to wish Her Majesty's Ministers joy of the degree of grateful acknowledgment it has elicited from the Roman Catholic hierarchy and clergy for whom it was intended as a boon; and for the perpetual endowment of Maynooth College, constituting for ever the Church of Rome the uncontrolled instructor of those whom you have recognised as the spiritual guides and pastors of 6,000,000 of Her Majesty's subjects. But not even thus will the British Government purchase any lasting support from the Roman Catholic clergy; the priests of Rome will be, as they always have been, faithful to |