my wish and desire that the house will permit me to proceed to a committee, and then their lordships may see in what state the bill would come before them for a third reading. The resolutions which have appeared in the public papers are totally opposite to every part of it. There is one which imputes a design against the Toleration Act; but I will not say one word with respect to the charity from whence this imputation proceeded. I plainly perceive that there is a disposition against the bill, and that it will not pass. Having stated my sentiments, I leave it to be disposed of as may be thought proper. If any motion be made by others, I will throw no obstacle in its way, satisfying myself with the conscientious discharge of my duty; because I have throughout been actuated by a wish to render a benefit to the dissenters in general, by instituting a measure intended to promote the honour, the dignity, and the sanctity of religion." He then concluded by moving the second reading.

The Archbishop of Canterbury then rose. "After the bill," he said," had received the sanction of the leaders of the different sects, as Lord Sidmouth had stated, it was with extreme surprise he saw the flood of petitions against it which had that night been poured into their Lordships' House. With respect to the difference of opinions on religious subjects in the Christian church, he observed that the basis of Christianity was the Bible, and he held those to be the most orthodox Christians who adhered the most strictly to the doctrines laid down in that sacred volume. It was the duty of all mankind to study it, and its interpretation was confined to no particular sect. To use coercion in compelling uniformity was not only impolitic, but while man was constituted as man, it would be impracticable. The very basis of toleration depended on abstain

ing from the attempt. That basis would never be infringed by the church of England, if that church endured in its existing form. But were it overturned, history afforded them many melancholy examples of the direction which religious toleration might take. This was all he should suggest to their lordships on so delicate a point of his subject. As for the bill under their view, it appeared to him to embrace two very important considerations, of extreme interest to society and the religious establishments of the country. These objects were, 1st, To unite and give uniformity to the three acts already in existence; and, 2dly, To render the dissenters more respectable, by precluding from their body those who were unworthy to belong to any class of religious instructors. Of both these objects he approved, as they must be of the utmost utility to the community, and highly beneficial to the country. But as the dissenters, who at first approved of the bill, it now appeared, differed from it, he considered it to be unwise and impolitic to press it against their inclination or consent, who, it must be allowed, were the best judges of what they considered to be for their own interests."

Lord Erskine, joining too much in the popular clamour, asserted that the bill was directly repugnant to the spirit and letter of the Toleration Act, that palladium of religious liberty, and that it was a direct repeal of its most important parts. There were two millions of persons in the situation of the petitioners of this bill whom he recollected in the bosom of the church, from which they were driven by religious persecution. He called on their lordships not to increase that persecution, but suffer all Christians to join in promoting the salvation of mankind, and he moved that the bill be read a second time that day six months.-The Lord Chancellor defended the purport of the bill, but

thought it not advisable to press it under the present circumstances. Lord Holland argued against it at length, in a speech where good feelings and liberal opinions led him into lax reasoning and untenable propositions. "His opinion," he said, "was, that all those who thought it their duty to interpret the Scriptures, should have the right to adopt their own mode of doing so, and that this bill was therefore an infringe. ment of their natural rights. He did not say, that if they preached any doctrines that were seditious or injurious to any class of the community, they were not properly liable to punishment. Every man might have a right to carry arms, but it did not follow that every man was entitled to kill whomsoever he met; nor did it follow because the liberty of the press was encouraged, that every sort of libel was to be published with impunity. Every man had a right to interpret the Scriptures according to his conscience and the best of his judgment; and however mean his capacity might be, if he thought he perceived what was the intention of the Great Author of the Scriptures, it was his duty and his right to express his sentiments.

"The part of the bill," he continued, "which went to force the dissenting ministers to be moral after the fashion of the noble viscount was new, offensive, and tyrannical. This was the distinct meaning of the noble viscount. He would manufacture the dissenting ministers into precisely such men as he would wish to have preaching to himself; but this was not the species of preacher that the dissenters chose. This attempt at measuring the morality of the dissenting minister by the noble viscount's private conceptions, was totally opposed to the principles of the Toleration Act, and was calculated to be eminently offensive and vexatious. What was the mode of qualification? They must find six housekeepers to

vouch for their morality. And who were those that were to have the power of bringing forward six housekeepers to speak to character, or who was to deny to the dissenters the right of ha ving humble men for their teachers? Suppose five hundred paupers chose to hear religion from the mouth of a man of their own choosing and of their own class, was it to be said, that the desire was beyond what might be permitted? and where was this teacher to find his six housekeeping vouchers? Or was the argument to be persisted in by those men who were so ready to boast of their attachment to religion, and to acknowledge as one of its glories that it had risen by the labours of humble men, not merely without dependence on, but in opposition to the wealth, and influence, and power of the great of this world? Yet it was not enough for the bill that the dissenting minister should be devout aud learned, but that he should be proved so to his congregation. How? by the signature of six housekeepers. Was his ordeal to end here? No; the judgment of the six housekeepers was to be revised by a country justice before the dissenting congregation could be secure of the teacher whom they had originally cho. sen for his fitness."

Earl Stanhope said, "he never felt more pleasure in his whole parliamen tary life than he had done on this very day; it was at the immense heap of petitions then strewed upon their floor, and piled upon their table, and all against this wretched bill. He liked this, be cause a kind of silly talk had been going abroad that there was no public. He had always thought otherwise. And he saw to-day that there was a public, and a public opinion, and a public spi rit. He saw it in the multitude of petitions sent up on so short a notice; and he was rejoiced to find that pub lic alive, active and energetic. He would not talk of the bill; that was

dead and gone; and it would be be neath a man of sense to quarrel with the carcase. The bill was declaratory as well as active, and it was illegal as well as either. He defied all the lawyers in and out of the house to prove that this wretched and unfortunate bill was not illegal. He would not condescend to argue every point of it. It was unnecessary to argue upon what was beyond human help. It was all over with the bill; its hour was come; the bill was dead and gone; but he must, however, say something on the subject. He hated the name of the Toleration Act. He hated the word toleration. It was a beggarly, narrow, worthless word; it did not go far enough. He hated toleration, because he loved liberty. He believed he might say, that he was one of those who had read as many statutes on the subject of religion, not as the lawyers only, but, he might say, as my lords the bishops. He had gone through them with a professional man by his side, and with his pen had abstracted and marked off 300 laws about religion from the Statute Book; and he ventured to assert they were of such a nature as would make their lordships disgusted with the Statute Book, and ashamed of their ancestors who could have enacted them. An act, however, was passed in the 1st of Edward 6, by which they were all shovelled away at once; and justly so; for what need had religion of acts of parliament? Was not religion capable of standing by itself?"

Lord Sidmouth at this called out Hear! hear! "The noble viscount," continued Earl Stanhope, "may cry hear! hear! but is it not true? If he does not believe it, I do. Is not America religious? Yet there, there is no established religion; there, there are no tithes. In the state of Connecticut, if any man gives a bond to a cler

gyman, no suit upon it can be entertained in a court of justice; and for a good reason, because it is the duty of the clergyman to instruct his flock, and make them good and honest men; and if he had succeeded in doing so, no such suit would have been necessary; but on the other hand, having failed to perform his duty, he could have no right to be rewarded. If the establishment in this country were never to be paid till they made the people honest, many of them, I am afraid, would go without any reward what

"The dog,' we know," will have his day," but Lord Stanhope would not have had his day so long if there were men like Warburton or Horsley upon the bench, ready at all times to detect a sophist and chastise a scorner. As usual, his speech remained unanswered and unnoticed now. Lord Buckinghamshire rose to justify the bill and Lord Sidmouth for having proposed it, saying he knew that his noble friend, while preparing it, had received such communications on the subject as induced him to believe that he was conferring a boon on those to whom it related.

The bill was of course thrown out. It was upon a subject not worth legislation, and, as we have elsewhere* in these Annals endeavoured to shew, not within its reach; but the outcry which was raised against it was as preposterous as it was extraordinary, for the bill was as incapable of producing evil as good, and undoubtedly proceeded from the best intentions. Lord Sidmouth said enough to shew that there was a mystery concerning it, which has never as yet been explained. Certain it is, that he thought he was conferring a boon upon the dissenters, and that he believed himself sure of their hearty assent,

At the end of the year 1802, some resolutions were passed at the general quarterly meeting of the Wesleyan Methodists in the London circuit, directed to the same object as Lord Sidmouth's unlucky bill. The preamble stated, that "several individuals having obtained privileges under the Toleration Act, had abused the privilege of such licences, by claiming exemption from civil and military offices, to the manifest prejudice of their fellow citizens, the injury of the state, and the great scandal of religion; the meeting therefore, in order as far as was in their power to suppress such practices, and to prevent improper persons from becoming preachers, resolved, that if any member of the Methodist society with in their circuit should apply for a license, without having been previously approved as a preacher by the quarterly meeting, according to the minutes of conference (which form their canon law,) he should be expelled the socie

ty.

The regularly appointed local preachers, or persons who preach occasionally and follow trades or other call

a very

useful

ings, were," they said, “ and valuable body of men; but as they were not wholly set apart for the office of the ministry, it was not considered to be consistent with the spirit of the Toleration Acts that they should claim any advantage from the licences in question." Were these resolutions passed in anticipation of Lord Sidmouth's intentions, and with a view to prevent any interference of the legislature in their concerns, by correcting the abuse upon which the then minister had fixed his eye? Or was there afterwards an understanding between his lordship and the leading members of the Wesleyan oligarchy? a body-jealous of the democratical preachers, who have repeatedly struggled against the authority of the conference, and, besides many minor separations, produced one great schism in the society. All that is yet known is, that Lord Sidmouth was certainly encouraged in his attempt by some persons among the dissenters, who, when the hue and cry began, were afraid to appear in his support.

THE American Congress concluded their session with two acts sufficiently indicative of the foreign and domestic policy of the ruling party. They refused to renew the charter of the National Bank, and they passed a supplementary Non-Intercourse Act, which, while it conceded something from fear, rather than favour, to the manifest interests of the northern states, gave fresh proof of their hostile dispositions toward England. By this act all goods belonging to American subjects, which had been shipped from England before the second of February (the day by which Great Britain had been required to revoke her Orders in Council,) were admitted; but for goods the property of British subjects, shipped before that day, bonds were to be given to the full amount, and those bonds forfeited in case the revocation was not obtained: the former prohibition also against entering the American ports was renewed.

The National Bank was an establishment of General Hamilton's, the friend of Washington, and himself one of the wisest of the Americans: in abolishing this institution, the ruling party at once gratified an old and rancorous spirit of party hatred, and aimed a blow at commerce, which they were bent up

on destroying; for it was their principle, that trade is the root of vice. This principle they had long profess ed. From the beginning of the federal government, they had advised that the burthen of taxation should be laid upon commerce; "Since," they said, "if it supported the burthen, the commonwealth would be eased; and if it failed under it, the country would be rid of so great a cause of political evil." The Americans, however, are so decidedly a commercial people, that it was not possible for Mr Madison and his friends to avow that this was the principle of their government; but that they were influenced by it is apparent; and thus, while they acted with the most slavish subserviency towards Buonaparte, they deceived themselves into the belief that they were forwarding the views of their own philosophy. The tyrant whom they served required them to go to war with England; and this also was consistent with their feelings and their system. But a war for which they were utterly without provocation, and for which nothing but the ingenuity of malice and the effrontery of faction could discover even a pretext, could not be commenced immediately, especially as it was the interest of both countries to be at peace, and as the