Lord Broughamsaid, he had to present a Petition complaining of a personal grievance. The petition, which emanated from a most respectable body of men—namely, eighty-eight congregations of Dissenters, meeting in a district which comprised twelve miles round London—contained a very strong remonstrance against the payment of Church-rates by Dissenters. The petitioners adverted to the case of a highly respectable individual, named Child, who, in consequence of the existing state of the law, had been imprisoned in Norwich gaol for the nonpayment of Church-rates amounting to 17s. 6d. Now his difference of opinion from that of the petitioners and of Mr. Child was this—he wished to see the system altered—he disapproved of the law which imposed these Church-rates upon Dissenters—but, so long as it was the law of the land, he thought that it ought to be obeyed. A man might, like Mr. Child, disapprove of the law, but he was not therefore bound in conscience to resist it, and thus get himself into a prison. Though such was his view of the matter he was ready to bear testimony to the pure and disinterested motives of Mr. Child, whom he had known long. There was no man more respected among his acquaintance. In his business, as a printer, he conferred great benefit on society by the many excellent works which he sent forth to the public. It was only from a conscientious motive that he was led to I brave the punishment inflicted on him. There were only two courses in which he 169 could have been proceeded against for payment. One by a seizure of his property, under the authority of two Magistrates, and the other by citation before the Ecclesiastical Court. The latter, and the more severe course, was pursued, judgment issued, and he was sent to a prison forty miles from his home.
§ Ordered to lie on the Table.