§ The Duke of Richmondpresented a petition from persons belonging to the church of Scotland, complaining of the suspension of seven ministers of their church without any apparent cause, and contrary to the wishes of the parishioners among whom they for a long time resided, and by whom they were universally esteemed. It also expressed deep regret at the unhappy occurrences that lately occasioned a collision between the civil and ecclesiastical courts in that country. He would give no opinion at present on this question, but he hoped Parliament would not separate before some measure was passed for its settlement, as considerable excitement prevailed in Scotland respecting it.
Lord Broughamentirely agreed in the opinions expressed by his noble Friend. He alluded with pain to transactions which had lately taken place, and which were so discreditable to one part of the empire. He concurred with the noble Duke in thinking that measures should be taken for the quiet of that part of the United Kingdom. But he begged leave to add, distinctly and deliberately—and it was a matter in which, he would venture to say, that there was not one of their Lordships, whatever sect he might belong to, whatever church he might be in communion with, or whatever political party he might adhere to—he trusted there was not one Member of the House who would differ with him in what he was about to assert: that, at all events, until the Legislature interposed—as long as the law of the land remained what it now was, there was but one mode in which the Legislature and that House could suffer quiet to be established, and there was but one course which that House would unanimously expect to find adopted in Scotland—that of respectfully submitting to the decrees of those courts of justice by which the law in question had been unanimously, judicially, and deliberately pronounced. The noble Lord said, that he himself bore a part in that judgment, and 356 if he alone had pronounced it, he would not say a word in its favour. It was a unanimous, clear, and deliberate judgment of the House; and he had expressed his hope, his confident expectation when that judgment was given, that it would be respectfully submitted to by the ministers of a Christian church, administering to the spiritual comforts of the people, and superintending their religious and moral instruction in Scotland. He had entertained that hope from all his past experience of the venerable judicature of the Scottish church; but, in that hope, he deeply grieved to say he had been entirely disappointed. He felt another hope, however, in which he took leave to express that he had neither yet been disappointed, nor was he ever, he knew, to experience disappointment—he meant his confidence in the steady and firm determination of the courts of law in Scotland, and of the Supreme Court of Appeal which he had then the honour of addressing to enforce obedience to the law by every legitimate means.
§ Petition laid on the table.