§ Mr. Windham,after a few prefatory observations, presented a Petition from the Roman Catholics of England, setting forth, "That the Petitioners beg leave to represent to the House, that, at the time of his Majesty's accession to the throne, the laws in force against his Roman Catholic subjects deprived them of most of the rights of Englishmen, and of several of the common rights of mankind;; and that, by the acts of the 18th and 31st years of his Majesty's reign, several of the penalties and disabilities under which the English Roman Catholics laboured were removed; and that the English Roman Catholics are most grateful for the relief granted them by those acts, and have taken and subscribed the oaths and declarations contained in them; and that their conduct hath been conformable to their professions; In peaceable submission to the laws, and in the discharge of moral or civil duty, they have not been 556 exceeded by any of his Majesty's subjects; they have served him effectively and honourably in his fleets and armies; there never has been a call upon Englishmen to do their duty, which the English Roman Catholics have not been forward to answer; and that several penal and disabling laws are yet in force against them: They are not equally entitled with their fellow subjects to vote at the election of any member of the House, and they are excluded from a seat in either House of parliament; they are not admissible into corporations; every civil and military office is denied them, every laudable object of ambition, all that elevates a man among his fellow subjects, all hopes of public distinction, all means of attracting the notice of their country, or the favour of their sovereign, are placed without their reach; and the more they deserve of their country, the more sensibly their country makes them feel this exclusion: In the ranks, she suffers them to fight her battles, but to them victory is without its reward; promotion is wholly denied them; no services can advance, no merit enable them to meet their country's favour; and, even in their humble situation of private soldiers, the law follows them with pains and penalties; and, by the articles of war, if soldiers refuse to attend the religious worship of the established church, they are punishable by fine, imprisonment, and death: Thus the English Catholic soldiers are incessantly exposed to the cruel alternative of either making a sacrifice of their religion, or incurring the extreme of legal punishment, than which the Petitioners humbly conceive there never has been, and cannot be, a more direct religious persecution; and to an alternative equally oppressive the English Roman Catholics are exposed on their marriages: The law requires for the legal validity of a marriage in England that it should be celebrated in a parish church; as Roman Catholics believe marriage to be a sacrament, the English Roman Catholics naturally feel great repugnance to a celebration of their marriages in other churches than their own; and they are cruelly debarred from any means which their fellow subjects possess of providing for their families by employments of honour or emolument, so that, while they bear their full share of the general contribution to the wants of the state, they are denied even a hope of participating in those advantages by which the burthen of their fellow sub- 557 jects is alleviated; and in other occurrences of life, the law has the same humiliating and depressing operation on the Petitioners: Thus every Roman Catholic subject of his Majesty is forced below his fair line in society, and the general body is a marked and insulated cast, yet the Roman Catholics form more than one fourth of the whole mass of the subjects of the United Empire: Whatever there is of genius, of talent, or of energy among them, is absolutely lost for public use, and this at a time when the United Empire is engaged in a conflict formidable beyond example; and it therefore seems important, if not essential, to her preservation, that she should call into action, without qualification or limit, or any religious test or declaration, the genius, talents, and energies of all her subjects: It is true that the Petitioners profess some religious principles which are not professed by the established church, and to this, and to this only, their refusal of certain tests, oaths, and declarations is owing, which subjects them to the pains and disabilities they complain of; but none of the, principles which occasion their refusal affects their moral, civil, or political integrity; and the Petitioners humbly submit to the House, that no principle which leaves moral or political integrity unimpaired is a proper object of religious persecution; besides, the whole creed of the Petitioners was once the creed of the three kingdoms; it is the actual creed of four fifths of Ireland, and of much the greater part of Europe: It was the creed of those who founded British liberty at Runeymeade, who conquered at Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt: among those who repelled and annihilated the Spanish Armada none bore a nobler part than those by whom this creed was professed; and in all those achievements, in every other scene in which the ancient valour or ancient wisdom of this country has been displayed, the ancestors of several of the Petitioners have been distinguished; their creed did not lessen their zeal for their king and country, it does not lessen that of their descendants; and every disloyal or immoral principle, which malice or credulity has imputed to them, the Petitioners have solemnly and repeatedly disclaimed; they believe there does not now exist an honourable man who imputes these principles to them: they have sworn to be faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty, and have acted up to their professions; 558 they most confidently appeal to the House and to the whole empire, whether in loyalty to his Majesty, attachment to the constitution, or zeal for their country's good, they are not equal, and are not universally known and acknowledged to be equal, to his Majesty's other subjects; therefore, conscious of the truth of these representations, and with the most perfect reliance on the wisdom and justice of the House, the Petitioners humbly pray for a total repeal of every test, oath, declaration, or provision, which has the effect of subjecting the Petitioners to any penalty or disability whatsoever on account of their religious principles."
Another Petition of the several persons whose names are there under written, Roman Catholics of England, was also presented to the House by Mr. Windham, and read; setting forth, "That the Petitioners beg leave to represent to the House, that themselves, in common with the general body of English Roman Catholics, have lately signed a Petition to the House stating the principal grievances under which they lie in consequence of their religious principles, and praying relief: and they now beg leave further to state to the House, that the English Roman Catholics, in soliciting the attention of parliament to their Petition, are actuated not more by a sense of the hardships and disabilities under which they labour, than by a desire to secure, on the most solid foundation, the peace and harmony of the British empire, and to obtain for themselves opportunities of manifesting, by the most active exertions, their zeal and interest in the common cause in which their country is engaged for the maintenance of its freedom and independence; and they are firmly persuaded that adequate provisions for the maintenance of the civil and religious establishments of this kingdom may be made consistently with the strictest adherence, on their part, to the tenets and discipline of the Roman Catholic religion; and that any arrangement, founded on this basis of mutual satisfaction and security, and extending to them the full enjoyment of the civil constitution of their country, will meet with their grateful concurrence."
And the said Petitions were severally ordered to lie upon the table.