§ Mr. Bathurst, in rising, pursuant to notice, to call the attention of the House to a subject with the merits of which many of those who heard him were well acquainted, expressed his conviction that when the details were known to the House at large, they would not hesitate to apply a remedy to that which appeared to him to be a great evil. About ten years ago an Act was brought into that House by a right hon. and learned gentleman, a doctor of civil law, to remedy the inconveniencies which were felt in many parishes in consequence of the non-residence of the clergy. That Act was certainly calculated to insure a sufficient residence, at the same time that it mentioned a variety of cases exempt from its operation, and left to the bishops the power, under certain circumstances, of increasing by licence the number of those cases. The Act to which he alluded had two principal objects in view, and for the attainment of those objects heavy penalties were attached to the non-observance of its provision. The first of these objects, that indeed which was evidently the main scope of the legislature, was, he repeated, to insure a sufficient residence of the clergy, providing exemptions which branched out into various heads, such as unhealthiness of the situation, impracticability of obtaining a house, &c. &c. but enacting for non-residence, without such exemption, or without licence from the 129 diocesan, a penalty proportioned to the length of absence. But in addition to this chief object of the Act there was a clause which went to regulate the returns of those who availed themselves of the exemptions provided, in order that the bishops should be enabled annually to lay before the privy council a list of such claimants to exemption, which list might be subsequently submitted to parliament. The House would observe, that this last-mentioned clause was of a nature very different from that which he had first described; and that although undoubtedly it was highly advantageous, as giving notoriety to the cases to which it referred, and enabling the legislature to judge of the real state of residence in the respective dioceses, yet that it was a subordinate part of the Act—a matter of regulation merely. It had however happened (as the same penalties were attached to the violation of both clauses of the Act) that this latter clause had served as an excuse for that which he must call an extraordinary and extensive system of persecution. He was sorry to be obliged to state, that an individual (for the affair had originated in a single individual, and a person acting under him) had instituted prosecutions to such an extent, that the penalties, if levied, would amount to no less a sum than 80,000l. By much the largest proportion of these prosecutions were founded on the mere omission of the returns. He should proceed to state the circumstances under which the individual to whom he had alluded had been enabled to obtain the information on which he proceeded. That individual had been the registrar in the bishopricks of London, Norwich, and Ely. He had thus not only acquired the means of knowing what had been done, and what had been omitted to be done, by the clergy of those dioceses; but he had possessed the power of preventing, if he chose it, the appearance of those documents which might be a defence against the prosecutions that he had since instituted:—for, in the ordinary course of episcopal business, the particular notifications of the clergy were entrusted to this very individual himself!—The transactions of every diocese were so extensive, that it was impossible for the bishop personally to go through them; and it was not at all improbable that many of the letters of notification, for the non-delivery of which the actions had been brought, had been put into the hands of this identical 130 registrar or secretary, and might by him be supplied or not, at pleasure. In fact, he (Mr. Bathurst) had to state, that he had received many letters from highly respectable individuals, in which they assured him that they had applied first by licence and then by word of mouth, to this person, and that they had been assured their licences would be made out in consequence. In some cases, he had been out of the way, and no satisfactory answer could be obtained; until at length, for some reason into which he would not then enter, this person was removed from his situation on the accession to the see of London of the present bishop. He had subsequently been removed from his office in the other episcopacies, and had since openly avowed (as he Mr. B. understood,) that having done with the bishops he would attack the clergy.—With respect to one large class of clergymen, against whom this person had commenced actions for omitting to send in their notifications, he (Mr. B.) was told (for it was a matter in which he was unable himself to form an opinion) great doubts existed whether or not, under the Act, the prosecutor could recover. It was doubted, whether persons who, being allowed to hold two livings, did in fact reside in one, were called upon to make any return of their non-residence at the other. This, however, was not certain. Such persons might be liable, and it was certainly desirable to defend them from any vexatious proceedings. There was another class of persons who were precisely in the same situation as that in which they were when the bishop's licence for non-residence was originally granted to them, but who had not formally applied for the renewal of their licences—some because they knew that the bishop was perfectly well acquainted with the impracticability of their residence (from there being no house, &c.) and some from other causes, of the incompetence of which to satisfy the Act, not being lawyers, they were perhaps not perfectly aware. He knew that with respect to this last class there might be some difficulty. Nothing could be further from his intention than to interfere with the fair, just, and wholesome exercise of the existing law. If there were persons who had violated the law wilfully and knowingly, and not merely inadvertently and negligently, unquestionably they ought to suffer the penalties attached to such violation. The House would observe that 131 the penalties for the violation of this Act were extremely severe; and that there was no limit of time with respect to their operation. The Act had now been passed ten years; and it might certainly happen, if an informer could pick out a case in which an individual had not complied with its provisions for the whole period, that he could bring actions for the penalties incurred for the whole period. In the course which it was his intention to pursue on this subject, he was disposed to follow the example of a former case of a similar nature. In that case, prosecutions to a considerable extent had been instituted; and the remedy resorted to was, the introduction of a Bill to suspend those prosecutions for a time to be limited, in order to give parliament time to consider of an adequate legislative enactment. In this instance, however, he had no change to propose in the law; but he would propose to suspend the operation of the law until the heads of the church should have the opportunity, which in a few months they would have (the law providing that the returns should be made to them within six weeks of the 1st of January of every year,) of examining all the cases, judging of their nature, and ascertaining the circumstances which had prevented various parties from making their returns at an earlier period. His motion therefore would be, for a Bill to enable courts of justice, on application, to stay all proceedings on the subject until some day in April next. By that period the returns would be made to the bishops, from the bishops to the privy council, and from the privy council to parliament—by whom, if any jealousy were entertained of the conduct of the diocesans, any inquiry that might be thought fit might easily be instituted. If the result of that inquiry should prove (as he was satisfied it would prove,) that all or the majority of those who had not applied for licences would have obtained them had they so applied, parliament would probably see the justice of adopting some retrospective measure to defend those individuals from the penalties which they had innocently incurred. After a few further observations, the right hon. gentleman concluded by moving for leave to bring in a Bill to suspend, for a time to be limited, the proceedings in actions under the Act of the 43d of the King, &c. &c.
§ Leave given.