§ Mr. Hudson Gurneypresented a petition from lieutenant-general William Thornton, formerly a member of parliament for the borough of New Woodstock, referring to a proposition brought forward by the petitioner, in the years 1817 and 1818, for a Committee to consider of the propriety of dispensing with the Declaration against Transubstantiation, which asserts the worship of the Church of Rome to be idolatrous; urging that the oaths of supremacy, allegiance, and abjuration are sufficient security to Church and State, against the influence of the Pope and the church of Rome; and praying, as a Protestant measure, that a law should be passed, to dispense, in future with such Declaration.—Mr. Gurney said, that he considered that the general's motion in a former parliament, had not received the 704 attention it merited: and though this was, probably, not exactly the conjuncture in which it might be most advantageously brought forward, he was convinced that some alteration in the wording of these oaths would be no diminution of any security they might be supposed to afford, and would be getting rid of the great practical evil of rendering it almost impossible for any one having Catholic connections to conform to the Establishment, however desirous of doing so.
Ordered to lie on the table, and to be printed.