§ Mr. Grotepresented a Petition from a number of persons, called Separatists, stating that they entertained a religious scruple on the subject of oaths, and praying to be put on the same footing in that respect as Quakers, He must express his satisfaction 1293 that the hon. member for Cambridge was about to introduce a Bill to relieve all sects from the inabilities under which they at present laboured from similar scruples.
Mr. O'Connellsupported the prayer of the petition, and said, he knew of an actual denial of justice arising from the conscientious refusal of an individual to take an oath. In an important case, an insurance office actually lost a large sum of money, for want of the evidence of a man who could not be induced to take an oath. That fact alone showed that the abstract principle on which oaths were insisted upon was erroneous, and ought to be relinquished.
Mr. Murraythought, that the case stated by the petitioners was one of hardship, and the Legislature was bound to relieve them.
§ Mr. Humesaid, hoped that the day would arrive when the Legislature would wipe off the stain of illiberality by which persons who, from religious scruples, declined to take an oath, were refused the exercise of some of the most valuable civil rights. It was hard that a man's morality should be impeached simply because he was conscientious. As the law stood, a man who was conscientious, declined to take an oath, and that man's evidence was rejected, while a man who was not conscientious, took an oath without hesitation, and his evidence was accepted.
Petition to lie on the Table.