§ Mr. Humerose to present a petition from the Roman Catholics of Newfoundland, signed by 3,217 persons. Several of the parties who had subscribed it were Members of the House of Commons in that colony, and they stated in their petition a long series of oppressions, which had been inflicted upon its Roman Catholic population. They complained that they had been deprived of all share in the civil employments of the island, and that they had been treated with every 979 species of indignity which Judge Bolton and the other justices of the colony could throw upon them. They further alleged that no Catholic was permitted to enjoy any situation of importance, and they prayed the House, after taking these premises into its consideration, to secure them the free and unrestricted worship of God, according to their consciences, whether in the chapel or in the dungeon, and to remove those officers from all situations of trust in the colony who had been ancillary to the system of bigotry and persecution.
Mr. O'Connellsupported the prayer of the petition, and said, that he had been informed by a person of good faith, that Mr. Bolton, the chief justice of that island, had been at the head of an exceedingly bitter and malignant persecution of the Roman Catholics of that island.
§ Petition laid on the table.