HC Deb 27 July 1860 vol 160 cc278-81
MR. MONCKTON MILNES

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what measures have been taken to bring about a convention with the Government of the United States to remedy the impunity with which crimes are committed oh board vessels trading between the United States and this Country, and to call the attention of the House to some recent circumstances bearing on the question? It would be recollected that about that time last year he called attention to the horrible atrocities committed on board American vessels trading between England and the United States, the perpetrators of which atrocities, in consequence of the defective state of the law, were able to escape with entire impunity. At that time the Foreign Minister undertook to do everything in his power to remedy that great evil, and to communicate with the American Government on the subject. At the beginning of the present Session, however, the noble Lord informed the House that he had handed the matter over to the Home Secretary, considering the question to be one of domestic legislation. Since that period the House had not heard one word of the matter, although the atrocities were still frequently committed. A sailor lately died in an hospital in Liverpool in consequence of injuries received on board the Ocean Monarch. An inquest was held upon his body, and the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter against the second and third mates, but the men escaped under the extradition treaty during the inquest, and were now free from the consequences of their brutality. "What rendered the case worse was that the parties in question were the very same men, who three years ago were found guilty of manslaughter, on board a ship bearing the pacific name of John Bright. It seemed that the crime of manslaughter did not come within the terms of the extradition treaty. If that sort of proceeding was to go on, he would ask what quantum of murder would be sufficient to induce the Governments of this country and of the United States to put a stop to such transactions? Was the great Atlantic to be a place where every kind of outrage might be committed with impunity, and did not the Government of this country and the Government of the United States see that, as regards two civilized nations, such a state of things was a great calamity and opprobium to humanity?

SIR GEORGE LEWIS

said, that with respect to the question put by the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. A. Smith), he would state as distinctly as he could, what he understood to be the law with regard to Bishops of the Scotch Episcopal Church performing episcopal functions in England. The Act of 32nd Geo. III., cap. 63, sect. 9, contained this enactment:— That no person exercising the function or assuming the office and character of a pastor or minister of any order in the Episcopal Communion in Scotland, as aforesaid, shall be capable of taking any benefice, curacy, or other spiritual promotion within that part of Great Britain called England, the dominion of Wales, or town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, or of officiating in any church or chapel within the same, where the Liturgy of the Church of England as now by law established is used, unless he shall have been lawfully ordained by some bishop of the Church of England or of Ireland. On examining the rest of the Act, it appeared to him to be clear that by "pastor" was meant parochial clergyman, and the words "unless lawfully ordained "seemed to limit the application of the enactment to parochial clergymen. With regard to the words" or minister of any order, "on which no doubt his hon. Friend relied, as the expression followed the word "pastor" it must be as illustrative of the word it followed, and must signify, according to the ordinary rules of construction, an inferior, and not a superior, order to "a pastor." Therefore the Act, according to obvious and fair construction, was limited to parochial clergymen, and was not applicable to Bishops. There was a subsequent Act, the 3rd and 4th of Vict., cap. 33, by which the prohibition was partially removed; but the question was, whether the prohibition referred to the exercise of episcopal functions, and it appeared to him, as far as he was able to form a judgment, that it did not so refer. He had been favoured by the Bishop of Exeter with a communication in which that right rev. Prelate stated certain facts, together with his view of the law of the case. What the right rev. Prelate contended for was, that, according to the law of the Church, a Bishop of the Scotch Episcopal Church could exercise episcopal functions in the Church of England, inasmuch as he assented to the doctrine of that Church. It was well known that if a Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church conformed to the Articles of the Church of England, he was ipso facto a Bishop of the Church of England; and in like manner, if a Roman Catholic priest conformed, he was ipso facto a priest of the Established Church. Hon. Gentlemen would recollect that Mr. Blanco "White preached before the University of Oxford, and he was never ordained in the Church of England, but had been in orders as a member of the Church of Borne. The Bishop of Exeter in his communication observed:— And what has been the practice of our own Church? Has Bishop Trower's recent exercise of the episcopal function by holding confirmations in Cornwall for the Bishop been a solitary or new case? So far from it that for many years diocesan Bishops in England have availed themselves of the aid of Bishops consecrated in Scotland. Bishop Maltby, of Durham, was repeatedly assisted in his old age by Bishop Eden, of Moray, having first satisfied himself, as is understood by inquiry, that there is no lawful impediment. Bishop Trower himself has confirmed in Kent for the present Archbishop of Canterbury; so has another Scotch Bishop (Forbes) of Brechin. More than this, Bishop Trower has himself received commissions as a Bishop from the late Bishop of London, and from the present, to confirm for them (whose special office it has always been considered to be) members of the Church of England on the Continent. And, so far from his so acting as Bishop, or the commission of the Bishop of London, under which he so acted, being esteemed the assumption of a power which does not belong to him as a Bishop, that on the last of these occasions, notice was sent from the Foreign Office to our Ministers abroad desiring them to aid and countenance his so acting. These were precedents bearing on the case, and, so far as he was able to form a judgment on this rather delicate question of ecclesiastical law, it appeared to him that there was no statutory prohibition or rule of canon law by which Scotch Bishops could be prevented from exercising functions, with the consent of the Bishop of the diocese, within a district of the Church of England.

In regard to the question put by the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. M. Milnes), he had to say that the Government in the course of last autumn entered into negotiations with the American Minister, Mr. Dallas, and, after consideration, prepared a draught of convention, which was transmitted to the American Government. It had not yet been returned, and he was not aware what decision had been come to on the subject.