Lord Broughampresented a petition from the rev. Sir Harcourt Lees, Bart., of Blackrock, near Dublin, complaining of the conduct of the Jesuit priests in Ireland, and charg- 721 ing them with having entered into a conspiracy for the separation of that country from England, and the overturning the British Constitution and the Protestant establishments; and praying the House, that after hearing evidence at the bar in support of these allegations, it would address her Majesty for the expulsion of all Jesuit priests from Ireland. He (Lord Brougham) need hardly state that he did not concur in the prayer of the petition. Indeed, even if their Lordships should adopt the suggestion of the petitioner, and address the Throne on the subject, the Sovereign had no power of expelling from this country either Jesuits, or any other portion of the subjects of the realm. Previous to 1791 Roman Catholic priests were liable to many extreme penalties, which were removed in that year, but it was possible that they might be subject to penalties under some of the obsolete acts. While he was on this subject he would merely observe, that since he had alluded the other night to the most obnoxious way in which certain acts relative to attending worship in the parish church had recently been enforced, he had looked into other acts of a like nature, containing the most severe enactments. He was greatly astonished to find that some of the magistrates who had put in force the laws respecting the attending the parish church had not only openly avowed their conduct, but in the most public manner defended their proceedings in a way which was perfectly inexplicable to him. He trusted, that the attention of his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack would be paid to this subject, and that he would be induced to adopt steps to set this question of obsolete laws at rest, and remove from the statute book acts the existence of which was hardly known. At the present time there was a law on the statute book of a most monstrous character, and with reference to the interpretation of which hardly two lawyers would agree. It was enacted in this obsolete statute, that if any captain of any vessel should take beyond the sea any woman or any child, or any person under the age of twenty-one, he should be liable to the forfeiture of his ship and all his goods, and be subject to perpetual imprisonment. This act was passed in the reign of James 1st, and its object was to prevent Catholic females being sent abroad to convents, or children of Catholic parents being sent 722 abroad for the purpose of education. The words of the act were general, and were not confined to time or place, but directly enacted, that such should be the penalties for taking any woman or child under the age of twenty-one abroad. This was an extremely severe penal enactment, and the punishment it imposed was little short of capital. This act had not, as he could find, ever been repealed. On this subject, as well as many other topics connected with obsolete laws, the House would find much extremely valuable information in the last report of the commissioners on the criminal laws, which contained an able digest of those laws.
§ Petition laid on the Table.