"to you; declaring hereby, that, upon such our "resolution, signified to the ministers of justice, "the warrant for their reprieve shall be determined, " and the law have its course." This unexpected message disconcerted the parliament, who did not wish the odium of persecution should lie on themselves; and the priests were permitted to linger out their lives in Newgate. Mr. Berington, in his Supplement to the Memoirs of Panzani, justly remarks, that "of the priests "who suffered death, and of many others who "died in prison, he did not find one, against whom 66 66 66 any other crime was alleged, than to have re"ceived orders abroad and to have returned to England; which, by the statute of the 27th of Elizabeth, was made high treason. In 1652," continues the same writer," Mr. Roe, a catholic priest, as he stood in the cart, thus addressed the sheriff: Pray, sir, if I conform to your religion, "will you secure me my life?'-'That I will,' said "the sheriff, upon my word: my life for yours, "if you will but do that. See then,' observed Mr. "Roe, turning to the people, what the crime is, "for which I am to die; and whether my religion "be not my only treason." " In the time of which we are now speaking, a new form of persecuting the catholics was devised, and incessantly carried into execution. A multitude of officers, under the name of pursuivants, were authorized, almost at their pleasure, to apprehend catholics or suspected catholics; to take them before the magistrates; to enter and search their houses; and to seize their books*, and every other kind of property, which they imagined might be used for any rite of catholic worship, or for any kind of catholic devotion. The pursuivants exceeded, on many occasions, the authority delegated to them, and even the wishes of their employers. But the catholics had no redress.-Of the various grievances which the laity suffered during this period, this was the most extensively felt. Every rank of life was equally subject to these domiciliary visits, and to the insolence and unfeeling aggravations which usually accompanied them. The sufferings of the catholics, during this period, no tongue, it may be truly said, can adequately tell. By the ordinances of 1643, two third parts of the real and personal estates of every papist were sequestered; and ordered to be sold, or otherwise disposed of, for the public use. Commissioners were appointed and authorized to interrogate papists upon oath; to employ agents under them; with power, either by themselves or their agents, to force houses and break open locks, on any probable grounds; and to reward informers with one shilling in the pound of the property discovered. To this, the extreme rarity of catholic books, published between the reformation and the revolution, should be attributed. The attention of the writer has been given to the subject of these pages during many years; he has spared neither labour nor expense to procure the works of catholic writers which relate to it; but the number of those, which he has been able to acquire, is, as he fears the reader too frequently observes, extremely small. After the papists had, during seven years, been pillaged by the presbyterians, the independents came into power; and subjected them to new sequestrations. Mr. Austin, a catholic lawyer of eminence, a polite scholar, and a very religious man,—a witness also of the afflicting scene,—thus describes it, in his Christian Moderator*. "As for the single recusants, two thirds of their "estates are seized upon, only for the cause of religion; under which notion are included all "such as were heretofore convicted of not resorting "to common prayers; or do now refuse the oath " of abjuration, a new oath, made by the two houses, "when the former kind of service was abolished, "wherein the practice is strangely severe; for upon "bare information, the estate of the suspected is "secured; that is, his rents, &c. suspended, before any trial, or legal proof, even in these times of peace; and, being once thus half condemned, "he has no other remedy to help himself, but by "forswearing his religion, and so by an oath, a "thousand times harsher than that er officio, they "draw out of his own mouth his condemnation. "When the sequestrators have thus seized into "their hands two thirds of the most innocent recu"sants' lands and goods, then come the excisemen, tax-gatherers, and other collectors, and pinch 66 away no small part of the poor third penny that "was left them; so that, after these deductions, "I have known some estates of three hundred * Published by him, under the name of William Birchley, part i. p. 9. ແ pounds a year, reduced to less than threescore,' "a lean pittance to maintain them and their chil"dren, being persons for the most part of good 66 I quality and civil education. And as for priests, "it is made as great a crime to have taken orders "after the rites of their church, as to have com"mitted the most heinous treason that can be "imagined; and they are far more cruelly pu"nished than those that murder their own parents. "Besides these extreme and fatal penalties that "lie upon the recusants, merely for their con"science, there are many other afflictions, whereof "few take notice; which, though of lesser weight, 66 yet, being added to the former, quite sink them "down to the bottom of sorrow and perplexity; "as their continual fear of having their houses "broken open and searched by pursuivants, who "enter at what hours they please, and do there "what they list, taking away not only all the in"struments of their religion, but oftentimes money, plate, watches, and other such popish idols, "especially if they be found in the same room "with any pictures, and so infected with a relative "superstition. "Another of their afflictions is, that they, (I mean "these single recusants,) have no power to sell or mortgage the least part of their estates; either "to pay their just debts, or defray their necessary expenses, whereby they are disabled of all com"merce; and, their credit being utterly lost, (upon "which many of them now provide even their "daily bread), they must needs, in a short time, 66 66 "be brought to a desperate necessity, if not abso"lute ruin; and if any, the most quiet and mode"rate amongst them, should desire to transplant "themselves into a milder climate, and endeavour "to avoid the offence that is taken against him, " in his own country, he cannot so dispose of his "estate here, as by bill of exchange, or any other way, to provide the least subsistence for himself "and his family: a severity, far beyond the most rigid practice of the Scotch kirk; for there, (as "I am informed), the persons of recusants are only banished out of the kingdom, and prohi"bited to reside at their own homes above forty "days in a year, which time is allowed them for "the managing of their estates; and their estates "allowed them for their maintenance abroad: a proceeding which their principles would clearly justify, if they could justify their principles. But " in England, where compulsion on the conscience "is decried as the worst of slaveries, to punish "men so sharply for matters of religion, contrary "to the principles publicly received, is a course "that must needs beget, over all the world, a strong "suspicion and prejudice against the honour and reputation of that state, which, at the same time, can practise such manifest contradictions. 66 66 66 66 "To this deplorable condition are the English "catholics now reduced; yet they bear all, not "only with patience, but even silence; for amongst "the printed complaints so frequent in these times,' "never any thing hath been seen to proceed from them; though always the chief, and now the |
