XXIV. 1792. compel millions of their fellow-creatures, wretches BOOK whose souls were lacerated with anguish, to drink the cup of misery to the dregs, and to prevent the infusion of a single drop of the balm of consolation! motion for Mr. Pitt having, in his speech on the motion Mr. Fox's for the repeal of the Test, avowed, in the most a repeal of the penal unequivocal and unguarded terms, the right of the laws. dissenters to a full and complete toleration, Mr. Fox embraced the opportunity of bringing for ward in the course of this session a motion for the repeal of those penal statutes, which, notwithstanding the existence of the Toleration Act, were still in force against those who in any manner im pugned the doctrine of the TRINITY. He shewed, from a specification of authentic facts, that these laws were far from being a mere dead letter; not to mention the hatred and opprobrium which they were the means of creating. Such was the wretched bigotry fostered and cherished by these laws, that a bishop of the church (Dr. HORSELEY) had not scrupled in a recent publication to declare "that, Unitarianism being heresy, even the moral good of the Unitarians was sin." Mr. Fox expressed his ardent wish to extirpate heresy by fire -not indeed in the old mode of burning heretics, but by burning all those statutes which formed the code of persecution. Mr. Pitt appeared on this occasion somewhat embarrassed, and rested XXIV. 1792. BOOK his opposition chiefly on the disuse and oblivion into which the acts in question had fallen, and the dangerous alarm which might be excited by the repeal-disclaiming in warm terms the principles and character of a persecutor. Mr. Fox, in reply, remarked, that he knew not how to distinguish between a persecutor and an advocate for penal laws in matters of religion, which was the precise definition of the term. As to the general alarm, of which Mr. Pitt was apprehensive, it was the bitterest satire upon the spirit of his own administration, to suppose the temper of the public so fatally changed as not to endure the repeal of laws so execrable, and, till a recent period, so generally the subject of execration. Mr. Fox's motion was rejected by a majority of 79 voices.* Those who recollected the noble enthusiasm displayed by the father of the present minister in the cause of religious liberty, viewed the conduct of Mr. Pitt on this occasion with mingled emotions of grief and indignation. In a letter addressed, January 1773, to the celebrated Dr. Price, that venerable patriot thus expresses himself: "In writing to you it is impossible the mind should not go of itself to that most interesting of all subjects to fallible man, TOLERATION. Be assured, that on this sacred and unalienable right of nature and bulwark of truth, my warm wishes will always keep pace with your own. Happy if the times had allowed us to add hopes to our wishes!" Here we see the sentiments of the most virtuous of philosophers corroborated by those of the most il lustrious of statesmen. XXIV. 1792. liction of ples of Advanced to the highest dignity of the state at BOOK the premature age of twenty-three, Mr. Pitt had never, auspicious as were the circumstances of his Mr. Pitt's birth, education, and entrance into public life, total deredeeply imbibed the genuine principles of Whiggism. the princiFavoured by fortune, from the very commence Whiggism. ment of his political career, in a manner the most extraordinary and unprecedented, he attributed too much to himself, and too little to foreign and fortuitous circumstances. He contracted therefore a dangerous contempt for mankind; and, depending with vain confidence upon his superior ability to vanquish those difficulties which might eventually arise, he appears never to have attained to a just comprehension of those grand moral and intellectual axioms upon the diligent observance of which the welfare and prosperity of nations depend. bread's mo mingham On the 21st of May Mr. Whitbread brought Mr. Whit forward a motion of enquiry on the subject of the tion of enquiry into Birmingham riots. He introduced this motion the Birby an excellent speech, containing a copious state- riots. ment of the facts and circumstances which led to a suspicion that the magistrates had been most culpably remiss in their duty on this occasion; and even that ministers had been negligent in their exertions for the suppression of those disorders. Mr. Whitbread referred the house to the proceedings of a former house of commons, who, on a XXIV. 1792. BOOK similar occasion, A. D. 1716, had addressed the king (Geo. I.) in terms expressive of the utmost indignation and abhorrence of the spirit which had incited those atrocious outrages; and requesting that full compensation might be made to the sufferers. Mr. Whitbread insisted on the disgrace which England would incur in the view of Europe, if a man, who had done so much honor to his country by his philosophical and literary talents, as Dr. Priestley, should fail to obtain a signal repa. ration for the injuries he had sustained. "Should he (said this animated speaker) by the spirit of persecution, be compelled to abandon his native soil, there is no nation which would not be ready and eager to afford him an asylum. He can go to no country where his fame has not gone before him." Mr. Whitbread said, "he knew that tole ration was the language in fashion; but it was very easy for men to have toleration on their lips, and persecution in their hearts." Mr. Secretary Dundas, in reply, vindicated the government very satisfactorily from the suspicion of not having ex. erted themselves to the utmost in quelling riots. He said," that government did not prosecute the magistrates who were charged with neglect of duty, because the attorney-general was of opinion that there was no probability of conviction, and an ineffectual prosecution might be attended with very disagreeable consequences." Mr. Whit XXIV. bread's motion was ably supported by Mr. Smith BOOK and Mr. Windham, but more particularly by Mr. Grey, in an admirable speech, well deserving deep and permanent attention. In answer to some harsh reflections of Mr. Dundas on the recent conduct of the dissenters, Mr. Grey thus nobly and eloquently expressed himself: "I do not, sir, stand here as the professed advocate of the dissenters; but while we exclaim against the rash and intemperate language of some amongst the dissenters, let us impartially and seriously ask ourselves, if no just cause has been given to them of discontent or of resentment? It is well known, that the dissenters have ever distinguished themselves as the zealous advocates of the glorious Revolution-that they have been always numbered amongst the most firm and steady adherents of the Protestant succession and of the illustrious house of Hanover, when that succession was supposed with reason to be in danger, and at a time when the reigning family did not depend upon the CHURCH as its chief bulwark and support. Conscious of their fidelity and attachment to the government under which they lived-an attachment which the circumstances of the times afforded them frequent and decisive occasions to demonstrateexercising under the express sanction of the state their inherent right of private judgment in reli gion-they at length applied to the legislature to 1792. |