But these enactments were of a temporary nature, called forth by a special circumstance, and not of sufficient moment to disprove the assertion that, under the prime ministers of George I., the political and social condition of English Catholics was rendered more hopeful. Yet in saying this we do not forget that the statute-book remained unpurged,[160] and exhibited even some additional defilement. But it is not always by law-books that we can judge of a nation's condition. Its acts are often better than its laws, and it mends its ways long before it improves its statutes. It was so for a long period with Great Britain as regards her dealings with Catholics, and if it had been otherwise, scarcely a remnant of the chosen people would have remained to bear witness to the ancient faith. Sir Robert Walpole inclined in his heart to lenient measures, and would have done more to promote religious liberty if he had not fallen among a stiff-necked generation, to whom retaliation and oppression came as things of course. His efforts to relieve the Quakers from prosecution and imprisonment for refusing to pay tithes and church rates, and to substitute for these a levy by distress on their goods, sufficiently proves his aversion to the oppressive policy which Gibson, the Bishop of London, and many of his lawn-sleeved brethren, wished to pursue.
Little alteration took place in the condition of Catholics during the premierships of Carteret, Pelham, and Newcastle. They were few in number, except in the southern and western provinces of Ireland, where they comprised the great body of the laboring classes. In England, on the contrary, they had scarcely any hold on the lower orders, but numbered among their people many peers, country gentlemen, and other educated persons. The alarm they occasioned was incredible, considering the poverty of their chapels, and the scanty numbers by whom these were frequented. The most wicked and absurd doctrines were ascribed to them, nor was any falsehood respecting them too glaring to obtain credit with the prejudiced multitude. The rising of 1745 brought them more than ever into disrepute, and their enemies saw with fierce joy their bones whitening on Temple Bar and Tower Hill. The butchery of the Duke of Cumberland was accounted lenient when exercised against Catholics; and if the government had drenched the scaffolds with more blood of Highland chiefs, it would probably have been applauded by a crowd of Protestant zealots. But Pelham and his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, were neither cruel nor fanatical; and the effort made by the former to ameliorate the condition of the Jews, though frustrated by the intolerance of the times, proved that his leanings, at least, were in favor of religious and political equality. Deserted as he was in this matter by his timid and shuffling brother, hooted at and cried down as an enemy of Christianity because he was averse to persecuting the forlorn and helpless Jews, we may judge how hopeless would have been any attempt to plead the rights of Catholics, and how prudence itself demanded that the redress of their wrongs should be postponed to a more convenient season. The Whigs of George II.'s reign did what they could in their favor, and it was little indeed, by paving the way for future concessions.
While Chatham, with his fiery genius, was holding the reins of government, in concert successively with the dukes of Devonshire, of Newcastle, and of Grafton; while Bute enjoyed the favor of his sovereign, and incurred in an equal degree the odium of the people; while Grenville goaded the American colonists into revolt, and Rockingham vainly endeavored to heal the wounds which his predecessor had inflicted on them; little was thought, and still less was said, in parliament about the emancipation of Catholics. Yet many of the events which occurred, many of the political gladiators who acquired for themselves such renown in the arena of public life, were preparing the way for this happy consummation in the fulness of time. Every blow that was struck for freedom was a gain to the Catholic cause; every check that was put on the arbitrary power of the king or the parliament was in effect a loosening of their bonds. When Chatham declaimed against the use of general warrants, and Wilkes waged war single-handed with the crown, the cabinet, and the commons; when Burke and Rockingham, no less than Chatham, denounced the injustice of the Stamp Act, and the fratricidal cruelty of the war by which it was in principle to be enforced, the arguments by which they clove down menaces, boasts, and blatant sophistry availed more or less against every thing that could be pleaded in support of the bondage and degradation to which Catholics were subjected. Edmund Burke was the burning and shining light of the Rockingham administration. It was scarcely possible for the premier to overrate his importance as an ally. He had the most philosophical mind of any statesman of his age; and the fact of his being chattered against as a wild Irishman and a concealed papist by the Duke of Newcastle, proved that the despised and the detested Catholics of Ireland were likely to find a friend in him. He was more than a great man; he represented a principle. He never shifted his ground, though he sometimes changed his front. He always pleaded for order, and "a manly, moral, regulated liberty." In the outset of his political career, the tide of human thought was setting in new directions. America was declaring her independence; the Wealth of Nations was laying the foundation of political economy; Wesley and Whitefield were stirring up a dormant spirit of sincere though misguided religion in mines, factories, fields, and wolds; Hargreaves's spinning-jenny was well at work; Arkwright's patent had been issued some years; Crompton's mule was seen coming into play; Brindley's canal from the Trent to the Mersey was being cut; and Watt was preparing his third model of the steam-engine. Powerful solvents of old systems were applied, and active germs of new ones sprang up on every side. It was a time, therefore, when thoughtful men were accessible to new ideas, when they would listen to arguments so new, so strange, so extravagant, (for such they had once thought them,) as those which Burke advanced in favor of religious toleration, and of the persecuted Irish. Year after year his convictions gathered strength, till at last "the god within him" burst forth, and he denounced the penal code of Protestant England as "A system full of coherence and consistency; well digested and well composed in all its parts, a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man."[161] As the secretary, the friend, the adviser and colleague of Lord Rockingham, Edmund Burke had some influence in abating the rigor of enactments against "papists;" and though the Rev. James Talbot, brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury, was tried for his life at the Old Bailey for saying mass, so late as the year 1769, yet the spirit of persecution sensibly declined after the fifth year of George III.'s reign. It was rarely, and at long intervals, that it ventured to display itself in the English parliament; and in 1774, the first decided step toward toleration was taken by that prejudiced body. The Catholics of Canada were allowed by law to enjoy free exercise of their religion, subject to the king's supremacy.[162]
Only four years passed before this concession was followed by another of far greater importance and extent.
It was under the ministry of Lord North, and with his concurrence, that Sir George Savile, in 1788, introduced a bill to repeal the atrocious enactments extorted from William of Orange by a relentless parliament. The bigots of his day had often repeated the false reports of Jacobites, who affirmed that William was in secret a favorer of their religion; but now that eighty years had rolled by, the representatives of the nation in parliament, though not the people themselves, were sensible of the injustice their forefathers had wrought, and were willing to make reparation for it. It was already a marvellous change that had come over the minds of the thinking part of the nation; and it is pleasing to reflect that Sir George Savile's healing measure encountered little opposition. The penal statutes which his bill repealed had not, generally speaking, been put into execution, but in some instances they had; and Sir George declared himself cognizant of cases in which Catholics were not merely living in terror, but were obliged to bribe informers not to betray them, in consequence of the powers which the law conferred. Thurlow, the attorney-general, supported the bill, and so did Dundas, the lord-advocate of Scotland. The only whisper of opposition came from a Whig bishop of Peterborough, named Hinchcliffe. By this repeal the priests were secured from persecution, schoolmasters were permitted to teach, Catholics were enabled to purchase and to inherit estates, and many other happy exemptions from pain and penalty were granted to them.[163] Horace Walpole, in one of his letters,[164] called the repeal "the restoration of popery," and "expected soon to see Capuchins trampling about, and Jesuits in high places."
It is needless to recount the excesses which followed this measure. The Lord George Gordon riots are too well known even here to require more than an allusion to be made to them. Gibbon, the historian, was an eye-witness of the scene, and he says, in memorable words, that "the month of June, 1780, will ever be marked by a dark and diabolical fanaticism, which I supposed to be extinct, but which actually subsists in Great Britain perhaps beyond any other country in Europe." Impelled by these frantic disturbances, the parliament condescended to explain Sir George Savile's bill to the people, and to show that, though intended to relieve "papists," it was not meant to encourage "popery."
The coalition ministry, under the Duke of Portland, did not last long enough for Fox, its most distinguished and philanthropic member, to propose measures for the relief of Catholics. But his great rival, Pitt, during his long tenure of office, had means of befriending them which he did not altogether neglect. The Toleration Act[165] received the royal assent in 1791, and many of its provisions did credit to William Pitt's wisdom and humanity. It removed penalties still attached by law to the celebration of Catholic worship, and relieved tutors, schoolmasters, barristers, and peers from some degrading restrictions. Pitt would willingly have gone further, much further. He would gladly have fulfilled the promises made to some of the leaders of the Irish people, and would have cemented the union of England and Ireland by admitting Catholics to a share of political power and by providing a state endowment of the Catholic priesthood. He even resigned his post as premier in 1801 because he found it impossible to obtain the consent of the purblind, bigoted old king to the measures he had planned for the peace of Ireland. It would have been better for his fame if he had persevered in his good intentions. That he did not do so, is a stain on his memory which posterity, however lenient, cannot wash out. His honor was involved in completing the union with Ireland by Catholic emancipation. This he not only failed to do, but, out of regard to his sovereign, he promised in writing that he would never again moot the question, and that he would oppose its being agitated to the day of his death. This was carrying loyalty too far. It prevailed against justice. It cancelled personal honor. An engagement is sacred; and if Pitt had observed his, he would have stood higher in the esteem of thinking men, without driving George III. into lunacy or to Hanover. Considering all the circumstances, we cannot feel surprised at his setting it aside; but we regret that he did not hold to it firmly. Faith in political leaders would then have been more easy, and public virtue less a sham. When the strength of Pitt superseded the weakness of Addington, and the great statesman found himself again prime minister, his tongue was tied in reference to Catholic claims. Nay, even his rival, Fox, when he came once more into office, refrained from advocating emancipation out of deference to the king's weakness and tendency to madness. Indeed, the Grenville ministry, called usually "All the Talents," broke up at last on the question of removing Catholic disabilities, as that of Pitt had done in the year 1801. A puny and pitiable concession had been made to Irish Catholic soldiers in 1793. They had been allowed by law to rise in the army to the rank of colonel, in case of their serving in Ireland. Lord Sidmouth and Chancellor Erskine were opposed to Catholic emancipation, yet even they were willing in their boundless generosity to extend this privilege to officers serving in England. The king was alarmed at the proposal, and wrote to Lord Spenser, declaring that it should never gain his consent. It would remove a restriction on Roman Catholics, and it was only part of a system to which he was unchangeably averse. But when two days had passed, his majesty thought better of it. He would not thwart his ministers for such a trifle. He yielded the point, and then discovered than he had been deceived by the liberal members of the cabinet, and that they actually intended to put Catholics and dissenters on exactly the same footing as members of the Anglican church in the army, and to exact from them merely an oath of allegiance. The bill for the purpose had, in fact, been submitted to him, but, being blind, he had let it pass without proper scrutiny. His ministers always affirmed that, if he had been misled, it was not through their fault or intention. The afflicted old man was greatly disturbed by what he heard on the subject from Lord Sidmouth, and he became still more indignant when the bill was fathered on him, introduced into parliament by Lord Howick, (afterward Lord Grey,) opposed stoutly by Mr. Perceval, and read for the first time. He resolved in secret to rid himself of ministers whom he regarded as dangerous and false. He informed them that the bill in question would never be signed by him, that it must be withdrawn, and that he should be satisfied with nothing less than an explicit assurance and promise that no such measures in future should be proposed. This "All the Talents" refused to give, and the king, on hearing that their answer was final, said, "Then I must look about me."[166]
Though the Duke of Portland became prime minister in 1807 with the express intention of defending the sovereign against importunity in favor of Catholics, it is worthy of remark that the College of Maynooth was endowed during his premiership; and this is only one illustration of the remarkable fact which we are endeavoring to exhibit—that the Catholic cause in England has progressed in England under every government since the revolution of 1688, in spite of penal statutes, obstacles, and resistance of king, lords, commons or people.
Mr. Perceval, who succeeded the Duke of Portland in 1809, is described by Madden as "a stupid lawyer, without character or practice, noted only for his bigotry."
There was little done for Catholics in his time; but about two months after he had been shot in the lobby of the House of Commons, Lord Wellesley moved that the Catholic claims should be considered.