The uncandid excuse for all this is, that the greater part of these men were put to death for political, not for religious crimes. That is, a law is first passed, making it high treason for a priest to exercise his function in England, and so when he is caught and burnt, this is not religious persecution, but an offence against the state. We are, I hope, all too busy to need any answer to such childish, uncandid reasoning as this.

The total number of those who suffered capitally in the reign of Elizabeth, is stated by Dodd, in his Church History,' to be one hundred and ninety-nine; farther inquiries by Milner made their number to be two hundred and four: fifteen of these were condemned for denying the queen's supremacy; one hundred and twenty-six for the exercise of priestly functions, and the others for being reconciled to the Catholic faith, or for aiding and assisting priests. In this list, no person is included who was executed for any plot, real or imaginary, except eleven, who suffered for the pretended plot of Rheims; a plot which, Dr. Milner justly observes, was so daring a forgery, that even Camden allows the sufferers to have been political victims. Besides these, mention is made in the same work, of ninety Catholic priests, or laymen, who died in prison in the same reign. "About the same time," he says, "I find fifty gentlemen lying prisoners in York Castle; most of them perished there, of vermin, famine, hunger, thirst, damp, dirt, fever, whipping, and broken hearts, the inseparable circumstances of prisons in those days. These were every week, for a twelvemonth together, dragged by main force to hear the established service performed in the castle chapel." The Catholics were frequently, during the reign of Elizabeth, tortured in the most dreadful manner. In order to extort answers from father Campian, he was laid on the rack, and his limbs stretched a little, to show him, as the executioner termed it, what the rack was. He persisted in his refusal; then for several days successively, the torture was increased, and on the last two occasions, he was so cruelly rent and torn, that he expected to expire under the torment. While under the rack, he called continually on God. In the reign of the Protestant Edward VI. Joan Knell was burnt to death, and the year after, George Parry was burnt also. In 1575, two Protestants, Peterson and Turwort (as before stated), were burnt to death by Elizabeth. In 1589, under the same queen, Lewes, a

The total number of sufferers in the reign of queen Mary varies, I believe, from 200 in the Catholic to 280 in the Protestant accounts. I recommend all young men who wish to form some notion of what answer the Catholics have to make, to read Milner's Letters to a Prebendary,' and to follow the line of reading to which his references lead. They will then learn the importance of that sacred maxim, Audi alteram partem.

Protestant, was burnt to death at Norwich, where Francis Kett was also burnt for religious opinions in 1589, under the same great queen who, in 1591, hanged the Protestant Hacket for heresy, in Cheapside, and put to death Greenwood, Barrow, and Penry, for being Brownists. Southwell, a Catholic, was racked ten times during the reign of this sister of bloody queen Mary. In 1592, Mrs. Ward was hanged, drawn, and quartered, for assisting a Catholic priest to escape in a box. Mrs. Lyne suffered the same punishment for harboring a priest; and in 1586, Mrs. Clitheroe, who was accused of relieving a priest, and refused to plead, was pressed to death in York Castle; a sharp stone being placed underneath her back.

Have not Protestants persecuted both Catholics and their fellow Protestants in Germany, Switzerland, Geneva, France, Holland, Sweden, and England? Look to the atrocious punishment of Leighton under Laud, for writing against prelacy; first, his ear was cut off, then his nose slit; then the other ear cut off, then whipped, then whipped again. Look to the horrible cruelties exercised by the Protestant Episcopalians on the Scottish Presbyterians, in the reign of Charles II. of whom 8000 are said to have perished in that persecution Persecutions of Protestants by Protestants are amply detailed by Chandler, in his History of Persecution; by Neale, in his History of the Puritans: by Laing, in his History of Scotland; by Penn, in his Life of Fox; and in Brandt's History of the Reformation in the Low Countries; which furnishes many very terrible cases of the sufferings of the Anabaptists and Remonstrants. In 1560, the parliament of Scotland decreed, at one and the same time, the establishment of Calvinism, and the punishment of death against the ancient religion: "With such indecent haste (says Robertson) did the very persons who had just escaped ecclesiastical tyranny, proceed to imitate their example." Nothing can be so absurd as to suppose, that in barbarous ages, the excesses were all committed by one religious party, and none by the other. The Huguenots of France burnt churches, and hung priests wherever they found them. Froumenteau, one of their own writers, confesses, that in the single province of Dauphiny, they killed two hundred and twenty priests, and one hundred and twelve friars. In the Low Countries, wherever Vandemerk and Sonoi, lieutenants of the Prince of Orange, carried their arms, they uniformly put to death, and in cold blood, all the priests and religious they could lay their hands on. The Protestant Servetus was put to death by the Protestants of Geneva, for denying the doctrine of the Trinity, as the Protestant Gentilis was, on the same score, by those of Berne; add to these, Felix Mans, Rotman, and Barnevald. Of Servetus, Melancthon, the mildest of men, declared that he de

served to have his bowels pulled out, and his body torn to pieces. The last fires of persecution which were lighted in England, were by Protestants. Bartholomew Legate, an Arian, was burnt by order of King James in Smithfield, on the 18th of March, 1612; on the 11th of April, in the same year, Edward Weightman was burnt at Litchfield, by order of the Protestant bishop of Litchfield and Coventry; and this man was, I believe, the last person who was burnt in England for heresy. There was another condemned to the fire for the same heresy, but as pity was excited by the constancy of these sufferers, it was thought better to allow him to linger on a miserable life in Newgate. Fuller, who wrote in the reign of Charles II. and was a zealous Church of England man, speaking of the burnings in question, says, "It may appear that God was well pleased with them."

There are, however, grievous faults on both sides; and as there are a set of men, who, not content with retaliating on Protestants, deny the persecuting spirit of the Catholics, I would ask them what they think of the following code, drawn up by the French Catholics against the French Protestants, and carried into execution for one hundred years, and as late as the year 1765, and not repealed till 1782?

"Any Protestant clergyman remaining in France three days, without coming to the Catholic worship, to be punished with death. If a Protestant sends his son to a Protestant schoolmaster for education, he is to forfeit 250 livres a month, and the schoolmaster who receives him, 50 livres. If they sent their children to any seminary abroad, they were to forfeit 2000 livres, and the child so sent became incapable of possessing property in France. To celebrate Protestant worship, exposed the clergyman to a fine of 2800 livres. The fine to a Protestant for hearing it, was 1300 livres. If any Protestant denied the authority of the Pope in France, his goods were seized for the first offence, and he was hanged for the second. If any common prayer-book, or book of Protestant worship, be found in the possession of any Protestant, he shall forfeit 20 livres for the first offence, 40 livres for the second, and shall be imprisoned at pleasure for the third. Any person bringing from beyond sea, or selling any Protestant books of worship, to forfeit 100 livres. Any magistrates may search Protestant houses for such articles. Any person, required by a magistrate to take an oath against the Protestant religion, and refusing, to be committed to prison, and, if he afterwards refuse again, to suffer forfeiture of goods. Any person sending any money over sea to the support of a Protestant seminary, to forfeit his goods, and be imprisoned at the King's pleasure. Any person going over sea for Protestant education, to forfeit goods, and lands for life. The vessel to be

forfeited which conveyed any Protestant woman or child over sea, without the King's licence. Any person converting another to the Protestant religion, to be put to death. Death to any Protestant priest to come into France; death to the person who receives him; forfeiture of goods, and imprisonment, to send money for the relief of any Protestant clergyman: large rewards for discovering a Protestant parson. Every Protestant shall cause his child, within one month after birth, to be baptised by a Catholic priest, under a pe nalty of 2000 livres. Protestants were fined 4000 livres a month for being absent from Catholic worship, were disabled from holding offices and employments, from keeping arms in their houses, from maintaining suits at law, from being guardians, from practising in law or physic, and from holding offices, civil or military. They were forbidden (bravo, Louis XIV.) to travel more than five miles from home without license, under pain of forfeiting all their goods, and they might not come to court under pain of 2000 livres. A married Protestant woman, when convicted of being of that persuasion, was liable to forfeit two-thirds of her jointure: she could not be executrix to her husband, nor have any part of his goods; and during her marriage, she might be kept in prison, unless her husband redeemed her at the rate of 200 livres a month, or the third part of his lands. Protestants, convicted of being such, were, within three months after their conviction, either to submit, and renounce their religion, or, if required by four magistrates, to abjure the realm, and if they did not depart, or departing returned, were to suffer death. All Protestants were required, under the most tremendous penalties, to swear that they considered the Pope as the head of the Church. If they refused to take this oath, which might be tendered at pleasure by any two magistrates, they could not act as advocates, procureurs, or notaries public. Any Protestant taking any office, civil or military, was compelled to abjure the Protestant religion; to declare his belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation, and to take the Roman Catholic sacrament within six months, under the penalty of 10,000 livres. Any person professing the Protestant religion, and educated in the same, was required, in six months after the age of sixteen, to declare the Pope to be the head of the Church; to declare his belief in transubstantiation, and that the invocation of saints was according to the doctrine of the Christian religion; failing this, he could not hold, possess, or inherit landed property; his lands were given to the nearest Catholic relation. Many taxes were doubled on Protestants. Protestants keeping schools, were imprisoned for life, and all Protestants were forbidden to come within ten miles of Paris or Versailles. If any Protestant had a horse worth more than 100 livres, any Catholic magistrate might take it away, and search the house of the said Protestant for arms."

Is not this a monstrous code of persecution? Is it any wonder, after reading such a spirit of tyranny as is here exhibited, that the tendencies of the Catholic religion should be suspected, and that the cry of No Popery should be a rallying sign to every Protestant nation in Europe?........ Forgive, gentle reader, and gentle elector, the trifling deception I have practised on you. This code is not a code made by French Catholics against French Protestants, but by English and Irish Protestants, against English and Irish Catholics; I have given it to you, for the most part, as it is set forth in Burn's "Justice" of 1780: it was acted on in the beginning of the last king's reign, and was notorious through the whole of Europe, as the most cruel and atrocious system of persecution ever instituted by one religious persuasion against another. Of this code, Mr. Burke says, that "it is a truly barbarous system; where all the parts are an outrage on the laws of humanity, and the rights of nature it is a system of elaborate contrivance, as well fitted for the oppression, imprisonment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." It is in vain to say that these cruelties were laws of political safety; such has always been the plea for all religious cruelties: by such arguments the Catholics defended the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the burnings of Mary.

With such facts as these, the cry of persecution will not do: it is unwise to make it, because it can be so very easily, and so very justly retorted. The business is, to forget and forgive, to kiss and be friends, and to say nothing of what has passed; which is to the credit of neither party. There have been atrocious cruelties, and abominable acts of injustice, on both sides. It is not worth while to contend who shed the most blood, or whether (as Dr. Sturgess objects to Dr. Milner) death by fire is worse than hanging or starving in prison. As far as England itself is concerned, the balance may be better preserved. Cruelties exercised on the Irish go for nothing in English reasoning; but if it were not uncandid and vexatious to consider Irish persecutions' as part of the case, I firmly believe there have been two Catholics put to death for religious causes in Great Britain, for one Protestant who has suffered; not that this proves much, because the Catholics have enjoyed the sovereign power for so few years between this period and the Reformation, and certainly it must be allowed that they were not inactive, during that period, in the great work of pious combustion.

Thurloe writes to Henry Cromwell to catch up some thousand Irish boys, to send to the colonies. Henry writes back he has done so; and desires to know whether his Highness would choose as many girls to be caught up: and he adds, " doubtless it is a business in which God will appear." Suppose bloody queen Mary had caught up and transported three or four thousand Protestant boys and girls from the three ridings of Yorkshire!!!!!!