On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
there were no such dangers to be apprehended ; the pretender was out of the question ; besides , every Papist was obliged to abjure the Pope in temporals , before be could avail himself of indiilgencies . Fie could not
think the Popish religion incompatible with government , nor civil liberty ; because in looking round the world , he saw that in Switzerland , where democracy reigned universally in the fullest manner , it flourished most in cantons professing that religion . He was a friend to universal
toleration , and ? . n enemy to that nartow way of thinking , that made men come to parliament not for the removal of some great grievances which they themselves felt , but to desire parliament to shackle and fetter their fellow-subjects . He wished to know the immber and sort of names affixed
to the petitions which desired persecution , and called upon the House for an exercise of its judgment merely , instead of desiring grievances of their own to be removed . He wished to know who the petitioners were . He observed that many signed their marks ; and saw that men who could neither read nor write , found their
blood fired that a Roman Catholic should read and write ! He confessed he had no predilection for the signatures of the clergy ; for he was convinced thai if at the period of tlu Reformation their opinions could hare decided , we should have had no
Heformation ! It was not likely that Tnen whose interests in general were ft gainst the reform , should have been eager to obtain it . He went through
a variety of reasons in favour of general toleration , and declared himself against the repeal of the bill , and against every thing that had the least tendency to bridle and restrain liberty of conscience .
6 . American War a Crusade . ( June 12 , 178 I . ) The noble lord who spoke second had called the American war a holy war . The application of the word
holy to the present war may have appeared new to every gentlemen present but myself . It is not new to me , and I will tell the house why it is not . I was over in Paris just at the eve of
Untitled Article
this very war ; and Dr . Franklin ho' noured me with his intimacy . I re _ member one day conversing with hit * on this subject , and predicting the fatal consequences , he compared the principle of the war and its probable
effects to the ancient crusades . Me foretold , that our best blood and our treasure would be squandered and thrown away to no manner of purpose , that like the holy war , while we carried ruin and destruction into America , we should impoverish and depopulate Britain ; and while we went
thither , under the pretence of conferring temporal , not ghostly benefits upon the vanquished , our concealed purpose was to destroy , enslave or oppress , as it promised best to answer our ends ; while , like the pretended martyrs or zealots in ancient times , we concealed under this fair semblance .
every vice and passion which constituted human depravity and human turpitude y avarice , revenge , ambition , and base as well as impotent reseat * ment .
But if that was the opinion of your great philosopher in 1776 , how much stronger would the comparison hold at present ? Like the Crusaders in the holy war , who went to fi ght for the sepulchre of our Saviour and to possess Palestine , in order to have the
honour of guarding the sepulchre , though the body had been translated to another place for many centuries ; the present ministers , treading in the footsteps of those bloody and senseless zealots , still continued to contend for the possession of an empty sepulchre ; they had relinquished taxation , they
had given up legislation ; they had even offered to pay the debts of the Americans ; and instead of giving them laws , of receiving laws from them ;* but yet this holy land was to be made the scene of a holy war \ hecause at a former period they told parliament and the nation , that they would tax and make laws for America .
* Mr . Fox alluded to the oflfer made by the commissioners , to permit deputies from tlie provincial assemblies to sit and vote in the British House of Commons .
Untitled Article
4 ] 2 Charles James Fox .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1815, page 412, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1762/page/12/
-