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    468 inielUgenae . ~ -BrQtest < mt Society .

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    his purpose would be confirmed by the very threat of opposition by which some might be dismayed . Instant triumph never was expected . TVy and persevere had ever been the motto of the promoters

    of truth and freedom , and of the great benefactors of mankind . Could he then forego or postpone his purpose , though Tories clamour , or a minister may frown ! Taught by the masters of ancient song , he would

    exclaim—Justum et tenacem propositi virum , Non vultus instantis tyranni , Mente quatit

    solida—Or , as one of our bards has versified the sentiment , The man resolved , and steady to his trust , Inflexible to ill , and resolutely just ; The tyrant ' s fierceness he beguiles ,, And the stern brow , and the harsh voice defies ; And with superior greatness smiles .

    To him the declaration made by an eminent and highly-talented statesman , that he would oppose our application for redress , appeared as premature as the reason assigned for the opposition was unsound . Usual courtesy should have induced him to suspend his decision until the numbers and importance of the petitions were ascertained , until the facts had been stated , and tfye advocates been heard . The wishes of two

    millions of industrious , manly , loyal , useful , religious and enlightened citizens , were . entitled to that attention and respect : and were he a Protestant Dissenter himself , he would be the last of men to treat as merely * ' * theoretic , " the claims which regard to honour and

    religious principle , and no mercenary motives , impel them to assert . His spirit would spurn contempt , would feel that degradation is an injury , and would choose a wreath of parsley offered with respect , rather than sell his independence for a crown of gold . But though all parties of ins . and outs opposed , they

    had pushed their bark into the sea , and though waves and tides and storms beat them off , season after season , the crew were principled and firm—they were true tars of England . With them he would try and persevere ; and at last , the waves and tides and storms would be surmounted and the shore attained .

    Thanks having been voted to Lord Milton , his Lordship , in rising to . acknowledge the compliment , observed , that , as it might be expected of him to

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    say something upon the important subject that had that day much occupied their attention , he would allude , in the first place , to the altered condition of the country since the time the laws complained against were passed . Did any one who surveyed the country imagine that any of those causes which induced our ancestors to exclude

    Dissenters from the rights of citizens now had existence ? Were we now afraid that Republican Dissenters and Papists would become the advocates of despotism ? Surely no one believed that , in these days , it was the wish of the Catholic to endanger the Church , or of the Dissenter to overturn the Throne . If these wishes and feelings were banished from the hearts and minds of the

    different classes of Dissenters , justice demanded that the laws which were enacted to restrain them should be annulled , and Government could not long withstand their righteous claims . He , too , must express his surprise and concern at their disabilities being called theoretic . Were those evils theoretic which were

    so luminously detailed in the report they had heard ? Was it only a theoretic evil to the Dissenter , that he could not be admitted into the magistracy except by a conformity which his conscience disapproved , or a miserable evasion of the law through the Act of Indemnity , —the very passing of which every session was a practical proof of the folly and evil of

    such objectionable laws ? But it was not only to the civil disabilities he objected : they were likewise , in his opinion , highly injurious to the promotion of true religion . He recollected that when the Bill brought in by his honourable friend , Mr . Smith , of Norwich , for the relief of the Unitarians , was in

    its progress through the House of Peers , one of the late Ministers objected to it , on account of its making the Cburch a handmaid to Dissent . But , he would ask , if , under the present laws , the Church was not made an auxiliary to civil rights and legal proceedings , as the only legal evidence of a birth was the parish register of the christening of a child ? He was afraid that a vast

    number of the Legislators were Ignorant of the matter : but that was not their fault . It was not usual for men to seek to become acquainted with inconveniences , by which they were not affected ; and it was , therefore , the duty of the Dissenters to make their situation known . To

    their passiveness alone , must be attributed the ignorance which unhappily prevailed . He assured the meeting that

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1827, page 458, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1797/page/66/