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wish to go into the history of those actsof the Corporation Act , which was passed in violation of promises held out to the people of the country , or of the Test Act , which was passed without any reference to the Dissenters , and which ,
whatever might be said of it as being a bulwark to the Constitution , and notwithstanding it might be spoken of as the wisdom of our ancestors , was passed under t } ie influence of panic and disorder , ending at last in a scuffle , for the members of both Houses of Parliament
actually came to blows . He did not wish to dilate for a moment upon those Acts , nor to point out the many objections which he had to them , in principle , in morality , and in policy ; but he wished to advert to the opinions of
those who held that the law , if supposed to be a grievance , was merely a theoretical grievance . But k surely would never be considered in their Lordships ' House , of which honour was the essence , and where all the advantages of distinction between man and man were
enjoyed , that the stigma of inferiority was no injury ; and when the subject came before the consideration of Parliament—and come soon it must and would—their Lordships would find that this class of people were prohibited from enjoying many of those advantages to which every subject in a free country was entitled , unless he had offended the
laws of his country . The petitioners came before their Lordships without any wish at this particular time of pressing the question . Perhaps he might be asked why , holding the same opinions on this subject as he had formerly held during the whole period of his life , he did not institute an inquiry upon the subject . To such a question he would answer , that he did not do so for the same reasons which had induced
him for twenty years past not to call upon their Lordships to institute an inquiry , because he thought such a motion would not be attended with success or advantage , and was not likely to promote the object he had in view , and because the petitioners did not call
upon him to propose any such measure . He might also be asked , why the petitioners should now come forward to petition the House upon this subject , after having remained so long in silence . The cause of that was , because the silence and submission of
those persons to the unjust and undeserved stigma cast upon them , were argued upon as proving them ^ sensible to the insult ( greeted against them . Htr held that this subject was totally
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unconnected with the other great ques tion which had been alluded to in the course of conversation to-night , and which had so often occupied their Lordships' attention ; but he must mention to the House , that the persons who signed the petition he should first present to their Lordships , as well as the other petitioners , would consider it as an aspersion on them , if they should
be supposed to be hostile to granting that liberty to others which they prayed their Lordships to extend to them . They had , however , thought it more respectful to approach their Lordships with a statement of their own grievances . He was not instructed to say that every individual one of the petitioners was in favour of the other question to which he had alluded . He
spoke of them as a body , and from this same body he had often presented pe- » titions—he would not say exactly in favour of the Catholic Claims , but in favour of that measure which , in his opinion , was much better than granting the Claims either of the Dissenters or the Catholics , —he meant a measure for sweeping away from the statute-book all disabilities at once . Such had been
the prayer of the petitioners on former occasions , and he was instructed to say , that of those numerous congregations which the petitioners represented , not one had ever expressed" to Parliament their opinions in favour of the continuance of those laws , which they considered as partaking of the spirit of persecution , and unjust to the rights
of conscience . With respect to another petition which he had to present , he thought he could not express the sentiments of those who signed it in a better way than by reading part of a letter which accompanied the petition . The petition came from the Wesleyan Dissenters of Manchester , and the letter expressed their unanimous feeling that
any concessions granted to themselves would be in their eyes comparatively worthless , if they were not founded on such a basis as would equally impart to all men the common rights of citizens in matters of religion . Such he believed to be , if not the universal , the fundamental opinion of the whole body
of Dissenters in England , though there might be another very numerous and respectable body who had but lately existed ; and he had no wish to speak of that body with disparagement , who were Dissenters only in form , but were hot reall y Dissenters upon the , tenets and doctrines of the Church of England , among whom great numbers were ho »~
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Intelligence . — Corpwratim and Test Adi * . & § 1
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1827, page 551, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1798/page/79/
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