The question of adjournment being put upon Mr. Dowdeswell's motion, the House divided: Yeas, 218: Noes, 72. So it was resolved in the affirmative, and the House adjourned.

"Mr. Dowdeswell did not bring in an enacting bill to give to juries, as the account expresses it, a power to try law and fact in matter of übel. Mr. Dowdeswell brought in a bill to put an end to those doubts and controversies upon that subject, which have unhappily distracted our courts, to the great detriment of the public, and to the great dishonour of the national justice.

"That it is the province of the jury, in informations and indictments for libels, to try nothing more than the fact of the composing, and of the publishing averments and innuendos, is a doctrine held at present by all the judges of the King's Bench, probably by most of the judges of the kingdom. The same doctrine has been held pretty uniformly since the Revolution; and it prevails more or less with the jury according to the degree of respect with which they are disposed to receive the opinions of the bench.

"This doctrine, which, when it prevails, tends to annihilate the bebenefits of trial by jury, and when it is rejected by juries tends to weaken and disgrace the authority of the judges, is not a doctrine proper for an English judicature. For the sake both of judge and jury the controversy ought to be quieted, and the law ought to be settled in a manner clear, definitive, and constitutional, by the only authority competent to it, the authority of the legislature.

"Mr. Dowdeswell's bill was brought in for that purpose. It gives to the jury no new powers; but, after reciting the doubts and controversies (which nobody denies actually to subsist), and after stating that, if juries are not reputed competent to try the whole matter, the benefit of trial by jury will be of none, or imperfect, effect, it enacts, not that the jury shall have the power, but that they shall be held and reputed in law and right competent, to try the whole matter laid in the information. The bill is directing to the judges concerning the opinion in law, which they are known to hold upon this subject; and does not in the least imply that the jury were to derive a new right and power from that bill, if it should have passed into an act of parliament. The implication is directly the contrary; and is as strongly conveyed as it is possible for those to do, who state a doubt and controversy, without charging with criminality those "persons who so doubted and so controverted.

"Such a style is frequent in acts of this nature; and is that only which is suited to the occasion. An insidious use has been made of the words enact and declare, as if they were formal and operative

CLERICAL PETITION FOR RELIEF FROM SUBSCRIPTION TO THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES.

February 6. 1772.

THIS day Sir William Meredith moved for leave to present a Petition from certain of the clergy of the church of England, and certain of the professions of civil law and physic,

ferent effects. Nothing is more groundless; and I am persuaded no lawyer will stand to such an assertion. The gentlemen who say that a bill ought to have been brought in upon the principle, and in the style of the Petition of Right and Declaration of Right, ought to consider how far the circumstances are the same in the two cases; and how far they are prepared to go the whole lengths of the reason of those remarkable laws. Mr. Dowdeswell and his friends are of opinion that the circumstances are not the same, and that therefore the bill ought not to be the same.

"It has been always disagreeable to the persons who compose that connexion to engage wantonly in a paper war, especially with gentlemen for whom they have an esteem, and who seem to agree with them in the great grounds of their public conduct: but they can never consent to purchase any assistance from any persons by the forfeiture of their own reputation. They respect public opinion; and therefore, whenever they shall be called upon, they are ready to meet their adversaries, as soon as they please, before the tribunal of the public, and there to justify the constitutional nature and tendency, the propriety, the prudence, and the policy of their bill. They are equally ready to explain and to justify all their proceedings in the conduct of it; equally ready to defend their resolution to make it one object (if ever they should have the power) in a plan of public reformation.

"Your correspondent ought to have been satisfied with the assistance which his friends have lent to administration in defeating that bill. He ought not to make a feeble endeavour (I dare say much to the displeasure of those friends) to disgrace the gentleman who brought it in. A measure proposed by Mr. Dowdeswell, seconded by Sir George Savile, and supported by their friends, will stand fair with the public, even though it should have been opposed by that list of names (respectable names I admit), which have been printed with so much parade and ostentation in your paper.

praying for relief from the subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles. Sir William read the petition, and spoke warmly in its behalf. He was supported by Lord George Germain, Mr. Thomas Pitt, Lord John Cavendish, Mr. Thomas Townshend, Sir George Savile, Mr. Solicitor-General Wedderburn, and Mr. Dunning. The speakers on the opposite side were Sir Roger Newdigate, Mr. Fitzmaurice, Lord Folkestone, Mr. Byrne, Lord North, Mr. Fox, Mr. Burke, Mr. Dyson, Mr. Jenkinson, and Mr. Hans Stanley.

Mr. BURKE said:

Mr. Speaker; before I enter into the merits of this question, allow me to correct some mistakes into which the opposers of the petition have fallen. We are told that the Act of Union is irreversible in any point, and that in the present case it is eternally binding. I will readily own, that so solemn and so important an act is not to be altered without weighty reasons. But then I can never agree that it is, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, absolutely irreversible. The power of rectifying the most sacred laws must, by the very nature of things, be vested in the legislature; because every legislature must be supreme and omnipotent with respect to the law, which is its own creature. I will not indeed say that, if an alteration in the church of Scotland were proposed, prudential considerations ought not to render us very cautious how we exerted this power. Perhaps it might be necessary once more to assemble the parliament of Scotland to effect so great a purpose. Scotland, sensible of its future weakness in parlia

"It is not true that Mr. Burke spoke in praise of Lord Mansfield. If he had found any thing in Lord Mansfield praiseworthy, I fancy he is not disposed to make an apology to any body for doing justice. Your correspondent's reason for asserting it is visible enough; and it is altogether in the strain of other misrepresentations. That gentleman spoke decently of the judges, and he did no more: most of the gentlemen, who debated on both sides, held the same language; and nobody will think their zeal the less warm or the less effectual, because

ment, in consequence of the few representatives then allotted it, seems to have intended that no change should ever after take place either in its laws or religion. But how are we restrained from making innovations and improvements in our own system? The same argument is not applicable to our case. We are not concluded by the act; its words are general, and insist only on the preservation of the religion established by law. But you will say that the king has sworn to preserve the same religion established by law, and that therefore he can never give his consent to any innovation. What a futile argument! The king only swears to adhere to what is the obvious meaning, to preserve that religion which has the sanction of his parliament. Now will not the system proposed by the petitioners be the religion by law established, if it passes through the three branches of the legislature? Our ancestors were neither so bigotted nor so ill-informed as to leave no door open for reformation. Certainly Scotland did not then look upon the church of England as absolutely perfect; and I am much mistaken if it has yet altered its sentiments. Let us then hear no more of these arguments. The Union has not precluded the possibility of a change in either our civil or ecclesiastical establishments; nor is the king bound by his oath not to listen to the restitution of the purity of the Gospel and primitive Christianity.

Having thus far paved my way, and borne witness to what I think the truth, I must solicit the indulgence of the House, while I speak to the only points which can admit of debate, the practicability of the scheme suggested by the petitioners, and the necessity of subscription. The petitioners, whose virtue and honour I will not question, because I really think them honest and conscientious men; the petitioners, I say, Sir, complain of the Articles as infringing the right of private judgment, and usurping the place of the Scriptures. But how can this be the case, when they are at this moment exercising the right of private judgment, and denying their conformity to the word of God? They have not, it is true, pointed out any hete

rodox articles; but what is more, they have made a general charge against the whole creed of articles. After this proof of the latitude of private opinion allowed by our church, it is absurd and ridiculous to complain of restraints in that respect. It is not a conformity of private but of public opinion, that she requires in teachers. In their closets they may embrace what tenets they please, but for the sake of peace and order, they must inculcate from the pulpit only the religion of the state. Nor does this obligation seem to me any hardship; because, every man must make a sacrifice of something to society; and allow that society of two evils to chuse the least, to impose upon a few individuals perhaps a disagreeable restraint, rather than introduce disorder and confusion into the whole body politic.

Suppose we were inclined to adopt the plan proposed by the petitioners, the next point is to consider its practicability. They would have us exclude all forms and subscriptions, and tests, but the Bible, which they deem not only the proper standard of faith, but the sole confession to which an assent and consent ought to be enforced. Let me then ask them what books they will hold canonical; for there have been debates, and fierce debates too, upon this point. Will they exclude the book of Esdras, which has by some been reprobated? Will they admit the Song of Songs as one of the privileged books, by which they are willing to abide? I should not be surprised to hear them object even to some of the Gospels; for these have not escaped doubt among very respectable sects of Christians. The book of Revelations has been a bone of contention among divines. Do they mean to receive or reject the book of Revelations? The same questions may be put with respect to the Epistles; as some of them have been deemed apocryphal. If they will not retain any or all of these, what will they retain as undoubted repositories of the divine Word? If we begin to shake foundations, all these captious questions will necessarily be agitated, and render it no easy matter to fix any standard of faith.