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 EXTRACT 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 SPEECH OF LORD GRENVILLE, 
 
 SjX, S^C> S)'€, 
 
 
 / 
 

 )H . T. 
 
 
 EXTRACT 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF THE 
 
 
 RIGHT HON. LORD GRENVILLE, 
 
 Chancellor of the University of Oxford, 8^c. 8^c. Sfc. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, 
 
 On Tuesday, April 17, 1821, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 DEBATE ON THE BILL 
 
 BROUGHT UP FROM THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 
 
 " For the Removal of the Disqualifications under which His 
 Majcsti/s Roman Catholic Subjects now labour.*^ 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED rOR J. BOOKER, 61, NEW BOND STREET; 
 
 BY J. F. DOVE, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE. 
 
 1822. 
 
 
IV 
 
 1^ 
 
 l^\ 
 
 EXTRACT, 
 
 Sfc. 
 
 Should I have the misfortune of finding that 
 your Lordships differ from me upon the gene- 
 ral principle of this Bill, which I consider as 
 an act of justice^ due to the whole body of our 
 fellow-subjects, professing the Roman Catholic 
 faith, I must still remind your Lordships, that 
 there is a portion of that body who have come 
 before you as separate petitioners, whose case 
 this Bill includes, and to whose unanswerable 
 claims, I am at a loss to conceive what argu- 
 ment can be opposed. 
 
 This bill comes before us, recommended on 
 the most mature deliberation by the Commons 
 House of Parliament. On every part of it, their 
 authority is of the greatest weight, but it is more 
 especially so in respect to tTie most important 
 provision of this measure ; a provision on which, 
 
6 
 
 as it relates to the composition of that assem- 
 bly itself, it was their peculiar, though certainly 
 by no means, their exclusive province to de- 
 cide. This decision they have accordingly 
 made ; not lightly nor inconsiderately, but with 
 a full sense of its importance, with a deep im- 
 pression of its benefits. They, the represen- 
 tatives of the whole body of the people of this 
 United Kingdom, united I trust not in the law 
 only, but in interest and affection; they tell 
 us in this Bill, that after long, repeated, and 
 deliberate consideration, they see no danger, 
 but, on the contrary, the greatest possible ad- 
 vantage, to all the best interests of the state, 
 from extending to the Roman Catholic, an 
 equal eligibility with the Protestant, to share 
 in their deliberations. They are willing, they 
 are solicitous to admit him, to participate with 
 them in the high trusts and duties, which he, 
 like them, may derive from the confidence of 
 their electors. They know not on whom that 
 choice may fall ; this is for their constituents to 
 determine. But they feel the most entire as- 
 surance, that these differences of religious faith, 
 
 such as they now exist, afford nO ground what- 
 ever for narrowing the choice of the elector, or 
 for disqualifying him who may be chosen, from 
 availing himself of that high distinction, and 
 sharing with them in the councils of his country. 
 Your Lordships have now a similar question 
 to consider with respect to your own House ; 
 but you approach it in a very different manner. 
 You have to determine upon the wisdom and 
 justice of admitting into this high assembly, 
 not a new class of persons, whose numbers, and 
 whose individual characters, you cannot previ- 
 ously anticipate ;— but peers of parliament ;— but 
 members of your ownbody ;— menof the highest 
 birth and rank ;— holding their title to sit and 
 vote in this House, by the same right of heredi- 
 tary descent, which they enjoy in common with 
 your Lordships, and which they trace (in nearly 
 all their cases) to a much higher antiquity, 
 than most of those whom I have now the ho- 
 nour to address. It is your^ at this hour to 
 judge, and to pronounce in the face of the world, 
 whether it be now necessary, and, if it be not 
 necessary, it cannot be just, to continue that 
 
\ 
 
 )/ 
 
 8 
 
 painful deprivation, by which some of the most 
 illustrious, and ancient members of your body, 
 are debarred of their legitimate, of their here- 
 ditary, and constitutional rights, and by which 
 the whole body of the peerage is in their per- 
 sons crippled and degraded. — Thereis no doubt 
 as to the extent or operation of this measure ; 
 your Lordships know the persons to whom it 
 applies, you see their numbers, and none are 
 so well enabled as yourselves to judge of their 
 principles and characters. 
 
 On these it would indeed be gratifying both 
 to me and to your Lordships^ that I should di- 
 late ; but in this place, and on this occasion, it 
 would be worse than superfluous. It would 
 seem to imply doubt and distrust, where none 
 can possibly exist. Living as they have lived, 
 among those whom I now address, they have 
 long since been well and thoroughly known to 
 you. But if there be in this numerous and 
 high assembly, a single individual, who enter- 
 tains the smallest apprehension on that subject, 
 of him I should request, that he would select 
 from among the six or seven distinguished per- 
 
 !'■■ 
 
 9 
 
 sonages in question, one name to which suspi- 
 cion has ever attached, or that he would state 
 any plausible ground, for the belief that any 
 thing but honour, advantage, security, and cre- 
 dit to ourselves, could arise from admitting 
 these ancient peers to the enjoyment of their 
 hereditary rights, and from obtaining to our- 
 selves, and to the public, the benefit of their co- 
 operation and assistance in the arduous con- 
 cerns of our country. 
 
 Your Lordships will be pleased to bear in 
 mind^ that no new concession is here asked, no 
 fresh privilege contended for. This is an ori- 
 ginal right, restricted, not forfeited ; suspended, 
 not destroyed: a right derived from the highest 
 sources, recognized by British jurisprudence, 
 and co-ordinate with the fundiamental prin- 
 ciples of our government itself. The ancient in- 
 heritance of these noble peers is inherent in their 
 persons, constitutionally annexed to their rank 
 and station, and of which they cannot even for 
 a moment be deprived, but by regular process 
 of law, or by extraordinary legislative interpo- 
 sition, grounded on overruling necessity. 
 
 I 
 
 !• 
 
10 
 
 The question here relates to an original right: 
 It is therefore incunibent upon those, who op- 
 pose this respectful, but confident claim, to 
 shew either that the exclusion was originally 
 founded on proof and conviction of some hei- 
 nous crime, corrupting in its source the stream 
 in which their rights have been transmitted to 
 them, or, that it was adopted for the necessary 
 security of the state, and cannot now be re- 
 scinded, without again exposing the community 
 to manifest and imminent danger. With re- 
 spect to the imputation of crime, who will now 
 allege it? Who is so ignorant of our own his- 
 tory, as not to know, that the guilt of those 
 horrible transactions, of which this exclusion 
 forms a part (stained as they are with the most 
 nefarious guilt), attaches to all who were in 
 any shape concerned in them, excepting only 
 on their unhap[)y victims? The ancestors of 
 these noble persons suflFered that sanguinary 
 persecution ; they themselves now labour under 
 this cruel and unjust degradation, in conse- 
 quence of the memorable, and infamous perju- 
 ries, of the execrable Titus Oates and his ac- 
 
 11 
 
 complices. It is to the crimes of those atro- 
 cious wretches, not to the principles of the Re- 
 volution, that we trace the exclusion of the Ro- 
 man Catholic peers from the enjoyment of their 
 ancient birthright. The principles of the Revo- 
 lution are abhorrent from such iniquities. The 
 act from which they pray to be relieved, pass- 
 ed not in the reign of William, but in that of 
 Charles; not one of the best, but one of the 
 worst monarchs that ever filled the English 
 throne : not in that era to which we look back 
 with pride and gratitude, but in that which ne- 
 ver can be remembered without shame and in- 
 di2:nation, without detestation and horror. 
 
 Greatly would it redound to the character 
 and honour of our country, were it possible, 
 that not only this gross injustice, of which these 
 noble persons now complain, but that with it, 
 every other trace and memorial of that humi- 
 liating portion of our history, could be torn from 
 our records, and obliterated from the remem- 
 brance of mankind ! But to the interests of 
 mankind itself, it is of far greater importance, 
 that the memory of these horrid crimes should 
 
 I 
 
 
12 
 
 13 
 
 be perpetaated, that they should remain to bear 
 witness against their actors, even to the latest 
 periods of the world ; fixed as a beacon and 
 land-mark to all succeeding generations, a 
 dreadful example of the excesses into which 
 men, otherwise moderate and virtuous, may be 
 hurried by the impulse of factious zeal and re- 
 ligious animosities; a memorable warning to 
 all public parties how wicked and how perilous 
 it is to irritate and to inflame these furious pas- 
 sions, to mix them in political contest, to arm 
 religious sects against each other in civil strife, 
 and to teach them reciprocally to palliate and 
 even to applaud their own injustice and cruelty, 
 on the detestable plea of retaliation against 
 their adversaries. 
 
 Among the transactions of which I have 
 been speaking, there are two principal acts 
 of the English Legislature for which it is im- 
 possible to account on any other ground but 
 from that evil principle. These acts, stand pro- 
 minent among the immediate consequences of 
 the gross imposture and astonishing delusion 
 of the Popish Plot, and of the shameful en- 
 
 1^ 
 
 couragement given by Parliament to that atro- 
 cious fabrication : one of them, I grieve to say 
 it, casts a deep and peculiar stain upon this as- 
 sembly. — It is nothing less than the judicial 
 
 MURDER OF ONE OF YOUR OWN MEMBERS, LoRD 
 
 Stafford, a peer venerable in age, unblemished 
 in character; accused on evidence unworthy 
 of credit in any case, and pursued with unre- 
 lenting fury to the scaffold, on a charge so ma- 
 nifestly absurd, contradictory, and impossible, 
 that no evidence could have established it to 
 the satisfaction of an impartial and calm tribu- 
 nal, resolute to discharge its duty in defiance 
 of popular delusion. And let me here remark, 
 that, when the cruelties exercised in former 
 ages under the sanction of popes or councils, 
 or of any other ecclesiastical or civil authority, 
 are referred to for the purpose of vilifying our 
 fellow Christians of the present day; those 
 who indulge in such remembrances would do 
 well to recollect with humiliation what may be 
 urged of such an act as this, committed in the 
 much later period of Charles II. and by the 
 ParliamentofEngland;— a criminal proceeding. 
 
 i 
 
 
 f 
 
14 
 
 carried on at the suit of the Coiunions ;— judged 
 by the Lords;— and executed under the autho- 
 rity of the Crown: but of which Mr. Fox has 
 truly said, that it casts an indelible disgrace on 
 all concerned in it, king; parliament; judges; 
 juries; witnesses; and prosecutors. 
 
 Nor was this act, horrible as it was, the ju- 
 dicial murder of a peer, the only crime to which 
 these iniquities gave birth. It was on the same 
 monstrous evidence of Gates and his accom- 
 plices, imputing the same impossible guilt, that 
 many other such murders were committed by 
 the other tribunals of the land; and it was on 
 the same ground, and under the influence of the 
 same blind, but too voluntary delusion, that 
 Parliament, unsated with individual vengeance, 
 proceeded to enact that general disqualifying 
 statute which at this hour excludes these peti- 
 tioners from their birthright.— A law of high 
 and severe punishment, but in which, not even 
 the most ordinary forms of justice w-ere ob- 
 served. There was in this case no trial ; — no sen- 
 tence ; — no attainder ; — but the legislature act- 
 ing in blind subserviency to the maddened fury 
 
 r 
 
 15 
 
 of the moment, visited on the whole body of 
 the peers professing the Roman Catholic reli- 
 gion ; men innocent, untried, some of them un- 
 accused ; the same foul and false imputations 
 on which they proceeded to the unjust destruc- 
 tion of an individual. 
 
 This cruel statute is the second of the two 
 Acts of that period of which I have spoken : 
 the first indeed in date, and second only to the 
 other in injustice ; and it is from this that these 
 Petitioners now pray to be relieved. Is it pos- 
 sible that you can refuse their prayer ? An un- 
 just prescription was established against the 
 innocent of former times, will you maintain it 
 against their descendants? — men not merely 
 blameless, but worthy of all honour ? what 
 would this be, but to declare our own adherence 
 to these transactions, and seemingly to counte- 
 nance, what in reality you most condemn, the 
 guilt and shame of their original contrivers ? 
 
 Your Lordships contemplate with horror the 
 murder of Lord Stafford — will you continue 
 to punish HIS descendants for a crime of which 
 he could not by possibility have been guilty? will 
 
 f 
 
16 
 
 you refuse to the descendants of that most in- 
 nocent and injured nobleman^ and to the de- 
 scendants of his fellow-sufferers, that portion 
 of justice which it is still within your power to 
 extend to them? — will you sanction by your 
 own authority, will you adopt as your own act, 
 all that still remains to be executed of that 
 enormous and unexampled wrong? 
 
 The wisdom of this country, and its humanity, 
 which is its best wisdom, has, I rejoice to say it, 
 in our day, been prone to a reversal of attainders, 
 even of those whose justice was unquestioned : 
 but here are cases of continued and protracted 
 punishment, where nothing but innocence can 
 be traced through the long track of proscrip- 
 tion ; cases, in which men of the highest birth 
 and character are still deprived of their inheri- 
 tance, in consequence of an unjust prejudice, 
 resting solely on the evidence of the most infa- 
 mous witnesses, and in a case, in which the in- 
 nocence of the accused was, only four years 
 after his execution, solemnly recognized and 
 declared by his judges ! 
 
 My Lords, it cannot be upon this ground of 
 
 I 
 
 f®:; 
 
 17 
 
 pretended guilt, no one can be found to argue 
 for the maintenance of this proscription. 
 
 Is it possible then, that any public necessity 
 can be alleged in its support ? How is it that 
 the restoration of justice to the innocent, is to 
 produce danger to the state ? What, can the 
 state be endangered by the admission of the 
 Duke of Norfolk to the full enjoyment of his 
 ancient and hereditary honours?— Will the in- 
 terests of the Crown; will the dignity of this 
 House ; will the authority of parliamtiU; or will 
 the mixed and venerable Constitution of our 
 Country suffer from ^25 taking his place amongst 
 us, as the first in rank and dignity, even in this 
 great and high assembly ?— Will the glory of the 
 English name be tarnished, or will the heroic 
 ardourofits present champion be discouraged by 
 ourrecalHng the Earl of Shrewsbury to the 
 functions of that dignity which he derives from 
 his great ancestor, the reward, as we are told in 
 history, of more than forty victories gained in 
 the service of our country ? 
 
 But I rest too long on this point; this notion 
 of danger from the admission of right, this 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 supposed duty of denying justice lest evil 
 should ensue, is unworthy even of an argu- 
 ment in this place. Your Lordships know, 
 all who hear me know, that no such danger 
 
 really does exist. 
 
 I forbear, therefore, to press these topics far- 
 ther ; I will say nothing at this time of the con- 
 stitutional tendency, of that precedent, which 
 Parliament has left us by this statute ; a pre- 
 cedent of suspending without crime, and with- 
 out necessity, those legislative functions which 
 the constitution had created. A precedent, well 
 worthy the deliberate reflection of those whofeel 
 as your Lordships do, that your hereditary right 
 to share in the councils of our country, is not 
 given for the gratification of individual vanity, 
 or the exaltation of personal dignity ; but on 
 principles of the highest public policy, and for 
 the most important benefit to the interests of 
 the whole community. 
 
 The grievance which I have now been endea- 
 vouring to recommend to the favourable atten- 
 tion of your Lordships, forms however but a 
 small part of the great measure, on which we 
 
 
 I 
 
 1: 
 
 19 
 
 are this day deliberating. I feel deeply for 
 these noble persons ; their case is, in my judg- 
 ment, one of almost unexampled injustice and 
 cruelty ; but let no man imagine, that I wish to 
 confine to them the redress which is asked for 
 all. I am unalterably convinced, that much 
 more than the remedy of this partial wrong is 
 the necessary duty of Parliament. There truly 
 is a state necessity which does apply to this 
 whole subject — the necessity of doing full and 
 speedy justice to the great body of these our 
 fellow-subjects. Until this be done, the peril 
 is, in my judgment, imminent ; and it is conti- 
 nually increasing. The mischiefs already pro- 
 duced by the past unhappy disappointments of 
 this measure are infinite and irremediable; and 
 in every hour's delay there is a rapid progres- 
 sion of accumulating evil. 
 
 Printed bj J. P, Dove, St. John's Sqaare. 
 
I 
 
 
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