slavery acted on towards their nearest relations, and that they have not the heart to stand up in this House and denounce that tyranny, and ask our assistance to take off their fetters. I cannot believe that if the evil referred to had existed to any extent, the Roman Catholic gentlemen of this country would not themselves have come to this House and asked us to pass a law in order to establish the freedom of their own near relations. For these reasons, Sir, I should be sorry to consent to the introduction of a Bill on this subject. But is that all the objection? Does the objection end with that statement? No; I think the objection goes a great deal further than this. It is not only that the persons of the Roman Catholic persuasion do not come and ask us to interfere on behalf of their female relatives, said to be detained in prison, but it is evident that they would feel it as a serious injury, and somewhat of an insult, if we were to attempt the passing of such a law. If we are to have any law on the subject if any remedy is required, let it be a remedy that will apply to the whole nation. Let the Habeas Corpus Act be made more complete let there be fitter means for all persons, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, who are confined against their will, obtaining the interposition of a court of justice; but such is not the remedy which this Bill proposes. When such a remedy is proposed, it will be time enough for the House of Commons to consider its necessity. But it is proposed that application should be made to the Executive Government of the country-that the authority of the Secretary of State should be interposed, and that he should be asked to send down to those houses containing nuns, an inspector, armed with the power of investigation, if required. Well, I say that a remedy like this, differing from the ordinary laws of the land, and put in force by a Secretary of State, who may be called upon by the House to interfere in any case which may be got up by a popular gust of passion in the country-such Secretary of State belonging to a party who may possibly be favourable to Roman Catholics, but who, on the other hand, may possibly be hostile to them--I say, that such a power could hardly be used without exciting feelings of great indignation on the part of Roman Catholics that their religious institutions were unduly interfered with, and that not for any purpose of public policy, still less for any purpose of public necessity. You

have heard some symptoms of those feelings in the declaration made by two hon. Members to-night, that if such inspection were authorised by Parliament, those who belonged to those institutions would immediately quit both this country and Ireland, and would establish themselves in other countries where they would not be liable to that inspection. I cannot conceive such an event happening-I cannot conceive the sisters and near relations of the Roman Catholic gentry of these two countries leaving this kingdom, without exciting the strongest feelings of resentment on the part of the gentry and middle orders both of this country and of Ireland. And I cannot conceive those who have conducted the education-those who have attended the hospitals and institutions for the sick

all at once going out as exiles from this country, without producing in the minds of the lower classes who have received the benefit of their ministration the strongest feeling that they are suffering a grievance at the hand of the Parliament of this country. Sir, I believe that our interference on this subject is likely to produce bad effects. I can see no sufficient reason for saying that the general law of this country is not ample for the protection of the personal liberty of all the subjects of this country. I see no reason to think so ill of our Roman Catholic fellow countrymen as to believe that they would behold without complaint their near relations immured against their will, or confined in contravention of the law, and to the destruction of their health and comfort. So feeling, Sir, upon this subject-having had before in this House a very similar Bill-seeing no likelihood that the present Bill would be at all more satisfactory to me than the Bill against which I voted two years ago— I must refuse my assent to the introduction of this measure.

LORD EDWARD F. HOWARD said, he was so much at a loss to conceive the object of the hon. Gentleman who had introduced this Motion, that he believed hardly any but themselves and those who happened to be in the secret with them, could have conceived that a Bill of this nature was about to be introduced. His reason, however, for obtruding himself at that time on the attention of the House, was to be found in the allusion which had been made by several hon. Members. One of them had quoted the case of a near and dear relation of his own-a much nearer and dearer relation was she of his (Lord E.

Howard's) own. Upon that point he should first meet the observation made by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. C. Berkeley). He (Lord E. Howard) did not know, he had not had time to ask, and if he had, he did not know whether he should have asked the lady in question, whether she was prevented from seeing the hon. Gentleman alone, while she was an inmate of the convent; but this he could say, that she had no wish to see him alone. He was obliged to the hon. Member for Cork (Serjeant Murphy) for the kind way in which he had adverted to these circumstances, and also to the hon. Member for Dundalk (Mr. Bowyer). The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate), however, took upon him to say that it was against her will that the person alluded to had been in a convent at all; and whether he mentioned that on his own authority, or upon the authority of the hon. Member for Cheltenham, he did not know.

MR. NEWDEGATE: I would not have said such a thing for the world. I relied upon the statements of the hon. Member for Cheltenham, and upon the correspondence which appeared in the newspapers.

LORD E. HOWARD said, he was not aware that any correspondence had appeared in the newspapers to that effect. Certainly he (Lord E. Howard) was by no means a bad authority, and he said that she had not been detained there against her will; and she had frequently referred not only to the period of her own experience, but also to the peace of mind and happiness which she had witnessed in those who live in such an abode; and so little did she regret her connexion with it, that she still carried on-oh it is disgraceful in English gentlemen to bring forward these private matters. I say it is disgraceful that I am obliged to bring forward the personal affairs of my own household to rebut these false accusations. I was going to say that she still carries on communication with many dear and esteemed inmates of that place. So far, he (Lord Edward Howard) thought, he had taken away a portion of the ground upon which hon. Gentlemen had based their arguments to show the necessity for this Bill. For the sake of these Gentlemen themselves, he wished they had stronger ground than that which he had been dealing with. A few other cases had been introduced by other hon. Members, who, if he might say so, ought to take great care to investigate the truth of the story, in each case, before they

upon

made use of it as evidence. He knew not what might have followed if he had not met at the outset the observations made upon his own case; and many examples had been quoted of the same kind-fictitious stories, like that of Maria Monk, which were fabricated and put into the hands of persons but too credulous and too much disposed to listen to them. If the House would pardon him, he might say a word or two further. For instance, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate), began with a detailed conversation, which, when he heard it, he might have thought he was listening to one of the imaginary conversations of Landor, about great quantities of iron that had been ordered for a convent. He might be allowed to remind him, that iron useful for keeping people in the house, might be as useful for keeping others out of it. Although there was nothing like riches or property to tempt intruders in their search after wealth into these houses, yet when they were aware, as they had heard, that these places were called "hells earth "and aware of the statements put forth in papers of the National Club, and other humbugs, coupled with statements spread abroad, as the hon. Member had done, of what was transacted in America by Lynch law, and the like-added to the spirited exertions of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Spooner) near him, par nobile fratrum, at Exeter-hall - the friends of these houses might not be without a reason for making them safe against assault. He trusted the hon. Gentleman who introduced this Motion did not go the length of entertaining those views. They were ready enough to take up anything that seemed to make for their case; but let them attend to what was said on the other side. He trusted he would be allowed, as a humble Member of that House, and a Roman Catholic, to thank the noble Lord, if he would permit him to call him, his right hon. Friend (Lord J. Russell), for a speech that stood out prominent from the narrow bigotry which the House had been obliged to hear expressed, and for giving credit to those ladies for the motives which actuated them, and for the works of mercy which they lived to perform-retaining no wish, and, having divested themselves of the means of passing a life of luxury, and fearing no infection, contented to spend themselves and their time in the houses of the poor and the sick. If the hon. and learned Gentleman

who had brought in this Bill, who was well travelled in Acts of Parliament, had travelled only across the water, he would have seen these sisters of charity at large in the streets-and yet he talked of nuns being confined; he would have seen on the Continent thousands abroad engaged in acts of charity, wherever the need of charity was to be found, so that if they wished to run away, surely the greatest facilities were offered them for doing so. Oh, shame upon such nonsense! He begged pardon of the hon. Gentleman, with whom he had no acquaintance; he might be an amiable person he had no doubt that both he and those who acted with him were amiable people-but such persons were liable to have their minds perverted, and consequences might follow from this course other than they had wished. He knew in this very town an institution in which a few poor nuns took charge of the most wretched and oldest of the poor-who nursed and attended those who otherwise would be without solace or comfort upon their deathbeds. Those poor nuns did not even eat other things than were left after providing for the sustenance of those under their care; and that which they obtained in the first instance were but the odds and ends obtained from the kitchens of the rich and the charitably disposed. These were cases which, he thought, entitled these ladies to some credit at least. He thanked the House for the kindness with which they had heard him. He was not accustomed to intrude upon the House; and if he had said anything in a more vehement way than the occasion called for, he begged pardon: he did not regret the sense of what he had said, but only the manner in which he might have said it. But he must say that, knowing what he did, and seeing the efforts which were made to throw discountenance upon charitable institutions, and to bring into a false light things which were not susceptible of such an interpretation, it certainly made him feel very warmly upon the subject.

MR. DRUMMOND said, his chief objection to this Bill was, that it would be, like the Bill introduced two years ago, utterly inefficacious. He did not believe in the power of any legislation by that House to make any amelioration of the system against which this measure was directed, or to separate that which was good from that which was bad in monastic institutions. He could not go the whole length many hon. Gentlemen did in blaming them,

for he had seen the advantages of the Sisters of Charity, and other orders of that kind, abroad. He knew how much the recovery of the sick and wounded in foreign hospitals was owing to these ladies, and he knew how much the recovery of the sick and maimed in this country was retarded from the want of those who would nurse them for motives of charity instead of gain. Besides this, as he had previously stated, he did not think that any legislation on the subject would be effective-the case was so full of difficulty. When they brought in the Emancipation Act they made clauses as strong as they could against Jesuits and against monasteries; and yet they were increasing every year, and laughing in our faces. His objection to these institutions was not made on exclusively Protestant or exclusively Catholic grounds. He did not look at them from a religious point of view, as things relating either to sects or to Christianity; but he laid down this abstract doctrine, that it never could be right to lock up a number of women in a house, with bolts and bars, and then to give the key of it to any one man, Catholic or Protestant, layman or priest. That was what he objected to; but hon. Gentlemen would turn round and say, there are no such chains and locks in this country. He would simply say that was the case, because in this country they had not their own way at present; but the establishment of these institutions was intended as a step towards their having their own way. There was a difficulty in proving cases here; there would be none if they would accept cases from foreign countries-from any place where the power of the priesthood was predominant. Hon. Gentlemen opposite might dissent from that opinion; the power of denial in some hon. Gentlemen was most marvellous; and the only way in which he could account for it was by supposing that Dr. Wiseman was correct, when he stated in a recent number of the Dublin Review that Catholic laymen knew very much better than to read books they had no business to read. They were not allowed to know anything about the matter-not allowednot allowed. [Laughter.] He must not be interrupted by Gentlemen sent there by a particular order. He thought it wrong, he said, that there should be anywhere a number of the Queen's subjects who could not appeal to Her for protection-he cared not by what means, through the police, the constable, the magistrates, or others. He thought that their being prevented from so

doing by any machinery whatever was a great evil. The affections had been spoken of, as if the affection of friends were a sufficient safeguard for the inmates of nunneries. But even the affections were not always to be relied on. What was more sacred than parental affection? And yet did they not see daily from the police reports that there were many parents so dead to parental affection as to misuse their children, to starve them, to produce their death by systematic cruelty, even to put them to death, in order to gain the burial fee? And did they think that parental affection was stronger among the higher classes than among the lower? That might happen here which he had seen in other countries; and abroad he had seen parents force some of their daughters into convents, that other favourite daughters might have larger jointures, and might be better provided for in the world. He believed there were many such instances; and he said there ought to be some remedy for them. As to a mere inspection of convents, it would be only diversion to the inmates for a month afterwards. But he would tell the House something of what went on even in the countries where there was some danger of exposure to Protestant eyes. This was a statement made to him by a priest who had left the Roman Catholic Church. ["Oh, oh!"] He admitted it was suspicious. But this was what he wrote:

"

I had been a curate officiating in the Roman Catholic chapel of My niece was a boarder or pensioner in the school of the nunnery of from the age of four years to that of eighteen. As her personal guardian under her father's will, the duty devolved on me to ascertain from that young lady her intentions relative to her future state of life. I accordingly invited her to breakfast at my lodging in the chapel-house of that chapel, and put the question to her, Do you intend retiring into a nunnery or living in the world? Nunneries,' she replied, are not such good places as you imagine. I would not pass my life in one of them for any consideration. As to the nuns, they are continnally in a state of strife with each other; and the crimes committed by the young ladies, the boarders, are too shocking to relate. I assure you that such things are frequent among them.' I accordingly, with her approbation, placed her at a boarding school of high reputation in Dublin, where she remained until she married."

They were, in fact, useful as one great means by which the Popish treasury was kept supplied; that was the reason of their being kept up; not a bit for the sake of having ladies passing their lives in devotion. There was no grist behind that mill. Another document would explain

another case. This was from a person whose name he could not give:

"Some time after the death of our young friend in Martinique we received a letter from an old and esteemed correspondent there, informing us that he had received a letter from the lady in the con

vent, expressing her gratitude to him for all that deceased partner's family, and further stating that there was a sum of 3001. due by that gentleman, her departed relative, to a family in Cork, who had suffered a great reverse of circumstances; adding, that she was sure if he had lived it would she had not disposed herself of all her property, not have been allowed to remain unpaid; that, if she would gladly discharge the debt, and entreating him, as an act of the greatest charity, to pay the amount. Our friend reminded us of the many having no assets of his late partner's applicable to sums he had previously paid, and of the fact of his the purpose; but he added, that such was his respect for the family and for the lady in the convent, that, provided he felt satisfied after an interview with her, that the facts were as she supposed, of this letter my brother went to the convent and he authorised our paying the money. On receipt saw the lady. He stated that our friend had requested us to make inquiries touching the family she had named to him. She expressed her great surprise, and declared she knew nothing whatever the circumstances mentioned in our friend's letter, of any such family. My brother then told her all when she seemed confused, but still declared she knew nothing of the family, nor of these circumstances. My brother, on his return to our counting-house, told all this with very great surprise to us, and we wrote off at once to our friend, supposing that forgery and fraud had been practised upon him. In a few days after, or it may be the next day, we received a note from the convent in the same handwriting as usual, requesting Mr. C- would call upon the writer, which my brother did, and found the lady alone waiting to receive him, in a state of considerable agitation. The first question was, Mr. C, did you write to Martinique ?' My brother replied, 'I did.' The lady then said in almost an agony which astonished my brother, What shall I do? pray write off at once and say that the facts are all true, and that it was a silly mistake on my part.' My brother replied, How can this be, Miss? Is it true that you wrote the letter you told me you did not write; or is it possible that you knew the family of whom you told me you knew nothing? This seemed to throw her into almost a state of frenzy, and she replied, I suppose I must tell you all; the fact is I never put pen to paper since I entered this convent; one of our sisters manages all correspondence, who is appointed for that purpose. She knows all the facts, and that is quite the same as my knowing them, so do pray write and tell our friend that it is all true.' It was in vain that my brother told her that such an explanation would never satisfy our friend. She only repeated, it is all true, and pray write to tell him

he had done for her and various members of his

So.

My brother left her in this state, and on his return repeated the conversation in utter astonishment to us, and we wrote the whole as it occurred to our friend, who, in reply, thanked us for the course we had taken to protect him from the fraud intended, and stated that as he was then becoming an old man, it had been his intention to give up

his death."

These were the sort of things that were taught in these institutions, and these institutions their promoters would cling to, because they were one of the means by which they hoped to establish Popery here. Now, he had no doubt the country was not prepared for the only thing that was proper the entire suppression of monastic institutions. As to this Bill, he thought it wholly inefficacious. The question was a much wider one, as hon. Gentlemen opposite would admit. On the one hand it was determined to establish the canon law; on the other it was determined that it should never be established. Let them give each other credit for sincerity, and, stating the true question, deal with it, when the time came, on its merits.

MR. LUCAS said, he wished to express his acknowledgments to the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) for his extremely generous and able speech, which he thought must have perfectly settled the question in the minds of every impartial and rational person in that House. The case had completely fallen through; they had been asked to legislate, and no ground had been shown for legislation; no case had been proved, no attempt had been made to prove one, to warrant their interposition. Nay, the hon. and learned Gentleman who brought forward the Motion had told them he was destitute of proof, and that it was because he was destitute of proof that he wanted Commissioners to be appointed to go into the convents and obtain evidence. Where were the pretended, the imagined, the supposed facts that had been laid before them? There was the case given by the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Frewen) of a young lady put to the school of a convent by her own father, who ran away from school. Ran away from school! A case that did certainly sometimes happen in the world, but did not seem to him to require special legislation. There were other cases mentioned in another place"-one that of a boy, the other that of a young lady living in the world, and there was that mentioned by the Bishop of Norwich, which, however, bore no relation to this question. As to the statements made by the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Drummond), the hon. Member had read them, and they only

If they could show him that-if they could prove that they had a basis for their proceedings-that there was tyranny practised within convict walls-that there was any breach of the law there he would cordially join with them in their efforts for the removal of such evils. But they had no proof to offer-nothing but "cock-andbull" stories he begged pardon for such a low word, but the subject required one expressive of utter contempt-upon which to found their exceptional legislation. It was not necessary that a man should be Catholic or Protestant to form his opinion upon this question, for all must be of one mind when legislation was asked for, and no facts: nothing but anonymous statements were proffered as its groundwork. It was not for want of favourable circumstances they had not made out their case, for, for the last fourteen or fifteen years that he had carefully watched what was passing in the Catholic community, no year had passed without some case of alleged cruelty, mismanagement, or hardship being dragged before the world; but the moment it was investigated, it was found there was nothing in it, that it was a tissue of falsehood, and that the parties to the narrative were degraded and discreditable impostors. A crop of these facts came up every year. Persons of degraded and debased imaginations lived upon the filthy and abominable suspicions which formed the stock in trade of a certain class of so-called religious agitators, who made up a kind of spurious public opinion, which endeavoured to thrust itself upon that House. He had great respect for anything in the shape of English public opinion; but for that monstrous, and unnatural, and debased opinion which was represented out of doors by the Motions made on these subjects in the House, he had no respect whatever, but he regarded it with the greatest contempt. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) had expressed his wish to protect the Roman Catholics from Lynch law; but he (Mr. Lucas) would meet any proposal to protect them against Lynch law by legislation of this kind with the regard which its obvious seriousness demanded. He was sure that candid, rational, calmjudging Members on both sides would unite in putting an extinguisher upon an attempt at legislation which, if it were successful, would do no credit to the character of that assembly.