Note 1424 — Chapter X · RISE OF CIVIL MARRIAGE

21 Geo. III., c. 53: Statutes at Large, VIII, 83. In the debate on the bill for this act Mr. Charles James Fox, "who appears," says Burn, "to have possessed an hereditary opposition to the Marriage Act of 1753," declared "that all persons who had solemnized marriages in any of these new chapels were at present liable to transportation. Under danger of that penalty stood ... a vast number of clergymen, and some prelates in the Upper House; but as America would not receive them, they must go to the Justitia Hulk, which to be sure would be a terrible thing, and he hoped the house would interfere to save these reverend, and right reverend gentlemen from so horrible a fate. It was an absolute fact that several, if not all, of the Bishops had transgressed in this way; and by the bye, the House might have the mortification to see Bishops in their lawn sleeves, instead of preaching the word, heaving ballast on the Thames."—Burn, op. cit., 32, 33, note.