Note 267 — Chapter XV · ON THE REIGN OF WILLIAM III. (continued 2)

No opposition seems to have been made in the House of Commons; but we have a protest from four peers against it. Burnet, though he offers some shameful arguments in favour of the bill, such as might justify any tyranny, admits that it contained some unreasonable severities, and that many were really adverse to it. A bill proposed in 1705, to render the late act against papists effective, was lost by 119 to 43 (Parl. Hist. vi. 514); which shows that men were ashamed of what they had done. A proclamation, however, was issued in 1711, immediately after Guiscard's attempt to kill Mr. Harley, for enforcing the penal laws against Roman catholics, which was very scandalous, as tending to impute that crime to them. Boyer's Reign of Anne, p. 429. And in the reign of Geo. I. (1722) £100,000 was levied by a particular act on the estates of papists and non-jurors. This was only carried by 188 to 172; Sir Joseph Jekyll and Mr. Onslow, afterwards speaker, opposing it, as well as Lord Cowper in the other house. 9 G. I. c. 18; Parl. Hist. viii. 51, 353. It was quite impossible that those who sincerely maintained the principles of toleration should long continue to make any exception; though the exception in this instance was wholly on political grounds, and not out of bigotry, it did not the less contravene all that Taylor and Locke had taught men to cherish.