daughters; if one of these is betrayed by those infirmities of our common nature, how is the father to protect the honour of the rest? Will he think its security too dearly bought by the sufferings of the guilty? How is it to be secured at all, if this guilt is generally to escape with impunity?-But, my Lords, I address you not as fathers individually: I say, that the innocence of daughters is a matter in which fathers ought to make a common cause; and the feelings of the individual must be sacrificed, when the occasion requires it, to the common interest.

My Lords, once more I conjure you to remember, that justice, not compassion for the guilty, is the great principle of legislation. Yet, my Lords, your compassion may find worthy objects: Turn, my Lords, your merciful regards to the illustrious suppliants prostrate at this moment

U

the Sex!

at your bar,-Conjugal Fidelity, Domestic Happiness, Public Manners, the Virtue of These, my Lords, are the suppliants now kneeling before you, and imploring the protection of your wisdom and your justice."

The bill was carried, by a majority of eight; seventy-seven peers voting for it, sixty-nine against it.

UPON THE BILL TO PREVENT THE INCREASE OF PAPISTS, AND TO REGULATE THE EXISTING MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS;

JULY 10, 1800.

A BILL having passed the House of Commons, entitled "an act to prevent any addition to the number of persons belonging to certain foreign religious orders or communities lately settled in this kingdom, and to regulate the education of youth by such persons," the same was moved for commitment in the Upper House on the 10th of July 1800. The framers of this bill contended, that the growth of Popery had come to such an excess by the toleration granted to the emigrant clergy and the exiled monks and nuns of France, that

strong measures were required to stop it. The bill therefore provided, that the temporary residents in the several monasteries in the kingdom be subject to the provisions of the alien act; that the names and numbers of all such persons be returned to the magistrates in their respective districts; that the farther extension of such institutions should be prohibited; that the heads of all such monasteries return their names, &c. together with that of their pupils, at every quarter-sessions; and that magistrates should in their districts inspect the same. The bill was strongly opposed

by the Bishop of ROCHESTER, in the following words.

"MY LORDS,

"If I have not opposed the

second reading of this bill, it is because I

conceive that your Lordships are seldom clearly informed of the principle of a bill till it has been read a second time. The first reading is little more than a notification that a bill for such or such a purpose is in the House; and, at this period of the session, we are so little in the habit of a close attendance upon our Parliamentary duty, that it happens to many of your Lordships not to see the prints that are laid upon the table till within a few minutes of the second reading. But the bill having now received its second reading, I must suppose your Lordships to be in complete possession of its principle; and I rise without the least hesitation to oppose its farther progress. In this, my Lords, I shall labour under this particular disadvantage, that none of the friends of the bill having taken the trouble to open what they take to be its merits, I can only guess