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that the document to which you refer, is not an oration delivered at Douay, but, as it is justly styled by Strype, "Campian's letter to the privy "council, offering to avow and prove his catholic religion before all the doctors and masters of "both universities, and requiring a disputation." This circumstance alone makes some difference ;but it is more important, that the words, "to "trouble your calm and safety," are an absolute interpolation. They do not occur in Strype*, or in doctor Bridgewater's version of the letter: "Omnes nos qui sumus de Societate Jesu per "totum terrarum orbem, longè lateque diffusi, "sanctum fœdus inesse, ut curas quam nobis inje"cistis, magno animo feramus, neque unquam de "vestra salute desperemus, quamdiu vel unus quis

quam de nobis superest, qui Tyburno vestro fruatur, atque suppliciis vestris excarnificari, "carceribusque squalere et consumi possit†.”

Strype's Annals, 111. App. 6.

+"Epistola Edmundi Campioni, sacerdotis Societatis Jesu, "ad Regina Angliæ Consiliarios, quæ profectiones suæ in "Angliam, institutum declarat, et adversarios in certamen "provocat, ex Anglico sermone Latine tradita." Bridgewater's Concertatio, p. 1, 2.

XV. 4.

Justification of the Persecutions, on the ground of the traitorous Principles of the Foreign Seminarists, and the general Disloyalty of the Roman-catholics.

FROM the beginning of the reign of queen Elizabeth, until even the thirty-first year of the reign of his late majesty, no school, for the education of catholic youth in catholic principles, could be supported, without exposing both the masters and the scholars to the very heavy penalties of forfeiture of goods and chattels, with one year's imprisonment, for the first offence; to the penalties of a premunire for the second; and to death for the third. This made it absolutely necessary to establish foreign seminaries for educating persons for the sacred ministry.

Το

You consider them as seminaries of disloyalty. Mr. Hume avers, in still stronger language, that "sedition, rebellion, sometimes assassination, were "the expedients by which the seminarists intended "to effect their purpose against their queen." these atrocious charges, seven unquestionable facts may be opposed:-1. that, of two hundred catholics who suffered for their religion in the reign of queen Elizabeth, one only impugned her title to the crown: 2. that they all, to the instant of their deaths, persisted in the most solemn and explicit denial of every

legal guilt, except the mere exercise of their functions: 3. that their accusers were uniformly persons of bad lives, and of the lowest character: 4. that there is not one instance, in which the tortures inflicted on them produced, either a confession of his own guilt, or a charge of guilt on others: 5. that the barbarous irregularity with which their trials were conducted has seldom been equalled: 6. that even this irregularity never furnished legal evidence of their commission of any legal treason, except, as we have already noticed, a mere exercise of missionary functions: 7, and that even this was seldom proved upon them by competent evidence. The perusal of their trials will convince you of the truth of these assertions.

To what we have said, we should add the most solemn asseverations of doctor Allen, in his "True " and modest Defence of the English Catholics "against a libel, intitled, the Execution of Justice "in England,-that all conversations on subjects "of state or policy, were strictly prohibited to the "students in the foreign seminaries, and that they "were enjoined to abstain from them, and from "all interference in secular concerns, when they "should be employed in the English mission."

I now request your candid opinion, whether you think there is any ground for your charge of disloyalty against the seminarists?

Permit me to add, that this completely repels your accusation, that the priests were executed for

treason. That expression conveys an idea, that the treason upon which the missionaries suffered, was some act made treasonable by the antient law of the land, or by the statute of 25 of Edward III. commonly called "the Statute of Treasons." Your readers certainly understand your expression in this sense; but not one of the missionary priests suffered for any act of this description. The only acts for which they suffered were those, which the statutes of Elizabeth had made treasonable,―as, denying her spiritual authority, remaining in or returning to England, or some other spiritual observance. Now, if the priests had not remained in or returned to England, the English roman-catholics would have been without instruction, without the sacraments, and without the rites of their church. To remain in, or return to England was, therefore, the duty of the catholic priesthood; and for some act of this religious duty,-but for no act of any other kind, were they executed. Thus, if you say they were hanged and embowelled, not for being priests, but for being traitors, then, as their being priests was the sole cause of their being traitors, they were, in truth, hanged and embowelled for being priests *.

* This is sir Walter Scott's judicious observation, in his edition of Dryden's works, vol. 3, p. 237, note xv.

The justice of the execution of the priests, on the ground suggested in the text, was asserted by lord Burghley in a state paper, published by him in 1583, intitled, "The Execu"tion of Justice," inserted in the Harleian Collection. To this, cardinal Allen triumphantly replied, by his "True,

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XV. 5.

Justification of the Persecution of the Roman-catholics in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, on the ground of the persecuting Principles and Practices of their Church.

On this subject you write with great strength and eloquence, but without citing any authority. This defect I will supply, by confessing that the romancatholics have sometimes been guilty of the crime, (for such I deem it), of religious persecution. But did not justice and candour require of you to admit the equal guilt, in this respect, of protestants? Have not the protestants persecuted the romancatholics, and even their fellow protestants, in every country in which they have obtained the ascendancy, as in Germany, Switzerland, Geneva, France, Holland, Sweden, Scotland and England? You mention the sanguinary executions of protestants in the Low-Countries, by the order of the merciless duke of Alva; these I reprobate as much as yourself: but why are you silent on the executions, equally, and I believe, more sanguinary, of the roman-catholics by the order of Vandermerck and Sonoi in Belgium and Holland? or on the persecuting deeds and writings of Calvin, Beza and other reformers? You mention the massacre on St. Bartholomew's day:

"sincere and modest Defence of Christian Catholics." The cardinal's publication was universally read and admired. The style is admirable: the learned Edmund Bolton called it, "A princely, grave and flourishing piece of natural and "exquisite English."