cusants, or persons educated in the Popish religion, or
whose parents are Papists, or who shall profess the Popish religion, in
lieu of all forfeitures already incurred for or upon account of their
recusancy." This singular method of infusing loyalty into the Roman
Catholics of England was not allowed to be adopted without serious and
powerful resistance in the House of Commons. The idea was not to devise
a new penalty for the Catholics, but to put in actual operation the terms
of a former penalty pronounced against them in Elizabeth's time, and not
then pressed into execution. This fact was dwelt upon with much emphasis
by the advocates of the penal motion. Why talk of religious persecution?
they asked. This is not religious persecution; it is only putting in
force an edict passed in a former reign to punish Roman Catholics for
political rebellion. This way of putting the case seems only to make the
character of the policy more clear and less justifiable. The Catholics
of King George's time were to be mulcted indiscriminately because the
Catholics of Queen Elizabeth's time had been declared liable to such a
penalty. The Master of the Rolls, to his great credit, strongly opposed
the resolution. Walpole supported it with all the weight of his argument
and his influence. The plot was evidently a Popish plot, he contended,
and although he was not prepared to accuse any English Catholic in
particular of taking part in it, yet there could be no doubt that Papists
in general were well-wishers to it, and that some of them had contributed
large sums towards it. Why, then, should they not be made to reimburse
some part of the expense to which they and the friends of the Pretender
had put the nation? The resolution, after it had been reported from
committee, was only carried in the whole House by 188 votes against 172.
[Sidenote: 1723--Lord Cowper's opposition] The resolution was embodied in
a bill, and the Bill, when it went up to the House of Lords, was opposed
there by several of the Peers, and especially by Lord Cowper, the
"silver-tongued Cowper," who had {217} been so distinguished a Lord
Chancellor under Anne, and under George himself. Lord Cowper's was an
eloquent and a powerful speech. It tore to pieces the wretched web of
flimsy sophistry by which the supporters of the Bill endeavored to make
out that it was not a measure of religious persecution. Indeed, there
were some of these who insisted that, so far fr