disposed to
believe that Popery had a pernicious influence on the moral character?

On these grounds many of the most eminent Roman Catholics of that age,
and among them the Supreme Pontiff, were of opinion that the interest
of their Church in our island would be most effectually promoted by a
moderate and constitutional policy. But such reasoning had no effect on
the slow understanding and imperious temper of James. In his eagerness
to remove the disabilities under which the professors of his religion
lay, he took a course which convinced the most enlightened and tolerant
Protestants of his time that those disabilities were essential to the
safety of the state. To his policy the English Roman Catholics owed
three years of lawless and insolent triumph, and a hundred and forty
years of subjection and degradation.

Many members of his Church held commissions in the newly raised
regiments. This breach of the law for a time passed uncensured: for men
were not disposed to note every irregularity which was committed by
a King suddenly called upon to defend his crown and his life against
rebels. But the danger was now over. The insurgents had been vanquished
and punished. Their unsuccessful attempt had strengthened the government
which they had hoped to overthrow. Yet still James continued to grant
commissions to unqualified persons; and speedily it was announced that
he was determined to be no longer bound by the Test Act, that he hoped
to induce the Parliament to repeal that Act, but that, if the Parliament
proved refractory, he would not the less have his own way.

As soon as this was known, a deep murmur, the forerunner of a tempest,
gave him warning that the spirit before which his grandfather, his
father, and his brother had been compelled to recede, though dormant,
was not extinct. Opposition appeared first in the cabinet. Halifax did
not attempt to conceal his disgust and alarm. At the Council board
he courageously gave utterance to those feelings which, as it soon
appeared, pervaded the whole nation. None of his colleagues seconded
him; and the subject dropped. He was summoned to the royal closet, and
had two long conferences with his master. James tried the effect of
compliments and blandishments, but to no purpose. Halifax positively
refused to promise that he would give his vote in the House of Lords for
the repeal either of the Test Act or of the Habeas Corpus Act.

Some of those who were about the King advised