e prejudice of the dissenters. Dr. Hoadley,
bishop of Bangor, endeavoured to prove that the occasional and schism
acts were in effect persecuting laws; and that by admitting the
principle of self-defence and self-preservation in matters of religion,
all the persecutions maintained by the heathens against the professors
of Christianity, and even the popish inquisition, might be justified.
With respect to the power of which many clergymen appeared so fond and
so zealous, he owned the desire of power and riches was natural to all
men; but that he had learned both from reason and from the gospel, that
this desire must be kept within due bounds, and not intrench upon the
rights and liberties of their fellow-creatures and countrymen. After a
long debate, the house agreed to leave out some clauses concerning the
test and corporation acts: then the bill was committed, and afterwards
passed. In the lower house it met with violent opposition, in spite of
which it was carried by the majority.

WAR DECLARED AGAINST SPAIN.

The king on the seventeenth day of December, sent a message to the
commons, importing that all his endeavours to procure redress for
the injuries done to his subjects by the king of Spain having proved
ineffectual, he had found it necessary to declare war against that
monarch. When a motion was made for an address, to assure the king they
would cheerfully support him in the prosecution of the war, Mr. Shippen
and some other members said, they did not see the necessity of involving
the nation in a war on account of some grievances of which the merchants
complained, as these might be amicably redressed. Mr. Stanhope assured
the house that he had presented five-and-twenty memorials to the
ministry of Spain on that subject without success. Mr. Methuen accounted
for the dilatory proceeds of the Spanish court in commercial affairs, by
explaining the great variety of regulations in the several provinces
and ports of that kingdom. It was suggested that the ministry paid very
little regard to the trade and interest of the nation, inasmuch as it
appeared by the answer from the secretary of state to the letter of the
marquis de Monteleone, that they would have overlooked the violation
of the treaties of commerce, provided Spain had accepted the conditions
stipulated in the quadruple alliance; for it was there expressly said,
that his majesty the king of Great Britain did not seek to aggrandize
himself by any new acqu