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    pose tfoe smallest diminution of the Act of Toleration ; and encouraged by the noble declaration of the Prince Regent , that he will deliver the constitution unaltered

    to his father , they trust that' the proposed innovation will never obtain the sanction of his his > h authority . These resolutions do not seem to have at all affected Lo&b Sidmouth , and the second reading

    of the bill came on the 17 th , when Earl Staniippe intreated that a bill of such importance might not be hurried through the house It professed to state the law respecting toleration , but there was

    in it a proposition contrary to-the law of the land . Earl Grey also desired time to be given for the petitioners in so important a measure ^ a measure which under all the circumstances of the times had been better avoided altogether . Lord Sid mouth consented , that

    the bill should be read a second time on the following Tuesday , Earl Grosvetstor conceived the general tendency of the bill to be useful , though some clauses in it might require amendment . Lsrd Sidmouth declared the object

    K . W of the bill to be the strengthening of that respect , in which religion ought always to be helct , and not the infringement of toleration . The bill was deferred to the Tuesday , and on that day the' table

    and floor or the House 01 Lords presented a sight by no means agreeable to the agitator of this question . Earls Stanhope , Grey , Moira , Lauderdale , R 0 S 3-ltn Lords Erskine , and Holland and the Marquis of

    La-hi-^ L . jpowne presented each numerous petitions from all parts of England within-a sufficient distance from

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    310 State of Public Affairs *

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    London , and the Earl of Liveru pool threw a damper on the question , before its came on to be argued by statiiig , that the tolcra . tion laws were matters , on which

    he thought that the legislature should not touch unless it were from causes of paramount necessity ; and he could see no such cause at present , but so much disquietude occasioned by the bill , that he hoped it would not be

    pressed farther . Lord Sidmouth was not however to be put by , as he had been encouraged he said to this act of his by the opinions of respectable persons , of magistrates and judges : he intended to do

    nothing , but what was with a view to secure the toleration of Protestant Dissenters , as well as to support the church of England , of which he gloried in being a member . He was surprised , that the dissenters should think his motion inconsistent with the wise and just

    enactments of the toleration laws . He could not allow , that the legislature had not a right to interfere with persons taking upon themselves the office of teachers , though he thought laws ' would be intolerant , which limited jeligious

    doctrines . The Archbishop of Canterbury declared his abhorrence of every species of religious persecution , and considered religious coercion to be not only ^ j i * absurd and impolitic , but tor V ^ M fc . A m __ . I -v I -

    ^ all good purposes impractical-The number of the petitions m the House , shewed the alarm that the Bill had excited amongst the dissenters , against whose consent he thought it ought not to be pressed . Lord Eiisiline

    contended that the Bill was repugnant to the letter and spirit oHbc Toleration Act , the great palladium

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1811, page 310, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2416/page/54/