In order that our readers may be fully competent to appreciate
the merits of this defence, we will state, as concisely as
possible, the substance of some of these laws.

As soon as Elizabeth ascended the throne, and before the least
hostility to her government had been shown by the Catholic
population, an act passed prohibiting the celebration of the
rites of the Romish Church on pain of forfeiture for the first
offence, of a year's imprisonment for the second, and of
perpetual imprisonment for the third.

A law was next made in 1562, enacting, that all who had ever
graduated at the Universities or received holy orders, all
lawyers, and all magistrates, should take the oath of supremacy
when tendered to them, on pain of forfeiture and imprisonment
during the royal pleasure. After the lapse of three mouths, the
oath might again be tendered to them; and if it were again
refused, the recusant was guilty of high treason. A prospective
law, however severe, framed to exclude Catholics from the liberal
professions, would have been mercy itself compared with this
odious act. It is a retrospective statute; it is a retrospective
penal statute; it is a retrospective penal statute against a
large class. We will not positively affirm that a law of this
description must always, and under all circumstances, be
unjustifiable. But the presumption against it is most violent;
nor do we remember any crisis either in our own history, or in
the history of any other country, which would have rendered such
a provision necessary. In the present case, what circumstances
called for extraordinary rigour? There might be disaffection