So rigorous were those
restrictions, both in England and Ireland, that a Roman Catholic could
not serve even as a private in the militia; and a motion made in 1797 by
Mr. Wilberforce--a man who could certainly not be suspected of any
leaning to Roman Catholic doctrine--to render them admissible to that
service, though it was adopted in the House of Commons, was rejected by
the House of Lords. But Pitt, who on that occasion had supported
Wilberforce, did not confine his views to the removal of a single petty
disability, but proposed to put the whole body of Roman Catholics on a
footing of perfect equality with Protestants in respect of their
eligibility to every kind of office, with one or two exceptions. And
during the autumn of 1800 he was busily engaged in framing the details
of his measure, in order to submit it to his royal master in its
entirety, and so to avoid disquieting him with a repetition of
discussions on the subject, which he knew to be distasteful to him. For,
five years before, George III. had consulted the Chief-justice, Lord
Kenyon, and the Attorney-general, Sir John Scott (afterward Lord Eldon),
on the question whether some proposed concessions to Dissenters,
Protestant as well as Roman Catholic, did not "militate against the
coronation oath and many existing statutes;" and had received their
legal opinion that the tests enacted in the reign of Charles II.
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