minister did not even reserve to himself a voice in the appointment of the distributors, to secure their subserviency. They were originally chosen without his interference, and the vacancies which have since occurred have been successively filled by the survivors at their own discretion; the appointment being, however, always made in reference to the age, character, public and official station, or generally acknowledged usefulness in the several denominations of the ministers chosen into the trust."

“The trustees have never, in any part of their public conduct, evinced a disposition to truckle to the ministers of state for the time being. In seasons of political excitement THEY HAVE ALSO ASSERTED THEIR INDEPENDENCE, BUT HAVE NEVER SCRUPLED TO OPPOSE EXISTING ADMINISTRATIONS WHEN THEY HAVE JUDGED THEIR MEASURES TO BE INJURIOUS TO THE PROTESTANT DISSENTERS, OR INIMICAL TO THE PUBLIC GOOD. They fearlessly challenge the world to point out a single instance in which their charge as dispensers of the royal bounty has weakened their attachment to their principles as Nonconformists, or cooled the ardour of their zeal in the cause of civil and religious freedom. They have from the first STOOD IN THE FOREMOST RANKS of those who have laboured to remove the unjust restrictions imposed upon Protestant dissenters, and to obtain the enlargement of their liberties.

"From this personal fund was paid, during the reigns of George I. and George II., the royal grant to poor Dissenting ministers. On the accession of George III., it was thought advisable to substitute for those hereditary revenues a fixed annual sum, equivalent to them in amount, which obtained the technical name of the Civil List. The charges which had been usually defrayed OUT OF THE RENTS AND PROFITS OF THE ROYAL DEMESNES, including the grant to Dissenting ministers, and other permanent charities, were now paid out of the new fund. In 1804, some alterations were made in the Civil List itself."

66

In the document above mentioned a lengthened allusion is made to these alterations as to the source of bestowment, from whence the fund was derived, "WITHOUT ANY ALTERATION OF ITS CHARACTER;" and the Regium Donum, although a Parliamentary grant, IS NOT DERIVED FROM COMPULSORY TAXATION OF THE PEOPLE; and in this view of the case the Dissenters have no cause to complain of this grant as a forced contribution to support religion. To attempt, under a mistaken notion of its nature and purpose, to procure its discontinuance, is, therefore, as unjust as, if the attempt were to succeed, it would be injurious to the least protected and most deserving portion of the Dissenting ministry. If any necessitous Dissenting minister

have conscientious objections to participate in the benefit of this charity, he will do well to refuse it; and none will be more ready to respect and honour his scruples of conscience, however unfounded, than the distributors themselves. But those who on speculative principles raise an objection to the grant, act, as the distributors must be allowed to think, neither wisely nor charitably in seeking to deprive a large and numerous class of Christian ministers, whose independence and uprightness none will or can call in question, of pecuniary supplies, which, though small in amount, are of importance to the comfort of themselves and their families, AND ON THE EXPECTED CON

TINUANCE OF WHICH THEIR HABITS AND PLANS OF LIFE ARE IN SOME DEGREE CALCULATED."

"Whatever may be pleaded in the excitement of debate, it is plain that no adequate substitute could be raised by the Dissenters for the royal or parliamentary grant, which, as it has been UNCONDITIONALLY, GRACIOUSLY, and GENEROUSLY given, it would be perverse and ungrateful to refuse. The distributors, in the spirit, as they conceive, of this munificence of the crown, have ever dispensed it amongst ministers of the three denominations, and other ministers not falling strictly under this description, but recommended by both their necessity and their character, without any stipulations, political or theological, expressed or implied. They have received the royal bounty, as a simple charity, designed to express the sense which the august family now upon the throne of these realms are pleased to entertain of the zeal and exertions of the Protestant dissenters of the earlier part of the last century, on behalf of their accession to the British crown. They have always contemplated the grant as having reference to the past AND NOT TO THE FUTURE, and as laying NO OBLIGATION WHATEVER either upon them or the recipients with regard to their faith or worship, or the exercise of civil franchises and political duties. They feel it to be an honour to be selected as the almoners of a great and disinterested charity. They look back with satisfaction to their predecessors in the royal trust,-men of high name for learning, talents, character, independence, and distinguished usefulness in their several denominations. They affect no secrecy; they fear no publicity. Unmoved by misrepresentation and clamour they will continue to exercise this trust for the benefit of their needy brethren, as long as it shall seem fit to his Majesty's Government and the Commons' House of Parliament to fulfil the generous design and intent of the successive' Princes of the House of Brunswick."

A Sketch of the History of the Regium Donum, &c., by Thomas Rees, LL.D., F.S.A., 1834, pp. 99 to 102.

These men represented the Independent, the Presbyterian, and the Baptist bodies.

Joseph Ivimey has endeavoured to correct what he considered some misconceptions as to the nature of this grant, and he thus advocates its continuance :

"There can be no doubt but George I., impressed with sentiments of affection towards the Dissenters, who had shewn themselves such steady friends to the Protestant succession, WOULD HAVE CHEERFULLY REPEALED, HAD HE NOT BEEN CONTRAVENED, EVERY STATUTE WHICH INFRINGED THE RIGHTS OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT, violated the liberty of conscience, and made odious distinctions between one good subject and another. To shew the Dissenters, however, a mark of his personal esteem, he ordered five hundred pounds to be presented FROM HIS PRIVATE PURSE. His predecessor, Queen Anne, had given a similar mark of her esteem and confidence to Mr. Joseph Stennett, with this difference, that what he received was for his own personal benefit, while this was FOR GENERAL DISTRIBUTION."

Dr. Samuel Chandler appears to have been the first to have received the treasury warrant for the receipt and distribution of this fund. And it was entirely under the management of himself and his personal friends, from the time of George I., during the long reign of George II., and until some time after the commencement of the reign of George III.

"The distribution of this money has led to many unkind and unjust aspersions respecting the design of the government in bestowing it, and the political influence it has had upon the spirit of Protestant dissenters.

"If it has prevented any of their ministers from interfering with matters of state, or if it has tended to preserve them from the mania of a political spirit, and increased their attention to the affairs OF THAT KINGDOM WHICH IS NOT OF THIS WORLD; then whatever might be the intention of Sir Robert Walpole, though he might even MEAN IT FOR EVIL, GOD MEANT IT FOR GOOD, TO SAVE MUCH PEOPLE ALIVE, and to preserve them from a corrupt and worldly spirit. Some few years after, this sum was increased, and advanced to eight hundred and fifty pounds half yearly. This is the present value

(1774) of the treasury warrant; but there are large fees and deductions."*

DR. J. P. SMITH, in 1845, strenuously advocated the continuance of the Regium Donum grant, he reiterating some of the principal points maintained by Dr. Rees, and those also contained in "The Statement" unitedly subscribed to by the distributors in 1834. There is an Association,† however, not favourable to ecclesiastical establishments and State endowments, who maintain opposite views.

The conclusions of that Association, after commenting upon the general question, are of the following import:

"1. That the Regium Donum, when first given, was not simply and purely a charity, but that it was, at least in an equal degree, a religious grant, conferred, according to repeated acknowledgments, in reward of political service rendered by Dissenters,-that is to say, for their zealous exertions on behalf of the accession of the House of Brunswick to the British throne. "2.—That the funds out of which it was first paid were not the private, personal, and absolute property of the Sovereign, but his official income; therefore, "3.-That it was a State contribution to Ministers of religion, as such, derived from public money, and, in some considerable part, from actual taxation. "4.-That if it had been originally unexceptionable, its transfer, first to the Civil List, and finally to the will of Parliament, whether by a purchase or not, has entirely changed its nature, because what had been previously given by the Sovereign can now be obtained only by a deliberate act of the whole Legislature.

5. That nothing can well be more inconsistent with sober truth than the statement so positively made by Dr. Smith, that the Regium Donum is a purchased annuity, for which the country has already received an amount more than equal to the value of the annual payments to all futurity.' "6.-And, finally, that if Parliament has a right to question and extinguish any other payments of the original Civil List, it must have equal power to question and refuse this. In seeking to remove it, then, we are not seeking to perpetuate a moral wrong, but are exercising a political right; and, therefore, the trustees are not justified in their attempt to place the subject beyond our inquiry and censure. It is our money-it is the nation's money; and since it is annually submitted to our judgment, we must respectfully claim a right to remonstrate, and even to refuse; and the distributors must pardon us if we are not deterred from exercising it by the charges of ignorance or misrepresentation, in which they have indulged."

Such are the opposing sentiments enunciated, and they receive additional strength from the very decided feeling which appears to prevail both in the Baptist and Congregational bodies, as shewn by the following resolutions.

* Ivimey, vol. 3, pp. 173 to 178.

Reply of the Committee of the British Anti-State Church Association to Dr. P. Smith, 1845. p. 17, 18.

Resolution of the Committee of THE BAPTIST UNION, adopted April 11, 1851:

"That this committee cannot allow the vote for the annual grant to Protestant dissenting ministers, commonly called the Regium Donum, to be again introduced to the House of Commons without renewing its solemn protest against it, in common with all grants of public money for religious purposes, and on the broad ground that religion in every form ought to be left to the resources voluntarily supplied by its friends."

Resolution of THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION of England and Wales, May 23, 1851:

"That this assembly cannot separate without reiterating its protest against the Par.ian.entary grant, usually called the Regium Donum, for the relief of poor dissenting ministers in England and Wales: it earnestly entreats the distributors of the said grant to ministers of the congregational denomination to consider in how painful a position it places the whole body, in relation to its antagonism to all state grants for the support of religion; and respectfully requests those members of the House of Commons, whose views on this subject are in accordance with those of the dissenting community in general, to use all legitimate Parliamentary influence against the voting of the said grant, when it shall be proposed in their honourable house."

THE COMMITTEE OF THE DEPUTIES of the three denominations of Protestant Dissenters have also protested against the grant of the Regium Donum.

The present distributors are,—
Baptists:

DR. W. H. MURCH.
MR. HEWLETT.

Congregationalists:

MR. JOHN CLAYTON.
MR. JOHN YOCKNEY.

Presbyterians,

or Unitarians: DR. THOMAS REES. MR. MADGE.

MR. TAGGART.

It will have been observed in the previous list (page lxxxiv) that there were three distributors for each of the above denominations. Dr. F. A. Cox withdrew from the trust in 1844, and Mr. John Pritchard has, more recently, resigned from age and increasing infirmities; the two vacancies will doubtless, ere long, be filled up.

The names of the distributors afford a sufficient guarantee for the judicious appropriation of the funds entrusted to them; but with the strong declaratory resolutions which have been quoted, and the increasingly strong public opinion prevailing upon the subject, may it not be concluded that ere long the Regium Donum will cease to be a Parliamentary grant?

It cannot be believed that, in the event of such a result, the three dissenting bodies would allow their "poor ministers" to suffer pecuniarily by such a withdrawment.

The Baptists, with their nearly 2,000 Churches in England and Wales, the numerous* Congregational Churches, with the more

* No numbers given in the Congregational Year Book for 1851.