Page:The Wentworth Papers 1715-1739.djvu/401

Rh when there is occasion, and only beg that your Lordship wou'd take as many oppertunitys as you can to lay any of your comands upon &c.

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June 1, 1714.

My Lord,

This day the Commitment of the Bill of Schism was proposed in the House of Lords. Lord Bolingbroke first moved it, shewing the advantages it would be of in uniting the Nation, and stifling for the future the divisions amongst us. Lord Cowper was against the committing of it, because, he said, it was much stricter than the Bill of Uniformity; for that he said was levelled against a publick Education only, but this descended so low as to prohibit the meanest school as could be. He urged further that the terms of it were too rigorous; and that it was putting too much Authority into the hands of the Bishops, to give them the power of licensing or refusing whom they pleased, soe that any Gentleman that had a mind to have a Private Tutour in his Family, must have the Bishop's approbation before he could enjoy that Privilege. Lord Wharton spake against the committing of it in a very jocose manner, saying that it might be of very great prejudice to the Nation, since one that made the greatest figure in the State and had been the Authour of such a Peace as they had all unanimously agreed to be advantageous had been educated in one of those private Seminaries. Lord North spoke with a great deal of heat for the committing of the Bill and shewed his inclinations at least for it, which likewise did Lord Abington. The Earl of Nottingham said that it was certainly what every honest man must wish that there was an uniformity in Religion, but this Bill he thought ill timed, and something like persecution, in that it denyed a man the liberty of disposing of his own children; that it weakened the Toleration Act, and that it was dangerous because that tho' now they had the happiness of having soe worthy Bishops; yet it possibly might happen 2 C