STATE PAPERS. 



401 



the sovereign power. If the most 

 rev. Nuncio had only intended to 

 act as a legate of the holy father, 

 and to avoid any expostulation to 

 which he might conceive himself 

 exposed for his silence on the pre- 

 sent subject,nothing obstructed his 

 way to me through the medium of 

 the secretary of state. I might 

 overlook his avoiding this regular 

 and official means of communica- 

 tion, when he remonstrated as he 

 thought proper upon the matter, 

 and should have attributed the in- 

 formality of the conduct which he 

 chose to adopt, to inadvertencj', 

 or rather to an excess of confi- 

 dence. I should have only paid 

 attention to his arguments, and, 

 with the advice of the supreme 

 congress, taken such resolutions 

 as the defence of the holy church 

 and the temporal good of the 

 state, demanded with one voice 

 from me. 



The justice of the national 

 cause makes me feel quite confi- 

 dent that, had this been the case, 

 I should have satisfactorily an- 

 swered the note of the most re- 

 verend nuncio, and that I should 

 have been found equal to meet 

 those vague and common-place 

 arguments which the wisdom of 

 the most august congress has al- 

 ready defeated. His uneasiness 

 would have been calmed, when 

 he should see that the abolition 

 of the Inquisition can, by no 

 means, either endanger religion, 

 or injure the rights of the Roman 

 PontilF; and that all the fears 

 which he entertains on that ac- 

 count, for the primacy of the 

 holy father, and the supreme 

 authority which he holds in the 

 church, are most vain and un- 

 grounded. His qualms would have 

 been allayed, concerning the im- 



VoL. LV. 



propriety which he seems to find 

 in the circumstance of declaring 

 to the people, during the celebra- 

 tion of mass, that a tribunal which 

 was established, and for three cen- 

 turies protected by the popes, is 

 useless, injurious, and contrary to 

 the laws of the kingdom. In fine, 

 he would have seen that the au- 

 gust congress, in this purely poli- 

 tical question, has acted in virtue 

 of its sovereign authority, without 

 injuring, in any way whatever, 

 the rights of the holy father, 

 or, much less, those of the Catho- 

 lic church ; so that they might, 

 either now or in future, be in need 

 of the remonstrances of nuncios or 

 councils. 



But the private letters which 

 under the same date as the note 

 were written by the most reverend 

 archbishop of Nicea, and the fact 

 of his having mentioned therem 

 that he forwarded a remonstrance 

 to the government upon the subject, 

 are circumstances which clearly 

 prove, that whilst he betrayed 

 the secrecy which he himself re- 

 commended, he aimed not merely 

 to avoid the charge of negligence 

 in the fulfilment of his office, but 

 rather to raise in the pious clergy 

 of Spain, and, by their means, in the 

 people at large, a distrust of the 

 temporal authorities which he thus 

 strove to decry ; and to check their 

 influence over a class of the state, 

 the members of which, by reason 

 of their conspicuous rank, ought 

 to be true samples of subordination 

 and obedience. 



This unlooked-for behaviour of 

 the most reverend nuncio has com- 

 promised the honour of the na- 

 tional congress, the security of the 

 kingdom, the authority of the 

 episcopal order, the true rights of 

 the Roman ponliif, and the respect 



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