The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 713: CURATES’ BILL, ETC.

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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

CURATES’ BILL, ETC.

The toleration displayed in the debates on the Catholic question induced Mr. Smith, one of the members for Norwich, to bring in a bill for the relief of Unitarian dissenters from the pains and penalties to which they were subject by a statute of William III. This bill passed into a law; neither the ministers nor the bench of bishops opposing its principle. Another bill, introduced by Lord Harrowby, was also passed, for the augmentation of stipends payable to curates; a class of divines who, though they bear “the burden and heat of the day,” have always, even to the present hour, been inadequately paid for their labours.