injunctions not to meddle with the religious concerns either of the Mahommedan or of the Christian subjects of the Porte, and that he was not to attempt to make proselytes to the Church of England from either of those classes.

We may consequently conclude, that the case of the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem is not at all in point; for even if the consent of the King of Abyssinia has not been asked, upon which Dr. Wiseman lays great stress, it would still not be in point, for no See has been erected within the territory of the said King, nor is even any spiritual jurisdiction over his subjects likely to be exercised, since Dr. Wiseman himself states, that there is not a single Protestant congregation in Abyssinia.

"Under the same statute," continues Dr. Wiseman, "the Bishop of Gibraltar was named. His See was in a British territory; but its jurisdiction extended over Malta, where there was a Catholic Archbishop formally recognised by our Government as Bishop of Malta, and over Italy." It does not appear clear from the context whether the Cardinal in this passage alludes to the Papal government or the British government, when he speaks of the recognition of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Malta. However, we may assume that he speaks of the British government. To the same effect Mr. Bowyer writes, "under that same statute the Crown has erected another Bishopric, deriving its title from a place within her Majesty's dominions, but invested with pastoral functions more extensive than that title imports, I mean the Anglican Bishopric of Gibraltar. We have to consider, not words, but things; not form, but substance. Now it cannot be denied that the Anglican Bishop of Gibraltar has committed to him, by his Church and

the Government of this country, the pastoral episcopal care of all Protestants, whether converts or otherwise, in communion with that Church, or who may place themselves under his authority, not only in Gibraltar and Malta, but also in Italy."

It is much to be regretted that mistakes of this kind should be made by writers in the position of Mr. Bowyer and Dr. Wiseman, and it is painful to have to correct such writers so repeatedly in matters of fact, which a little ordinary care, such most assuredly as their readers were entitled to expect at their hands, would have enabled them to set forth with accuracy. The statute alluded to by both these writers, namely 5 Vict. c. 6., in no way applied to the Bishopric of Gibraltar. The Crown, by virtue of its prerogative, erected, by Letters Patent *, the Church of the Holy Trinity, within the town of Gibraltar, into a Cathedral Church and Bishop's See, precisely as it has erected various episcopal Sees in other British settlements and colonies; and it ordained that henceforth the town of Gibraltar should be a city, and be called the City of Gibraltar. It then, by the same Letters Patent, empowered the Bishop to exercise jurisdiction, spiritual and ecclesiastical, within the said Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, and throughout the said Diocese of Gibraltar, and also within the "Churches, Chapels, and other places aforesaid in the said island of Malta and its dependencies, according to the ecclesiastical laws now in force in England." Not a word is said in the Letters Patent concerning Italy or Rome, nor is the Bishop of Gibraltar empowered to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction in any place out of the Queen's dominions. Even in Malta his jurisdiction is

*See Appendix, p. xci.

confined to the Churches and Chapels, and other places, i. e. ejusdem generis; and he is not to visit ecclesiastically the religious establishments of the Roman Catholics in that island. It may be perfectly true, however, that Dr. Tomlinson has exercised episcopal functions under the very walls of Rome, though not, as Mr. Bowyer says, "in the Holy City;" but to exercise spiritual functions as a Bishop is one thing, to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction as a Bishop is another. The Bishop of London, for instance, has exercised his episcopal functions virtute ordinis repeatedly both in France and in Belgium; but he has never attempted to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction in either country. In a similar manner, the Roman Catholic Bishops in partibus resident in England have exercised episcopal functions virtute ordinis for two centuries at least, but have not exercised ecclesiastical jurisdiction as Bishops. In a similar manner the Bishop of Gibraltar has exercised a spiritual superintendence virtute ordinis over the ministers of various British congregations resident in Italy, who have been instructed to respect his spiritual authority, provided his injunctions did not require any disrespect to the laws, customs, and opinions of the country in which such ministers exercise their clerical duties. Dr. Wiseman therefore is in error when he classes the Bishop of Gibraltar with the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, as persons "sent under the same statute, not only to British subjects, but to such other Protestant congregations as may be desirous of placing themselves under his or their authority." So that the argument which is built by his Eminence upon this assumption falls to the ground: "If the Queen of England, as head of the English Church, could send Bishops into Abyssinia and Italy,

surely Catholics had good right to suppose that no less would be permitted to them, without censure or rebuke."

Mutuality is doubtless a fundamental principle of the Law of Nations, but in this case no less has long been permitted to the Roman Catholics in England, under the system of Vicars-Apostolic. It is to be lamented that Dr. Wiseman and his colleagues, at whose earnest solicitation the Brief is stated to have been issued, should have led the Pope to suppose, erroneously, that the Crown of England had established a precedent against itself by infringing the sovereignty of the Holy See in its own dominions, more especially as there is the formal clause towards the conclusion of the Brief, providing that it shall never be impugned, "de subreptionis et obreptionis vitio." * In other words, the Brief is to be valid and observed inviolably, although the Pope may himself have been led, by a misrepresentation of facts, either in the way of a suggestio falsi, or a suppressio veri, to promulgate an ordinance, which violates the law of the land,

where it is to be executed!

This consideration naturally leads us to the inquiry, before we examine the substance of the Brief itself, as to the form of proceeding adopted by the Holy See on this occasion. The form in which the Letters Apostolic are conceived is almost identical with that adopted by Pope Pius VII. in the Brief of excommunication against the Emperor Napoleon (10 June 1809), with this exception, that there is no special clause relating to their publication †, but only the

* See notes to the Brief, in the Appendix, p. xxii.

† As the letters of excommunication against Napoleon could not be safely published in France, it was specially and expressly provided that their publication at certain places in Rome should give them the force of law.

usual provision, that a notarial copy, certified by the seal of an ecclesiastical dignitary, shall have as full credit as the original instrument.

The act of publication, and the mode of publishing the Brief, has accordingly been left free to Cardinal Wiseman, who seems to have first promulgated it by his Pastoral Letter, and subsequently to have authorised its more formal publication on the occasion of his own enthronisation. If the Brief itself has thus been published, there can be no doubt that the law of the land has been violated by the Cardinal or his agent, although the Pope himself may have refrained, by his silence as to publication, from personally encroaching in this matter on the right of supreme superintendence (jus suprema inspectionis) over the realm, inherent in the Crown of England, as in every independent Crown. There is no position of law so completely established with reference to the relations between the Holy See and the Sovereign Princes of Europe, as that the Exequatur of the Crown, or the Royal Placet*, is requisite as an antecedent condition for the publication of a Papal Rescript within the territory of a Sovereign Prince. A comparatively recent instance of the mode of maintaining the Exequatur in a neighbouring kingdom is to be found in M. Dupin's "Manuel du Droit Public Ecclésiastique Français," p. 68. The Bishop of Poitiers having ordered a Papal Brief to be read in all the Parish Churches of his Diocese without having obtained the previous assent of the Crown to its publication, Charles X. issued an ordinance, dated Dec. 23. 1820, to the effect that there was an abuse on the part of the Bishop, and that his mandate was suppressed; it appearing from the statement of the Bishop himself, to have been an act of pure inadvertence on his part, * See Appendix, p. c.