[Footnote 2:  Besides the above instances of that unholy, tyrannical, and church-robbing policy, which has been exercised by the supreme civil powers in these nations with reference to religion and the worship of God, all of which existed when the presbytery first published their testimony, there has, of late, a very singular instance of the same kind occurred, in the course of administration, which the presbytery cannot forbear to take notice of, but must embrace the present opportunity to declare their sense of, and testify against; and especially, as it is one that carries a more striking evidence than any of the former, of our public national infidelity and licentiousness, and of our being judicially infatuated in our national counsels, and given up of heaven to proceed from evil to worse, in the course of apostasy from the cause and principles of the reformation.  We particularly mean the instance of a late bill or act, which has been agreed upon by both houses of parliament, and which also, June, 1774, was sanctioned with the royal assent, entitled “An act for making more effectual provision for the government of the province of Quebec in North America.”  By which act, not only is French despotism, or arbitrary power, settled as the form of civil government, but, which is still worse, Popery, the Religion of Antichrist, with all its idolatries and blasphemies, has such security and establishment granted it, as to be taken immediately under the legal protection of the supreme civil authority of these nations in that vast and extensive region of Canada, lately added to the British dominions in North America—­a province so large and fertile, that it is said to be capable of containing, if fully peopled, not less than thirty millions of souls.  This infamous and injurious bill, before it passed into a law, was publicly reprobated and declaimed against by sundry members of both houses.  It has been petitioned and remonstrated against by the most respectable civil body corporated in Britain, or its dominions, the city of London; by all the provinces of North America south of Quebec; and even by the inhabitants of the city of Quebec itself.  It has been, in the most public manner, in open parliament, declared to be “a most cruel, oppressive, and odious measure—­a child of inordinate power,” &c.  All which are sufficient indications how scandalous, offensive, and obnoxious this act was.  There was afterward, in the month of May, 1775, a bill brought into the house of lords, in order to effectuate the repeal of the foresaid disgraceful act, when, in the course of public debate, it was represented by those few members of the house who appeared in the opposition, as “one of the most destructive, most despotic, most nefarious acts that ever passed the house of peers.”  But all in vain—­the repeal could not be effected.

And moreover, let it be further observed here, that the bench of bishops in the house of peers, who assume the anti-christian title of spiritual lords, and pretend to claim a seat in parliament for the care of religion, during the whole course of this contest, instead of appearing for the Protestant interest, have, to their lasting infamy, publicly distinguished themselves in opposition to it, by—­“Standing forth the avowed supporters of Popery.”