The earlier half of the reign saw an increase in religious tolerance. Though the whig movement for relieving dissenting ministers from subscription to the articles was defeated by the lords in 1772 and 1773, a bill supported by both parties granted them relief in 1779, the year in which the Irish dissenters were relieved from the test act. The whigs, as we have seen with reference to the Quebec act, were opposed to any measure of relief being granted to Roman catholics, who were by law liable to cruel oppression. The judges, indeed, and specially the great chief-justice, Mansfield, did all they could to mitigate the rigour of the law, yet catholics lived in insecurity, and so late as 1767 a priest was condemned to imprisonment for life, and was actually imprisoned for four years, for exercising his office. Whig prejudices gave way, and in 1778 Sir George Savile brought in a bill enabling catholics who abjured the temporal jurisdiction of the pope to purchase and inherit land, and freeing their priests from liability to imprisonment. The bill, which only affected England, was passed without a division in either house, and the government proposed to bring in a like bill for Scotland the next year. Violent protestant riots took place in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and such strong feeling was generally manifested in Scotland against the proposed measure that it was abandoned. The relief act excited discontent in England, and protestant fanatics, encouraged by the success of their party in Scotland, agitated for its repeal. A protestant association was formed, a crack-brained member of parliament, Lord George Gordon, was made president, and a petition for the repeal of the act was signed by nearly 120,000 persons.