This act also granted the Catholic clergy a full parliamentary title to their old ecclesiastical estates, and to tithes paid by members of their own religion, but no Protestant was obliged to pay tithes. It provided for a provincial governing council in which Catholics were eligible to sit, and it established the Catholic clergy securely in their livings. There were then in the Province of Quebec two hundred and fifty Catholics to one Protestant[13]. Surely it would have been a monstrous perversion of justice to have placed this vast majority under the domination of this petty minority, it would have degraded the Catholics into a servile caste and reproduced in America, in a greatly aggravated form, the social conditions which existed in Ireland, but those determined sticklers for freedom of conscience and "the right of self-government," those clamorers for the liberty of mankind, the disunion propagandists, were horrified at the bestowal of any "freedom" or "right" upon a people professing a religion different from their own. "The friends of America" in England, Chatham, Fox, Burke, Barre and others, joined them in their denunciation of the act, the last named especially deprecating the "Popish" measure. [13] In the debates on the Canadian bill in 1779, it was stated that there were but 365 Protestants and 150,000 Catholics within the Province of Quebec. On February 15, 1776, it was resolved that a committee of three, "two of whom should be members of congress," be appointed to pursue such instructions as shall be given them by that body.[14] Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase and Chas. Carroll were chosen for this purpose, and John Carroll, a Jesuit, who afterwards became the first Roman Catholic Archbishop of the United States, accompanied them. The two Carrolls were chosen because they were Catholics, but they were not justified in joining an expedition that might kindle the flame of religious war on the Catholic frontier. The commissioners carried with them an "Address to the Inhabitants of the Province of Quebec"[15] from Congress, which for cool audacity and impertinence can scarcely be paralleled. It commenced with "We are too well acquainted with the liberality of sentiment distinguishing your natures to imagine that difference of religion will prejudice you against a hearty amity with us," etc. [14] Washington's Writings, Vol. III., page 361. [15] Debates, etc., page 603.