With the deterioration of relations with the American colonies, the British government was faced with the necessity of increasing troop recruitments.
According to historian Thomas Bartlett, "It firmly established the principle of Catholic relief as a key element of war-time strategy.
Although it looked like a way to safeguard the English Catholic population, Bishop Charles Walmesley (1722–1797), the Vicar Apostolic of the west of England, thought Cisalpinism would mean a new oath of allegiance that would "exclude the Pope's spiritual jurisdiction" and "diminish our dependence in spirituals on the Church in Rome, and by degrees to shake it off entirely; likewise to take off the abstinence of Saturday, to reduce Lent to a fortnight before Easter, and to have the Liturgy in English".
One of the defenders of the Cisalpine tradition who even objected to the Asperges (sprinkling of Holy Water) before Mass was John Lingard, author of the hymn Hail Queen of Heaven the Ocean Star and first Rector of Ushaw College seminary.
Father Daniel Rock, chaplain to Lord Shrewsbury of Alton Towers from 1827 to 1841, continued for a short time elements of the Cisalpine tradition.