BOOK I. and absolving the subjects in this case from their allegiance. 1689. Bill of In demnity. The king was extremely and laudably solicitous that an act of indemnity, with proper exceptions, should pass without delay. Jeffries, the infamous Jeffries, was now under close confinement in the Tower;* and Wright, who had filled the high office of lord chief justice of England, with divers of the late judges and other state delinquents, were prisoners in Newgate and from amongst these, examples of public justice might be made. But good policy evidently required, that the minds of the multitude who had rendered themselves more or less culpable by engaging in the execution of the illegal measures of the late reign should be set at rest and conciliated And that for redress of all grievances, and for the amending, strengthening, and preserving of the laws, parliaments ought to be held frequently. And they do CLAIM, DEMAND, and INSIST UPON all and singular the premises as their undoubted rights and privileges; and that no declarations, judgments, doings, or proceedings to the prejudice of the people in any of the said premises ought in any wise to be drawn hereafter in consequence or example. * "I saw him," says the historian Oldmixon," as he was on his way to the Tower, guarded by the militia from the rabble, who shewed a readiness to tear him to pieces. He held up his hands in a lamenting posture, earnestly beseeching those that were in the coach with him to protect him." He did not long survive his confinement.-Oldmixon, vol. ii. p. 5. by the lenity and moderation of the present government. This the whigs, much more in the spirit of faction than of patriotism, resisted, from a desire to keep their adversaries still under the lash, and to establish more firmly their own ascendency. This ungenerous conduct was openly countenanced and encouraged by the earl of Monmouth, now at the head of the treasury, and Delamere, afterwards earl of Warrington, chancellor of the exchequer-to the great disgust of the king; into whose mind the earl of Nottingham was assiduously instilling jealousies and suspicions of the whole whig party, whom he represented as in their hearts republicans and levellers, entertaining deep and dangerous designs tending to the subversion of kingly government. Under the specious pretext of the difficulty of making the proper exceptions, and of the encouragement which a general indemnity would af ford to the partisans of the late king, the bill was lost for the present session.* Modelled as it was by the whigs, it bore indeed more the appearance of a bill of punishment than of pardon; for it comprised no less than twelve general heads of exception, including a vast number of individuals. Amongst those specified by name were the chief justices Herbert and Wright, the lords BOOK L 1689. BOOK I. Jeffries and SUNDERLAND, the bishops of DurLord Delamere himself in 1689. ham, Chester, &c. Act of Toleration. forms us, "that the party most affected by the bill retarded their proceedings by throwing stumbling-blocks from time to time in their way" -thinking, no doubt, that their peril would be in no wise diminished, but on the contrary greatly increased, by such an act of grace and favor as this. Such was the terrific latitude of the bill, that it was compared to sailing in an illimitable ocean without a compass-to wandering in an immense forest which no sunbeam could penetrate. Of all the transactions of the present memorable session of parliament, next to the bill of rights, the measure most interesting to posterity, and the effects of which have been most visible and permanent, was the famous act of toleration-an act perfectly consonant to the views, and which may indeed be said to have originated in the liberal, just, and generous disposition, of the king. The church and the more respectable part of the dissenters having united in their opposition to the despotic proceedings of the late reign, notwithstanding the insidious means used to conciliate the non-conformists, and to make them instrumental to the designs of the court, they were flattered by the heads of the church with the hope not merely of a general to leration whenever a favorable period should ar- BOOK I. rive, but of a liberal comprehension by rendering 1689. the terms of conformity less rigorous. The king had given a striking proof of his own freedom from religious bigotry, when, in his speech to the two houses on passing the bill for suspending the habeas corpus act, he took occasion to express "his hope that, in providing against papists, they would leave room for the admission of all protestants who were willing and able to serve; and he affirmed that such a conjunction would unite them the more firmly amongst themselves, and strengthen them against their common adversaries." Accordingly, when the bill for abrogating the old and appointing the new oaths was brought forward, a clause was inserted to remove the necessity, as to protestants, of taking the sacramental test as a qualification for office; which, though strongly supported by the leaders of the whigs, particularly by the marquis of Halifax, who now aspired to the distinction of head of the whig party, was ultimately negatived. A protest, framed in terms remarkably spirited, was signed by the lords Delamere, Wharton, Mordaunt, &c. against the rejection of this clause, in which they declare" that a hearty union amongst protestants was a greater security to church and state than any test that could be invented; and that a greater caution ought not to be required BOOK I. from such as were admitted into offices, than 1689. from the members of the two houses of parliament, who are not obliged to receive the sacrament to enable them to sit in either house." And in a second protest it is affirmed to be "hard usage to exclude from public employments men fit and capable to serve the public, for a mere scruple of conscience, which could by no means render them suspected, and much less disaffected to the present government; that to set marks of distinction and humiliation on any sorts of men who have not rendered themselves justly suspected. to the government, as it is at all times to be avoided by the making just and equitable laws, so might it be of ill effect to the reformed interest at home and abroad in this present conjuncture, which stood in need of the united hearts and hands of all protestants." In order to conciliate the tories, the king was willing and even desirous to mitigate the severity of the bill, by vesting a discretionary power in the crown to dispense with the oaths with respect to the established clergy, who were for the most part notoriously inimical to the present government. In vindication of which provision, it was said, "that in former changes of government oaths had not proved so effectual a security as was imagined. Distinctions were found out, and senses put upon words by which they were interpreted so as to signify |