Messrs. William Carstares, Thomas Blackwall, and Robert Baillie, to London, to watch their progress, and take such measures as might appear to them proper for defeating such attempts, as they had reason to think would be made for breaking down the constitution of the church, and subjecting ber to the will and power of a faction, which, from mistaken views of self-aggrandisement, had resolved upon sacrificing, at the shrine of indefeasible hereditary right, the civil as well as the religious liberties of their country. The presence of this deputation in London, however, seems only to have marked more strongly the state of degradation into which the Scotish church had fallen. The utmost their petitions and protestations could obtain for them was a derisive hearing, followed with contemptuous neglect; and the sum of their exertions procured nothing more than the oath of abjuration, to be tacked to the toleration, which was made imperative upon the ministers of the established church, as well as upon those episcopalians who took the benefit of this new, and, as it was called, liberal regulation. Had this part of the bill been enforced, the whole would have been rendered nugatory, with regard to those for whom it was mainly intended; but the Jacobites well knew that no consistent presbyterian could take the oath, and they had sagacity enough to foresee the heartburnings that would, in consequence thereof, take place among the members of the establishment, whence they naturally enough inferred the impossibility of enforcing it upon dissenters. As the projectors of the measure had foreseen, it very nearly occasioned a schism in the church of Scotland; but none of the Scotish episcopal clergymen, if we except one at Glasgow, ever took the oath, though they all took the benefit of the toleration.

* It ought here to be carefully noticed, that with the bustling Jacobites of this period, the simply tolerating religious opinions was entirely out of the question. Political power and influence was the sole object they had in view. Episcopalian chapels they wanted to open only that they might have it in their power to shut presbyterian churches: and they wanted to shut presbyterian churches, principally because they thought, and thought justly, that from them had, in a great measure, emanated the doctrines of the revolution, which they wished, by any means, or by all means, to destroy.

This act was speedily followed by another, restoring patronages, which had happily been abolished in the Scotish church; and much about the same time, the queen, to show her satisfaction with these good works, performed on behalf of the now suffering prelatic body in Scotland, bestowed the rents of the lands of the late bishops in North Britain, upon such of their clergy, as had conformed to the government.*

Having thus succeeded in again bringing the Scotish church under the intolerable yoke of patronage, destroying her discipline, and imposing upon her ministers an oath, guaranteeing the integrity of the episcopal church of England, it might have been supposed, that her enemies would have, for the present, been satisfied; but, to show their perfect preeminence, and how completely they had her in their power, they proceeded to repeal a law of Scotland, which forbade the courts of justice to be shut, on what are by episcopalians, called christmas holidays,+ which days, it had always been a fixed, and a first principle with presbyterians, not to observe; and thus in the most direct manner, imposed a badge of inferiority upon the nation, both in her civil and ecclesiastic capacity.

That these acts were direct infringements of the treaty of Union, in which the entire freedom of the church, as it then stood, had been so specially provided for, does not admit of dispute, and their immediate object, not to speak of their evident tendency, was her total destruction. They were ebulitions of personal ungodliness, the strictness of presbyterian discipline, being a heavy yoke to the Scotish gentry, most of whom were episcopalians, and desperate efforts of that political perversity which had embroiled the nation, from the first dawning of the reformation. They have, however, been pretty generally applauded, as flowing from an enlightened

* Sommerville's History of Great Britain, during the reign of Queen Anne, p. 472.

+ Upon the third reading of the bill for repealing this law, Sir David Dalrymple said, " Since the house is determined to make no alteration on the body of this bill, I acquiesce, and only desire it may be entitled, a bill for encouraging Jacobitism and immorality," which would indeed, have been its most appropriate title.

and liberal policy; and the charges of bigotry and intolerance, have been preferred against the church of Scotland, for that opposition, feeble indeed it was, which she made to them, by writers, who either were, or ought to have been better informed upon the subject. The framers and the supporters of these measures, so far from being men of liberal views, and tender of the rights of conscience, were the veriest bigots ever intrusted with the powers of legislation; and at the very time, when, under the pretence of relieving conscience, they were paving the way for restoring the reign of tyranny, civil and religious, in Scotland, they were doing the same thing in England, by imposing new and unheard of restraints upon the exercise of that sacred principle. They passed "An act for preserving the protestant religion, by better securing the church, and for confirming the toleration granted to protestant dissenters, by the act exempting them from the penalties of certain laws, and for supplying the defects thereof," &c. &c.; an act, the whole tenor and spirit of which, are, a flat contradiction to its professed purpose; an act which has ever since been a dead weight upon religious liberty in England, and even in our own day, if we mistake not, has given occasion for acts of gross oppression. As their schemes were more matured, they advanced to more bold and more effective expedients, and two years after this, passed "An act, to prevent the growth of schism," which a historian, not remarkable for free speaking, characterizes, as "the most violent infringement upon liberty of conscience, recorded in the annals of parliament." The object of this act, like all of the same kind, that had gone before it, was, not only to retrench the political influence of the dissenters, by giving more certain effect to the laws that had already been framed for that purpose, but at once to extinguish their principles, by rendering them incapable of taking any active part in the education of youth.

It was to no purpose to object to this bill, its barbarity, in interfering with one of the first principles of nature, the right of parents to educate their own children; its cruelty, in de

• Sommerville's History of Great Britain during the reign of Queen Anne, p. 560.

priving many respectable individuals of the only means of subsistence; and its wickedness and absurdity, as tending to the spread of ignorance and irreligion, protestant dissenters, being, in many places, not only the most successful, but the alone teachers of youth. This was indeed, what constituted their offence. They had multiplied schools, and by their sobriety and diligence, while they were active in diffusing the principles of general knowledge, recommended to the world those more free and philosophic views and principles by which they were actuated. These views and principles, have, in every age, and in every country where they have appeared, been the terror of ignorant and corrupt governors; and to the friends of high church and James, they were at this time peculiarly obnoxious. Every nerve was therefore strained to carry a measure which had so great an object, as their suppression in view, and the results of which, were considered so promising. The more rigorous clauses were opposed in the cabinet by lord Oxford, and on the day of its final decision, he absented himself from the house; but it was carried in the house of commons, by two hundred and thirtyseven voices, against one hundred and twenty-six. In the house of lords, it had only a majority of eight. On the day fixed for its commencement, however, the queen died, its execution was suspended, and it remained a dead letter on the statute book, till the year 1718, when it was repealed. The Scotish acts, have not to this day, except very partially, and in some minor points, been repealed; but in the progress of our history, though they originated in bigotry and ignorance of the worst kind, we shall find that they have some of them at least, so far from answering their original intention, promoted in a high degree, the best interests of liberty and religion.

*

The men who projected these measures, as well as those who principally supported them, were all known Jacobites. The bill for preventing the growth of schism, was brought in by Sir William Windham, and specially supported by secretary Bromley; and Lockhart of Carnwath, claims the

* Memoirs of Queen Anne, &c. &c. p. 297. Sommerville's History of Great Britain, &c. p. 561.

honour of being the prime agent in all those measures, that have so materially affected the church of Scotland, for which his avowed motive was, to discredit the Union, and to render it so intolerable to the Scotish people in general, that they might be willing to run all hazards, even to the length of restoring the Stuarts, in order to have it dissolved. They had also the address, even previously to these legal and orderly advances towards their object, to have a gratuity bestowed upon the clans, and, under the pretence of rendering them serviceable to the queen, having them trained to the use of arms, of which great quantities were clandestinely carried into the Highlands, and cautiously distributed among those only, who were known to be enemies to the religion and liberties of the country.t

Finding the labours of their deputation to London fruitless, or rather productive of additional mischief-for the abjuration attached to the toleration bill was ascribed by the Jacobites,

"As my chief, my only design, by engaging in public affairs, was to serve the king, so far as I was capable, I had that always primarily in my view; and at the same time, I was very desirous, when a proper occasion happened, that the Scots nation should have the honour of appearing as unanimously as possible for him; and in order to prepare those, who, I knew, would not assist the king, out of a principle of loyalty, (I mean the west country presbyterians,) for receiving impressions, that might prevail with them on other topics, I had, in concert with Dr. Abercromby, been at a good deal of pains, to publish and disperse amongst these people, papers which gave from time to time, full accounts of what were likely to be the consequences of the Union, and showed how impossible it was for the Scots to subsist under it. And I pressed the toleration and patronage acts more earnestly, that I thought the presbyterian clergy, would be from thence convinced, that the establishment of their kirk, would in time be overturned, as it was obvious, that the security thereof, was not so thoroughly established by the Union, as they imagined; and I believed this affair of the malt tax, as it touched every man's copyhold, and was a general grievance, would be the best handle to inflame and keep up the spirit and resentment of the Scots against the Union, the effects whereof, (from the disposition that I observed of the people, towards the king, about the time of the designed invasion, 1708, which in many, was then chiefly occasioned by their fresh indignation at the Union, though the same began now to cool, which is commonly the fate of ali reduced, and accustomed to slavery,) I did conclude, would certainly tend to advance the king's interest." Lockhart Papers, vol. i. pp. 417, 418.

+ Rae's History of the Rebellion, p. 40.