CHAPTER XVIII.
The Fire of London broke out on the 1st of September, in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane. It rushed down Fish Street Hill, and soon enveloped the dwellings by London Bridge and on the banks of the Thames. Fanned by the winds, the conflagration swept westward and northward. It passed in leaps from house to house, and flowed in streams from street to street. Torrents of flame coming over Cornhill met others dashing up from Walbrook and Bucklersbury. Along Cheapside, Ludgate, the Strand, the furious element advanced, curling round the edge of Smithfield, before its frightful circuit was complete. Thatched roofs, timber walls, cellars of oil, warehouses filled with inflammable material fed the tremendous pyre. Lead, iron, glass, were melted; water in cisterns was boiled, adding vapour to smoke; stones were calcined, and the ground became so hot that people walking over it burnt their shoes. The libraries of St. Paul's, and Sion College, with large collections of books and papers, were consumed; half-burnt leaves fell by Baxter's house at Acton, and were blown even as far as Windsor.[506] Public buildings shone like palaces of fine gold or burnished brass, and glowed like coals in a furnace, heated seven times hotter than usual. Blazing fragments were swept, like flakes in a snow storm, over the City; whilst the dense conflagration underneath resembled a bow—"a bow which had God's arrow in it with a flaming point." The cloud of smoke was so great that travellers at noon-day rode six miles under its shadow. At night the moon shone from a crimson sky. Young Taswell, a Westminster boy, stood on Westminster Bridge, with his little pocket edition of Terence in his hand, which he could see to read plainly by the light of the burning City.[507]
1666.
FIRE OF LONDON.
People were distracted. Everybody endeavoured to remove what he could—all sorts of things being conveyed away in carts and waggons, barges and wherries. Poor people near the bridges stayed in their houses so long that the fire touched them; and then they ran into boats, or clambered from one pair of stairs, by the waterside, to another. The pigeons were loath to leave their cots, and hovered about windows and balconies, until they scorched their wings, and fell. Churches were filled with furniture and articles of all kinds. Holes were dug in gardens to receive casks and bottles of wine, boxes of documents, and other treasures. The sick were carried in litters to places of safety, and multitudes encamped in the fields beyond Finsbury, in the village of Islington, and on the slopes of Highgate. Such was the eagerness to obtain the means of removing goods, that £4 a load for a carter, or 10s. a day for a porter, was counted poor pay. At the Temple, neither boat, barge, coach, nor cart, could be had for love or money; all the streets were crowded with appropriated vehicles of various kinds.
The constables of the respective parishes were required to attend at Temple Bar, Clifford's Inn Gardens, Fetter Lane, Shoe Lane, and Bow Lane, with 100 men each; at every post were stationed 130 foot soldiers, with a good officer; and three gentlemen, empowered to reward the diligent, by giving them one shilling apiece, whilst five pounds—in bread, cheese, and beer—were allowed to every party. The King and the Duke of York were bold and persevering in their endeavours to extinguish the conflagration, ordering the use of great hooks, kept in churches and chapels, for pulling down houses—the only means of stopping the fire being to cut off the fuel. The militia were called to aid these efforts and to prevent disturbance. They marched out of Hertfordshire, and other counties, with food for forty-eight hours, and with carts full of pickaxes, ropes, and buckets. These troops encamped at Kingsland, near Bishopsgate. Markets were held in Bishopsgate Street, upon Tower Hill, in Leadenhall Street, and in Smithfield. Bread and cheese were supplied to the famishing, and means were adopted to stimulate charity towards the homeless poor. Multitudes having taken refuge in the houses and fields about Islington, the King requested that strict watch might be kept in all the ways within the limits of the town and parish, and charitable and Christian reception, with lodging and entertainment, given to strangers. He further ordered, that bread should be brought both to the new and old markets; that all churches, chapels, schools, and public buildings, should be open to receive the property of such as were burnt out of house and home; and that other towns should receive sufferers who fled to them for refuge, and permit them to exercise their callings—promise being given that they should afterwards be no burthen.
1666.
Three hundred and seventy-three acres within the walls, and seventy-three acres three roods without the walls, were left covered with ruins from the Tower to the Temple, from the North-east gate of the City wall to Holborn Bridge. Besides Guildhall, and other public edifices, eighty-nine parish churches, and thirteen thousand two hundred dwellings were destroyed. The loss of property was estimated at eleven millions sterling.[508]
The miseries of the fire did not end with its extinction. In addition to the losses which arose from the destruction of property—manufacturers at Coventry, for example, being greatly injured by the burning of goods which they had sent to London for sale—and to other evils of various kinds incident after such a visitation, there were certain lamentable consequences of a peculiar nature.
This visitation, as might be expected, was construed as a Divine judgment for the sins of the City; different parties of course pointing at the iniquities of their opponents as the cause of the fiery overthrow. Fanatics believed that it was the vengeance of Heaven against English barbarity in burning the Islands of Vlie and Schelling, and against national sins in general. A Quaker, near Windsor, was reported to have heard a miraculous voice saying, that "they have had the pestilence, and fire, and other calamities, and yet are not amended; but a worse plague has yet to come on them and the nation." "They clearly intimate in their letters," it was said of the same sect, "no sorrow for the late burning down so many steeple-houses (as they call them) in all the City."[509]
FIRE OF LONDON.
Yet human agency of some kind was, of course, admitted to be at the bottom. The Republicans, the Dutch, and the French, were suspected; the opinion most prevalent being that the Papists were authors of the mischief.
This idea extensively prevailed. Probably it helped to induce the House of Commons first to present a petition to His Majesty asking for the banishment of priests and Jesuits, for the enforcement of the laws against them, and all other Roman Catholics, and for disarming everybody who refused the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy; and secondly, to resolve that all the members of the House should receive the Lord's Supper, under penalty of imprisonment for refusal.[510] Certainly, upon the return of Gunpowder Plot Day, the inculpation of the Papists kindled anew the eloquence of the clergy, and strengthened the stock argument that the "Mother of Abominations" remained unchanged. Yet the evidence adduced to establish the guilt of the accused was utterly unsatisfactory. The only person convicted was a Frenchman, and his conviction rested on his own assertion that he had fired the City—an assertion which must have proceeded from a morbid love of notoriety, or from some other unaccountable freak—for the fellow, at the gallows, just before being turned off, acknowledged that what he had said was altogether a lie. No doubt, the conclusion reached by the Government is correct,—"That, notwithstanding that many examinations have been taken, with great care, by the Lords of the Council and His Majesty's Ministers, yet nothing hath been yet found to argue it to have been other than the hand of God upon us, a great wind, and the season so very dry."[511]
1666.
Baxter, speaking of the state of London just before the fire, observes, that in the larger parishes—for example, St. Martin's, St. Giles' Cripplegate, and Stepney—there were 60,000 inhabitants each; that in others, as in St. Giles'-in-the-Fields and St. Sepulchre's, there were about 30,000, in others about 20,000. For these parishes the churches afforded insufficient accommodation; indeed, the fourth part of the people would not have found room in them had such a proportion been disposed to attend public worship. He speaks of a sixth or a tenth, as the proportion for which space in the parochial edifices was available.[512] The fire, by destroying so many buildings, deprived very many people of instruction and worship in the Establishment; and little was done immediately towards repairing the evil. Houses were restored, but churches were neglected. Burnet relates, that in 1669, "when the City was pretty well rebuilt, they began to take care of the churches, which had lain in ashes some years;"[513] and Baxter, writing in the year 1675, affirms that few of the churches burnt in the fire had been re-edified.[514]
The Nonconformists exerted themselves in this emergency.[515] The parish Incumbents having left London for want of incomes and of dwelling-places, the ejected ministers came forward to occupy the deserted fields of labour, and resolved, that amidst the ruins they would preach until they were imprisoned. Dr. Manton opened his rooms in Covent Garden, and there gathered a congregation. Dr. Jacomb, for that purpose, used an apartment in the house of the Countess of Exeter. Dr. Annesley, Messrs. Vincent, Doolittle, and Franklin, and other Presbyterians, either occupied chapels, with pulpits, seats, and galleries, hastily erected, to supply the deficiency—"churches of boards," called "tabernacles,"[516]—or large rooms fitted up in some extempore fashion for a like purpose. What had been before done covertly was now done openly; and the Independents, allowing for their numbers, were not behind the Presbyterians in activity. Owen, Goodwin, Nye, Brooke, Caryl, and Griffiths, to mention no more, publicly engaged in religious ministrations wherever they were able, at a time when the parish churches were lying in ruins.
SCOTLAND.
Scarcely had the ashes grown cold when tidings came of a religious rising north of the Tweed. A Proclamation was issued at Edinburgh on the 11th of October, 1666, enforcing the laws against Papists and against Protestant Nonconformists, and requiring that masters, who were all held responsible for their families, and that landlords, who were all made accountable for their tenants, should abstain from repairing to Conventicles, and should attend the Established Church. Sir James Turner was despatched to execute the mandate, and he accomplished its execution with a severity which provoked most violent opposition.
Declaring for liberty of conscience, and also for what was perhaps still more popular—freedom from taxation—the insurgents, although armed, and of formidable appearance, avoided collision with the soldiers, and employed tactics simply defensive. They cut down bridges, and destroyed boats to avoid pursuit, and then hastened towards the Scotch capital, hoping to receive assistance from the citizens. Disappointed in this respect, they retreated to the Pentland Hills, where they were attacked by the Royal Army, and completely routed, after leaving 500 of their comrades dead on the field. Horrid tortures were inflicted on those who were taken prisoners; sixteen of them were executed at Edinburgh, and four at Glasgow—all with their dying breath denouncing Prelacy, laying the shedding of their blood at the Bishops' doors, praying for the King, and begging the Almighty to take away the wicked from about the throne. The disgusting details are related with still more disgusting barbarity by correspondents in Scotland, who sent to London intelligence upon the subject.[517]
1666.
The report in England of fanaticism on the one hand, and cruelty on the other, exasperated both Churchmen and Nonconformists. The former had their suspicions strengthened as to the rebellious intentions attributed to Presbyterians; and the latter were indignant at the vengeance wreaked upon men whom they believed to be sufferers for conscience' sake.
Traces are left of contemporary gossip in letters written at the time. There is, said one, a general gaping of the Nonconformists as to the issue of the disturbances in Scotland. There are, said another, reports of a stir in Hereford, about hearth-money; and an eminent Presbyterian wrote, that thousands of Scots were up and declaring for King and Covenant, having Colonel Carr, an old Kirk-man, amongst them. Other correspondents affirmed they did not wish the Scots for guides, and then they reported "high differences among great persons murmuring, and fears of the oath."[518] Churchmen protested that they had forewarned their sober friends of the other party, and described how the folly and insolence of Nonconformist guides would provoke the authorities to check them.[519]
FANATICS.
Mormonism was then unknown. There were in existence no agents of that strangely-compounded system, inviting emigrants to the Western world; but there were people wandering about England who tried to persuade the credulous and simple to repair to the Palatinate, saying that there the kingdom of Christ was to be restored, and that England, whose sins were so great, was on the edge of destruction. These apostles framed a covenant,—which they concealed from those who were not likely to subscribe it,—to renounce such powers and rulers as were contrary to Christ, and to His Government, to refuse their money, and to separate themselves entirely from all anti-Christian religions. They promised to obey God's laws, especially those relating to the Sabbath, and never to intermarry with strangers—to devote themselves wholly to the service of the Almighty, and try to find a place where they might become a distinct people. Explanations were added to the effect, that the powers renounced were persecuting powers, but that God's laws, if practised by them, were not to be renounced; that no ruler was to be allowed by them, who did not enter into communion with themselves; and that coins bearing images or superscriptions contrary to God's Word should be cast away.[520]
1667.
The Dutch, who had alarmed the Government in 1666, alarmed them again, and the whole nation besides, much more, in 1667. One division of the enemy's fleet swept up the Medway past Sheerness—the other, to divert attention, sailed up the Thames. The former burst the chain hung across the stream, fired at the batteries, reduced to ashes three first-rate men-of-war, and then returned unmolested to join the rest of their own vessels at the Nore.
The influence produced by this unprecedented invasion is vividly reflected in the following letter:—"The merchants are undone. Our great bankers of money have shut up their shops. People are ready to tear their hair off their heads. Great importunity hath been used at Whitehall for a Parliament, and more particularly by Sir George Saville, but nothing will prevail; there is one great gownsman against it, and all the Bishops and Papists, and all those who have cozened and cheated the King. News came this day to the King, the French are come from Brest, and appear before the Isle of Wight; some at Court give out that they are friends, and not enemies. We expect the Dutch as far as Woolwich. People are fled from Greenwich and Blackwall with their families and children. We are betrayed, let it light where it will."[521] And a few days afterwards the nation, from end to end, was agitated by the intelligence of the Dutch attack—many Dissenters idly attributing the success of the daring manœuvre to the teaching of the Government and to Popish counsels at headquarters.[522]
EMPTY EXCHEQUER.
An empty exchequer was the chronic disease of Charles II.'s reign, and so low did the Royal revenue sink this year that twenty-six footmen in His Majesty's establishment were forced to petition for wages, which had been due the previous Michaelmas. To meet the exigences of the moment, letters were written to the Lord Chancellor, as the head of the legal profession, to the Lord-Lieutenants of Counties, as representing the landed interest; and to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to procure loans and voluntary contributions at that "time of public danger." "We are the rather," it is observed in the letter to His Grace, "induced to believe labour herein will be successful, because you are to deal with a sort of persons endued with discretion and ingenuity, who cannot forget what tenderness we have for them, what care to protect and support them, and how much their interest and welfare is involved in ours; but arguments and motives of this nature we leave to your prudent management."[523]
The damage actually done by the Dutch fleet was small; and nothing compared with the dangers threatened by the audacity of its advance. The treaty of peace, which speedily followed, relieved the nation from alarm, but it by no means wiped out the disgrace which the nation had to bear, and which its rulers had incurred.[524]
1667.
Within three months after the booms had been broken by the Dutch in the Medway, Clarendon's term of power was at an end.
A bad harvest is a bad thing for an English Ministry, especially for the Chief of the Cabinet. The visitations of Heaven are set down to his account, and all the weak points of his administration, all the errors of his policy, all the faults of his character, are brought out most vividly in the light of adverse circumstances. So it was, that after the Plague and the Fire of London—with which Clarendon could have had nothing to do—the eyes of the people were strangely opened to the defects of his government; and, when the English Lion was bearded by the insolence of the Hollanders, there fell upon the great statesman the anger of the whole people. To meet the evil, which he had failed to prevent, he counselled the King to dissolve Parliament, and maintain the defences of the country by forced contributions. This private advice was blown abroad, inspiring indignation in the people, and bringing discomfiture to the Prime Minister. He did not want courage, but it was now useless. What he hoped would appear to the King the firmness of an upright mind, was regarded by His Majesty as the obstinacy of a stubborn will. In vain the Duke of York pleaded in his behalf. The Chancellor was forced to resign the Great Seal on the 30th of August.[525]
CLARENDON.
Clarendon, in the impeachment which followed in the month of November, was charged with unconstitutional acts; but, of all the seventeen heads under which the charges were arranged, not more than three, seriously affecting his character as a statesman, contained matters which could be clearly proved. The first allegation—that he had encouraged the King to raise a standing army, and to govern the country without Parliaments—although an exaggerated statement, had some foundation. Respecting the truth of the fourth article—that he had procured the imprisonment of divers persons contrary to law—there could be no doubt whatever. The eleventh charge, touching the sale of Dunkirk to the French for no greater amount than the worth of the ammunition and stores, was false with regard to his being content with the price, but it was true as it respects his promoting the sale. Nor did the impeachment, so far as it could be established, fix upon the Minister the guilt of high treason; but, short of that, it proved him to be a person dangerous to the country, and unfitted to continue in the office which he had filled. Virtuous and patriotic men might fairly have insisted upon the degradation of the Chancellor; but it must be confessed that virtuous and patriotic men were not the prime movers in his punishment. The intrigues of women, anything but virtuous, had most to do with it; for Clarendon had unfortunately excited the wrath of Charles' mistresses, who, by working upon the Monarch's too easy temper, had implanted in his bosom a dislike to his old friend. The object of these ladies was promoted by the assistance of Cavalier gentlemen who never forgave Clarendon for the Act of Indemnity, and who considered that he had, at the Restoration, largely neglected the personal interests of the Royalists. Three Bishops were numbered amongst the Peers who protested against the refusal of the Upper House to commit the Minister upon the charge of treason.[526] The Catholics owed him no gratitude, for they knew his dislike to their religion—and with the nation generally, he had become unpopular for many reasons, particularly for the part which he had taken in the sale of Dunkirk. It is a little surprising, that Presbyterians, who, perhaps, had more reason than any class to complain of his administration, were not amongst his inveterate adversaries. Colonel Birch, who belonged to that religious denomination, was, indeed, one of the Tellers on the side of impeachment; but Baxter notices, as a providence of God, in reference to Clarendon, that the man who had dealt so cruelly with the Nonconformists was cast out by his own friends, "while those that he had persecuted were the most moderate in his cause, and many for him."[527]
1667.
In writing a letter to his daughter, the Duchess of York, just after her conversion to Popery, the necessities of Clarendon's argument forced him to adopt a position, which, if he had sincerely taken it up at an earlier period, must have diverted him from that persecuting course, which is one of the greatest blots on his history. "The common argument," he remarks, "that there is no salvation out of the Church, and that the Church of Rome is that only Church, is both irrational and untrue." "There are many Churches in which salvation may be attained, as well as in any one of them; and were many even in the apostolic time; otherwise they would not have directed their Epistles to so many several Churches, in which there were different opinions received and very different doctrines taught. There is, indeed, but one faith in which we can be saved—the steadfast belief of the birth, passion, and resurrection of our Saviour. And every Church that receives and embraces that faith is in a state of salvation."[528]
CLARENDON.
1667.
The whole history of the Chancellor must be considered, if we would form a just estimate of his character. That he was a man of great ability; that he possessed those talents and accomplishments which contribute to form distinguished statesmen; that he performed services valuable to the nation, at a very critical period of its history; that he had a sense of religion, and was heartily attached to the Episcopal Church, there can be no doubt. Those who glory in the constitution of that Church as established upon the Act of Uniformity will praise him for his wisdom; those who form a different opinion of that Church, and of its legal basis, must withhold such laudation. But, apart from all ecclesiastical questions, and also putting aside the motives by which Clarendon was influenced throughout his career, with all its lights and shadows—here are two aspects of his conduct, at least, upon which the historian must pronounce a severe censure. To say nothing of his pride and avarice—there remain, first, his persecution of the Nonconformists; and next, the dissimulation which he practised, in connection with measures professedly intended for their relief. His persecution of the Nonconformists is a fact which speaks for itself. Whatever notions he might have of what the Church should be it was a gratuitous course, and it betrayed revenge and injustice, to treat Dissenters in the manner which he did: revenge, for he crushed them as conquered foes; injustice, for he dealt with them all as disaffected subjects, whilst the loyalty of the vast majority of them was above suspicion. If his clever diplomacy did not sink into downright dissimulation in the business of the Worcester House Declaration, the circumstances of which have been so fully described—if there was not also much deceptiveness in the promises from Breda, and in the plan of the Savoy Conference, both of which Clarendon, as Charles' Minister, must have advised, it is hard to prove that such qualities have ever belonged to any human being. Many a Jesuit has been a martyr—and I give the Chancellor credit for such an attachment to the Episcopal Church as would have led him to suffer on its behalf, but no man could be more Jesuitical than he was in the course of policy which he adopted for its establishment. So dark a fate as covered the last days of Strafford, Laud, and Charles I., did not attend the final destiny of the great Minister of Charles II.; still, calamities overtook him after the sunshine of his prosperity—his sun set in a cloud; and thus, like his predecessors in the defence of the Church, he has secured from posterity, through sympathy with him in his misfortunes, gentler treatment than the defects of his character would otherwise have received.[529]
CLARENDON.
1667.
By an obvious association we are led to compare the political founder of the Church of England in the seventeenth century with his predecessor in the same capacity a hundred years before. Both Cecil, Lord Burleigh, and Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, had great difficulties in securing the stability of the civil government—in dealing with political discontent and disaffection, in defending the Throne against perils, and in providing revenues for the Crown. Both statesmen, in laying the corner stones of their ecclesiastical polity, had to build in troublous times, and each, "with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon." Both of them, blind to the principle of religious liberty, employed persecuting laws in the service of what they deemed the best form of Christianity; and both also, together with other crooked means of ruling, employed spies, wherewith to see what was done at a distance, and agents wherewith to put in action secret and remote machinery. The contrast between the two, however, is more striking than the resemblance. If difficulties encompassed the navigation of the vessel, the helm of which rested in the hand of Clarendon, far greater difficulties of the same and other kinds—political and ecclesiastical, Popish and Puritan,—surrounded the course of Burleigh. Clarendon was not as cautious, not as timid, as Burleigh. Perhaps neither of them exhibited a lofty order of genius; but Clarendon appears inferior in originality of plan, and in consistency of method. Cecil struck out ideas in commerce too wise for the age in which he lived; and as the fruit of careful meditation in retirement, he laid down a comprehensive scheme of government on the accession of Elizabeth, from the fundamental principles of which he did not deviate in his long administration; but Hyde never showed himself to be more than an experimentalist, adopting expedients as circumstances arose. Cecil was more intolerant towards Papists than towards Puritans. Hyde seemed more averse to Protestant Nonconformists than to Popish recusants. Cecil had broad Protestant sympathies, which led him, as far as possible, to promote the cause of the Reformation abroad; Hyde manifested no zeal for the welfare of the Reformed Churches on the Continent. Burleigh did not enrich himself with the spoils of office,—praise which cannot be given to Clarendon. Yet justice demands the admission that Clarendon did suffer for his principles, at least the inconvenience of exile, which is more than can be said of Burleigh. Finally, success attendant upon the policy of the former lasted long enough to demonstrate the sagacity of the author; but the policy of the latter failed so early as to show, that he did not anticipate what was sure almost immediately to arise—that he did not thoroughly understand the character of his fellow-countrymen.[530]
The illustration of this latter point is required by the conditions of our History.
EXTENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
The Chancellor's object had been not merely to establish the Episcopal Church, but to crush every form of Dissent. Indeed, his notion of an establishment was that it should have an exclusive existence in the country—that Nonconformity should have no place whatever under its shadow. Yet, at the time of his fall, only five years after the Act of Uniformity was passed, and within two years of the passing of the Five Mile Act—not only did Popery continue to lurk within these dominions, not only did it make its way amongst the upper classes, but Presbyterianism recovered itself from the blows which it had received, and Independents, Baptists, and Quakers, secretly or openly, promoted the spread of their opinions. Of this fact, passages from contemporaries afford striking proofs.
On the 4th of August, 1666, a correspondent at Chester, stated that the City swarmed with "cardinal Nonconformists," and that they were so linked into the Magistracy, by alliance, that it was very difficult to bring them to punishment;—only a few of them attended Divine service, and even they were absent during the prayers. Experience proved that these great pretenders to piety and religion, who would not conform to the Prince's ecclesiastical power, only submitted to the civil until they could get power to refuse it.
On the 31st of August, 1667, the day after Clarendon resigned the Great Seal, a letter reached Sir Joseph Williamson complaining of "crowds of fanatics," about Bath and Frome. The gentry, as well as the ignorant and ill-affected classes, helped to beget a jealousy of Popery, and were apparently fallen back to the spirit of 1642. Even some who looked big in Court, and in Parliament, had sheltered the unlawful vessels of the malcontented and the furious within their allotments, and in their own families, more especially, since the late exigencies had arisen.
1667.
On the 10th of September the same year, another person at Bath declared that the Nonconformists grew in numbers and insolence, saying they should have liberty of conscience, and that the Government, which could not stand much longer, could do no otherwise than allow them their freedom. They had reached such a degree of insolence as to break open church doors, and to get into the buildings to vent their sedition and rebellion. The minister at Marshfield often returned from church for want of a congregation, even of two or three, whereas, at the same time, 500 met in a barn within the town. They transformed such buildings into the likeness of churches, with seats for the convenience of speaking and hearing. The writer, who was a clergyman, declared that he had taken all ways imaginable to keep his people within the bounds of sobriety and obedience, and had preached constantly twice a day to suit their humour in all things lawful, descending to the plainest and most practical speaking, and had never used a note, or so much as wrote a word. Moreover, he had treated the party with all civility and kindness, and been very pacificatory in public and in private, yet all seemed in vain, and he saw that a minister must be a martyr.[531]
EXTENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
A contemporary author affirms that the Nonconformists everywhere spread through city and country; they made no small part of all ranks and sorts of men; by relations and commerce they were so woven into the nation's interest, that it was not easy to sever them without unravelling the whole skein. They were not excluded from the nobility, among the gentry they were not a few, yet none were of more importance than mere tradesmen, and such as lived by their own industry. To suppress them would beget a general insecurity, and might help to drive trade out of the country, and send it to find a home with an emulous and encroaching nation. If no greater latitude could be allowed than existed at that time, a race of Nonconformists would, in all probability, run parallel with Conformists to the end of the world.[532]