[415] Clarendon cannot be relieved from a charge of duplicity in this business.
[416] See Lister's Life of Clarendon, iii. 232, compared with Clarendon's Continuation, 1129. The story is there wrongly dated. So it is in Parl. Hist., iv. 311.
[417] Continuation, 1131.
[418] Under date April 21, 1663, there is a petition from Samuel Wilson, who was seized in the Downs for ignorantly receiving a seditious letter from Hook, a minister, which came wrapped up in a bundle of books. This person, Mrs. Green, in the Calendar of State Papers, 1663, suggests, is the writer of the remarkable letter here referred to. No doubt of it. The letter is dated March 2, 1663, addressed to Mr. Davenport, who was colleague with Hook at New Haven, in New England. On Hook's return from America to England he became a minister at Exmouth, and afterwards Master of the Savoy and Chaplain to Cromwell.—Palmer's Nonconformist Memorial.
[419] This writer attributes depression in trade to the Act of Uniformity, and blames the Presbyterians for being ready to meet the Prelates half way, and swallow the Liturgy.
[420] Baxter's Life and Times, ii. 433.
[421] See Commons' Journals, 1663, February 27, March 16.
[422] Parl. Hist., iv. 263–5.
[423] The Bill against Papists was committed March 17th; that against Dissenters May 23rd. Several debates, amendments, and divisions took place. At the beginning of July the Bills were carried up to the Lords. The Bill against Sectaries was committed by the Upper House, July 22nd, and there the matter ended. Parliament was prorogued on the 27th.
[424] Lords' Journals, July 25, 27.