therefore could be restored if this involved the dispossession of any adventurer or soldier.[1]
In the meantime a new wrangle went on before the Privy Council as to the provisions to be embodied in the new Act.[2]
The first draft of the Amending Bill which was sent over to England was entirely disapproved of by the King and Council. Orders were given to prepare a new draft, and this was largely drawn up by Ormond. It was sent to England in September; but was not discussed at the Council until November. Whether the draft first sent over and rejected contained clauses extending the time for hearing claims to innocence and for restoring the other classes mentioned in the Act of Settlement is not clear from Carte's narrative. That a draft Bill had been framed containing such clauses is clear from a letter from Lord Kingston to Secretary Bennet in January, 1663.[3]
The Commissioners for the execution of that Act were in favour of such clauses. Reasons why the periods should be extended are given in an unsigned document in the Calendar of State Papers, 1669—70, with Addenda. The date of this appears to be about September, 1663, and it may have come from Winston Churchill. It says: "It is evident that the expressing of the time was for hastening their restitution, and though the
- ↑ See Cal. St. Paps., 1669—70, and addenda, p. 474; and also their own statement above cited.
- ↑ Sir Wm. Domville refers to the new Bill as early as Nov. 1662, that is, if the document is correctly dated in the Cal. St. Papa. "An Explanatory Bill has lately gone from here for lightening some dark places in the Act of Settlement," p. 627.
- ↑ Cal. St. Paps., 1663-65, p. 3. He speaks of "the Act of Explanation lately remitted" having an unlimited time for judging innocents.
