1722. When time had elapsed sufficient to ascertain the numbers, it was found that not more than 200 Clergymen throughout the whole country had read the Declaration. It was read by Sprat in Westminster Abbey; but few persons remained to hear it, besides the Choristers and the Westminster Scholars.[1]
Unable to shew that the Dissenters took any part in the great struggle, and unwilling to award any merit to the Bishops and Clergy, Dissenting writers frequently labour to find out something, on which they may rest a charge against the members of the Anglican Church. They pretend, therefore, that the Clergy opposed the King merely because he favoured the Dissenters, and not from any love of liberty. They claim the Revolution as the offspring of their own principles, though Dissenters really supported the King in his unconstitutional course. Instead of defending the liberties of their country, they actually addressed the King in the most flattering style. To encourage them, they were told by some of the courtiers, that the royal intentions had all along been thwarted by the Church of England. The language of not a few of the addresses must have surprised the King himself. Alsop, a man of some influence with the body, prepared an address, in which the parties wished the King success in his "great councils and affairs."[2] These Addresses encouraged the King in his course; for he never conceived it possible, that he should be defeated by the Church. The Dis-
