but totally neglected, as deserts, and left without the Protection of the Government. 2. Those who complied, and were persecuted by the rabble: or those, who after they complied, were deprived by the council, because they did it not on the individual day appointed, when the proclamation came not to their hands against the time required, nor could they have the opportunity of observing it sooner, than when they obeyed it. 3. Those who were deprived by the council for non-compliance, there being not so much as twenty-four hours given some of them to advise in so weighty an affair. 4. Those who are now deposed by the Holy Inquisition of the Presbyterian Assembly."[1]
More than three hundred Clergymen were thrust out of their houses and their parishes by the rabble, and then deprived of their possessions for no crime whatever, but solely on account of their views of Church government, and because they were obnoxious
- ↑ A Late Letter concerning the Sufferings of the Episcopal Clergy in Scotland. 4to. London 1691, p. 20. Tindal's admissions are fully confirmatory of this account. He admits that Lord Melvill deemed it his interest to secure the Presbyterians, "which he found no method so effectual to do as by abandoning- the ministers of the Episcopal persuasion to their fury." To accomplish his object Melvill set up the Earl of Crawford to act as the head of his party, who "received and encouraged all the complaints that were made against the Episcopal ministers." The Convention had ordered a proclamation to be read in the churches, which did not reach the Clergy till the Sunday morning, and in some cases not till the next day: yet, "complaints were brought to the Council of all those, who had not read nor obeyed the proclamation; and they were in a summary way deprived. Those who did not read the proclamation on the day appointed had no favour, though they did it afterwards: and upon any word that fell from them, either in their extemporary prayers or sermons, that shewed disaffection to the Government, they were also deprived." Vol. i. 105.
