as well as the army, under the name of independent: it spread indeed somewhat more in the latter, but not equal with the presbyterians, either. in weight or number, until the very time the king was murdered.

When the king, who was then a prisoner in the isle of Wight, had made his last concessions for a peace to the commissioners of the parliament, who attended him there; upon their return to London they reported his majesty's answer to the house: whereupon a number of moderate members, who, as Ludlow says, had secured their own terms with that prince, managed with so much art, as to obtain a majority, in a thin house, for. passing a vote that the king's concessions were a ground for future settlement. But the great officers of the army, joining with the discontented members, came to a resolution of excluding all those who had consented to that vote; which they executed in a military way. Ireton told Fairfax the general, a rigid presbyterian, of this resolution; who, thereupon, issued his orders for drawing out the army the next morning, and placing guards in Westminster-hall, the court of. requests, and the lobby; who, in obedience to the general, in conjunction with those members. who opposed the vote, would let no member enter the house, except those of their own party.. Upon which, the question for bringing the king to justice was immediately put, and carried without opposition that I can find. Then an order was made for his trial; the time and place appointed; the judges named, of whom Fairfax himself was one; although, by the advice or threats of his wife, he declined sitting among them. However, by fresh orders under his own hand, which I have seen in print, he appointed guards

to attend the judges at the trial, and to keep the oity in quiet; as he did likewise to prevent any opposition from the people, upon the day of exe

cution.

From what I have already deduced, it appears manifest that the differences between these two sects, Presbyterian and Independent, did not then amount to half so much as what there is between a whig and tory at present among us.

The de

sign of utterly extirpating monarchy and episcopacy, was equally the same in both; evidently the consequence of the very same principles, upon which the presbyterians alone began, continued, and would have ended in the same events; if, toward the conclusion, they had not been bearded by that new party with whom they could not agree about dividing the spoil. However, they held a good share of civil and military em-, ployments during the whole time of the usurpation; and their names, actions, and preferments, are frequent in the accounts of those times. For I make no doubt, that all the prudent Presbyterians complied in proper seasons, falling in with the stream; and thereby got that share in employments, which many of them held to the restoration; and perhaps too many of them after. In the same manner, we find our wisest tories in both kingdoms, upon the change of hands and measures at the queen's death, have endeavoured for several years, by due compliances, to recover the time they had lost by a temporary obstinacy; wherein they have well succeeded, according to their degrees of merit; of whose names I could here make honourable mention, if I did not fear. it might offend their modesty. As to what is alleged, that some of the Presbyterians declared openly against the king's murder, I allow it to be

true. But from what motives? No other can possibly be assigned, than perfect spite, rage, and envy, to find themselves wormed out of all power by a new infant spawn of independents, sprung from their own bowels. It is true, the differences in religious tenets between them are very few and trifling; the chief quarrel, as far as I remember, relating to congregational and national assemblies. But whatever interest or power thinks fit to interfere, it little imports what principles the opposite parties think fit to charge upon each other: for we see at this day, that the tories are more hated by the whole set of zealous whigs than the very papists themselves; and in effect as much unqualified for the smallest office: although both these parties assert themselves to be of the same religion, in all its branches of doctrine and discipline; and profess the same loyalty, to the same Protestant king and his heirs.

If the reader would know what became of this independent party, upon whom all the mischief is charged by their Presbyterian brethren, he may please to observe, that during the whole usurpation, they contended by degrees with their parent sect, and as I have already said, shared in employments, and gradually, after the restora tion, mingled with the mass of Presbyterians; lying ever since undistinguished in the herd of dissenters.

The Presbyterian merit is of as little weight, when they allege themselves instrumental toward the king's restoration. The kingdom grew tired with those ridiculous models of government: first, by a house of lords and commons without a king; then, without bishops; afterward by a rump * and

This name was given to that part of the house of commons

lords temporal; then, by a rump alone; next, by a single person for life, in conjunction with a council; by agitators; by major-generals; by a new kind of representatives from the three kingdoms; by the keepers of the liberties of England; with other schemes that have slipped out of my memory. Cromwell was dead; his son Richard, a weak ignorant wretch, who gave up his monarchy much in the same manner with the two usurping kings of Brentford; * the people harassed with taxes and other oppressions. The king's party, then called the cavaliers, began to recover their spirits. The few nobility scattered through the kingdom, who lived in a most retired manner, observing the confusion of things, could no longer endure to be ridden by bakers, cobblers, brewers, and the like, at the head of armies, and plundering every where like French dragoons. The rump assembly grew despicable to those who had raised them: the city of London, exhausted by almost twenty years contributing to their own ruin, declared against them. The rump, after many deaths and resurrections, was, in the most contemptuous manner, kicked out, and burned in effigy: the excluded members were let in; a free parliament called, in as legal a manner as the times would allow; and the king restored.

The second claim of Presbyterian merit is founded upon their services against the dangerous designs of king James the Second, while that prince was using all his endeavours to introduce

which remained after the moderate men had been expelled by military force.

popery, which he openly professed upon his coming to the crown: to this, they add their eminent services at the revolution, under the prince of Orange.

Now the quantum of Presbyterian merit during the four years' reign of that weak, bigoted, and ill-advised prince, as well as at the time of the revolution, will easily be computed, by a recourse to a great number of histories, pamphlets, and public papers, printed in those times, and some afterward; beside the verbal testimonies of many persons yet alive, who are old enough to have known and observed the dissenters' conduct in that critical period.

It is agreed, that upon king Charles the Second's death, soon after his successor had publicly owned himself a Roman Catholic, he began with his first caresses to the church party; from whom having received very cold discouraging answers, he applied to the Presbyterian leaders and teachers; being advised by his priests and Popish courtiers, that the safest method toward introducing his own religion would be, by taking off the sacramental test, and giving a full liberty of conscience to all religions, I suppose that professed Christianity. It seems that the Presbyterians, in the latter years of king Charles the Second, upon account of certain plots (allowed by bishop Burnet to be genuine,) had been for a short time forbidden to hold their conventicles: whereupon these charitable Christians, out of perfect resentment against the church, received the gracious offers of king James with the strongest professions of loyalty, and highest acknowledgments for his favour. I have seen several of their addresses, full of thanks and praises, with bitter insinuations of what they had suffered; putting themselves and