XVI.

faithfully consider what shall be required of me, that I may see CHA P. my duty, and avoid the paths of error and danger. Let nothing seduce me from a settled purpose of doing what I believe will be most acceptable to Thee. And grant that I may omit nothing that I ought to do in order to be rightly informed."

Other devotional compositions, of about the same date, shew that however careful and decisive in action, he really proceeded in no reliance on himself.

creased

alms.

And he went on preparing himself by alms as well as by His inprayers. It plainly appears on comparison of dates, that as s if by a kind of instinct, conscious or unconscious, he repeatedly fixed on times when he was likely to be hard pressed as the very times for augmenting his proportion of religious alms. Thus on Jan. 6, 1716, very shortly after Mary Hendrick's appeal, his memorandum is, being then at Bishop's Court:

Finding that I have enough to spare, over and above a decent hospitality, besides what I formerly gave to pious uses; and being convinced that I am no proprietor, but only a steward of the Church's patrimony; I do therefore, to the glory of God, dedicate three-tenths of my rents to pious uses, and one-tenth of all the profits of the demesnes, and two-tenths of the profits of my English estate, until I can purchase the impropriation of the estate, which I intend to do, and give it to the Church, and after, the one-tenth besides."

"This English estate," says Dr. Wilson (for doubtless it is he) in a note to Cruttwell, "was £60 a-year, Mrs. Wilson's jointure, and purchased with her fortune." It consisted, I believe, of two estates in Cheshire, both of them in the parish of Woodchurch, in the townships partly of Landican, partly of Knoctorum: both of which in after years were carefully superintended and improved by Dr. Wilson, the Bishop's son, and both under his will have descended to his kinsman and representative, Mr. Wilson Patten.

Two years after this, the Bishop climbs another step, from 30 per cent. to 40 on his gross rental:

"Bishop's Court, Feb. 18, 1718.

"To the Glory of God. I find by constant experience that God will be no man's debtor. I find that I have enough and to spare;

XVI.

CHAP. so that for the future I dedicate four-tenths to pious uses—one-tenth of the demesnes, and custom which I receive in moneys, and of my English estate as above. And the good Lord accept His poor servant in this service, for Christ's sake. Amen."

This, it must be observed, dates just from the day before that on which the Council laid a fine on him for not obeying the Earl's summons to Westminster.

Once more:

"Bishop's Court, St. Thomas's Eve, 1721.

"To the glory of God. I dedicate the interest of all my moneys to pious uses, so long as I have wherewithal to live on besides. Blessed be God for giving me a heart and will to do so."

This was his way of keeping his fifty-ninth birthday, and it was just two days after the consistory which had censured the Earl's Chaplain and the Governor's wife.

I have given these entries as he originally framed them. In the final copy of Sacra Privata he modified them, after his manner, so as to clear up some of the expressions: signifying that the tenth from the demesnes was to be "turned into corn for poor families:" and explaining in the third entry that he meant "the whole interest of what moneys he had at use." I suppose such enviable courage in giving could hardly be attained by a thoughtful conscientious person, were it not for his strict and honest economy, which enabled him at all times to know what he was receiving, and what he could justly spare. And this was not all, as will shortly appear.

In the course of that year he had lost his eldest sister, Sarah, aged, as he says, sixty-six: but the Burton register states her to have been baptized March 7, 1657, which would make her at most sixty-four. Probably in that "interregnum" of the Church, her baptism may have been delayed even for two years. Or he may have remembered incorrectly the day of her death, it may be noticed, he has left blank. She was married, Oct. 21, 1678, to Mr. Garratt (i. e. Gerrard) Macklin, whose residence is not specified; and at the date of her father's will she was the mother of two sons, Thomas and Gerrard, who are mentioned repeatedly in the

MS. i. 157.

XVI.

remaining journals of their cousin the Bishop's son, as re- CHAP. siding in or near Warrington, and seemingly in affluence. Thus, Oct. 21, 1731, he says, "Cousin Macklin sent his horses with me to Chester." And both then and as long after as 1750, he was depending more or less on one of them for reports of the condition of his farms there. The Bishop's omission then proves no estrangement, but merely some failure of memory at the time. Mr. Macklin his brotherin-law, had been, it will be remembered, one of his father's executors.

The Bishop's choice of sermons and subjects for sermons may be one indication how his mind was engaged at these critical times of his life. His last sermon in the old year, 1721, was preached at Kirk Michael on Palm Sunday, March 18, when he confirmed seventy persons, fifty-eight of them of his own parish, and it was the eighty-fifth in his collected works, than which one can scarcely imagine a graver warning-the more impressive from its perfect calmness and simple air of common sense-against people satisfying themselves with the bare performance of the outward duties of religion.

Again, on the following Easter Sunday, being the Annunciation Day, and therefore the first of the new year as then reckoned, Bishop Wilson preached at Douglas, on the Resurrection, with a view especially to its evidence: Douglas being a town where new opinions and corrupting pamphlets were likely to be more harmful than anywhere else in the island, with the single exception of Castletown.

Meanwhile every week almost some fresh strife was arising between the ecclesiastical and civil officers :

"Si rixa est, ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum."

Besides his outrageous behaviour to Henry Halsall, which has been related, the Governor interfered in various instances to stay the course of discipline by encouraging, or at least conniving at, the departure of criminals or witnesses from the island. Thus, at Braddan, April 16, came on

"A final hearing of the case of Mr. Bacon and Mrs. Fine. The two defamers, Falconer and Ashworth, having no witnesses to support their own oaths, were not admitted to take their oaths; and Bacon and Fine admitted to clear themselves with lawful compurgators on Sunday next, plená Eccles."

CHAP.

XVI.

case.

But, April 21, the Bishop having written

66

"a letter to Mr. Curghey to be careful solemnly to admonish
Bacon and Fine, and to be careful what compurgators he admits;
Mr. Falconer," he says,
came to desire I would stop the purga
tion of Bacon and Fine, alleging that he had clear proofs in Eng-
land, &c. My answer, That I would stop their purgation, and allow
him reasonable time, if he would give bonds and security to make
good his allegation," &c.

This, it seems, he was unable or unwilling to do, and had incurred some censure for defamation, but

"N.B. Governor Horne gave Mr. Falconer a licence to depart the island, though under Church censures, &c. The like to Count Taaf,-his own maid,—Spanish lady," &c.

Delahoyd's April 23, (the Bishop writes,) "W. Curlet," Coroner of Michael Sheading, "charged me this day by a stone token to appear at Castletown on Friday next by 9 o'clock, at the suit of one Delahoyde." This stone token, at that time universally used as a kind of summons by the Manx Courts, was a piece of thin stone or slate, on which "the magistrate" (says Bishop Wilson b) "makes a mark,"

"generally the first letters of his Christian and surname. This is given to the proper officer,—the Sumner, if it be before an ecclesiastical magistrate, or the Lockman', if before a temporal,-with twopence; who shews it to the person to be charged, with the time when he is to appear, and at whose suit; which if he refuse to obey, he is fined or committed to prison until he give bonds to obey and pay costs."

In this and in the other instances of the Governor's summoning Bishop Wilson and his officers, the summons was sent not as from a court of appeal to an inferior court, but by coroners or lock men as to ordinary offenders, by way of studied affront.

Delaboyd's case may be sufficiently understood from the Bishop's statement, which is confirmed by his own, both being extant in the register; together with a deposition

h History of the Isle of Man.

The Coroners (there is one for each sheading) have a deputy in each parish, called a Lockman, most likely

(as executioners in Scotland) from
having formerly been paid by a "lock"
of meal from each man's sack.
ii. 210.

Train,

from the Sumner of Kirk Braddan, who in the execution of CHAP. his office had been violently assaulted by Delahoyd:

April 27, 1722. "To the Honourable Alexander Horne, Esq., Governor of this Isle:

"We the Bishop, Vicars-General, Official, and both the Registrars of this Diocese, not insensible of the great indignity offered us and the offices we bear, by being summoned as a Court by coroners and lockmen to appear before you, and particularly by your enlargement of Patrick Delahoyde, confined by our authority for not perfecting an Administration by giving pledges according to law, (though no appeal lies to the Staff of Government for any causes depending or determined in the Ecclesiastical Courts, touching the granting of Administrations,) do hereby protest against these methods of contempt and innovation, as tending to the encouragement of the criminous and refractory, and to the manifest diminution of that authority with which we are vested by the laws and constitution of this isle.

"And forasmuch as on the 9th of February last, we the Bishop and Vicars-General requested the benefit of the law of the land by a trial before the 24 Keys of the matters of slander and defamation wherewith we were then charged in our offices; but the same not being granted us: We do now again desire the Deemsters and 24 Keys may be called to declare the law:

"1. Whether, as a Court, we be subject to be summoned, and obliged by law personally to appear to defend our judgment given in any cause, especially where no regular appeal lies?

“2. Whether the granting releasement by any authority but ours to prisoners confined for causes of the said nature, viz. where no appeal lies, be agreeable to the law and practice of this isle, and whether the person releasing be not liable to the damages which may thereupon ensue.

"THO. SODOR AND MAN, WM. WALKER, JOHN CURGHEY,
CHA. WATLEWORTH, J. WOODS, WM. GELL."

April 27" (says the Bishop) "we appeared" (at Castletown) "and protested under our hands. The Governor denied he gave any token to charge us, and ordered Delahoyde to be recommitted." Yet the register contains an order from him, dated April 17, that the said Patrick Delahoyde "give notice to the officers of the Spiritual Court that they appear in order to answer and satisfy the Court in this matter." Evidently he had now come to understand that it was a

k k

trumpery

XVI.