XVIII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A YEAR AND A HALF IN ENGLAND. THE CAUSE DECIDED.
FROM APRIL 8, 1723, TO OCTOBER 4, 1724.

CHAP. Ar length, on Easter Monday, April 8, Bishop Wilson's
preparations were so far complete that he was able to start
once more for England-the most momentous, perhaps, of
all his voyages.
"I landed," he says, "at Hylake, with Mr.
Stevenson, after twenty-four hours' sail." If we take the
phrase at its literal meaning, this expedition, like so many
before, must have taken place on a Sunday: that is, he must
have gone on board before Easter-day was over. Mr. Steven-
son was one of four who had been commissioned by the Keys
to use on their behalf, here in England, "all legal means of
obtaining redress of their manifold oppressions and wrongs,
before His Majesty in Council, or elsewhere, as they shall be
advised, in pursuance of the power of trust formerly by the
Keys reposed in them." The other three were John Chris-
tian, of Unrigg, in Cumberland, Esq., Thomas Corlett, and
Thomas Christian, Gentlemen-the two last, with Stevenson,
being members of the House of Keys. They brought with
them ample instructions as to the matter of their remon-
strance, and full authority to proceed as might seem best in
the manner of urging it. They elected to petition Lord
Derby in the first instance, and the event in the Bishop's
cause proved that in so doing they exercised a sound dis-
cretion. The result I will not here anticipate; but the very
application must have satisfied his Lordship, if he did not
know it before, that he had to do not with a mere clerical
junto, but with the general body of the landholders of the
island; as what took place first at the Bishop's imprison-
ment, and afterwards on his liberation, must have shewn his
Lordship the feeling of the populace. For the instructions
(which I reprint at the end of this chapter from Mr. Stowell's
Appendix) as well as the petitions afterwards based upon
them, mix up the Bishop's spiritual grievances with the
people's civil and temporal wrongs, in a way to shew, beyond

• See Note (A) subjoined to this chapter.

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all doubt, that they felt one as deeply as the other, and re- CHAP. garded both as alike unconstitutional. Independently of any formal result, the moral support which all this gave to the Bishop's cause at the time must have been real and very valuable.

The Bishop as yet could have hardly had in his hands the answer (so called) of the Governor and his officers to the first petition; for the evidence on which that answer was to be based had been only taken but three days before. He had therefore (besides other things) to draw up his rejoinder -an elaborate and masterly paper-after he came to England, to be ready against the first hearing. Various delays however intervened; and when the day of hearing first appointed was come, that is, May 22, it found him, instead of waiting anxiously in Court, making a quiet call upon his old friend Dr. Bray, where another old friend and cousin, Ralph Thoresby, then paying what proved to be his final visit to London, chanced to look in, and "happily," as he says, "met with the good Bishop of Man P." A few days afterwards, May 28, Thoresby was at the Society's room, "taking leave of dear friends," amongst whom he names Bishop Gibson, the Bishop of Man, &c., adding, evidently with the feeling of one who has found a gem, "I have his motto in my travelling album" no doubt the Tuta et Parvula, which our Bishop wrote in all his books.

Then came other postponements-one especially which I am unable to explain. The King having gone over into Germany, the Bishop petitioned the Lords Justices to have the hearing of the cause transferred from the Appeal Committee to the whole Council. Notice had to be given to Lord Derby, and so one hindrance following another, nothing was really done until July 18.

The charities however of the City of London, especially those connected with the great societies, and the earnest people in the congregations, failed not to profit by the delay. There are entries on his MS. Sermons for every Sunday in June of that year: for Whitsunday, June 2, two, both at St. Mary Aldermanbury; and there are three in the ensuing

P Diary, ii. 380, 382.

CHAP. month. In August and September there are none a fact easily accounted for.

XVIII.

Order for

previous appeal to

Lord
Derby.

For on July 18 the cause really came on. For the first time the Privy Council sat judicially on the appeal; but it took a turn probably different from what the Bishop and his friends expected, and the immediate result was simply a great deal of vexatious delay and expense. The parties were heard by counsel, but the merits of the case were not entered into. A preliminary point was raised by the Governor's advocates; viz. that the appeal out of the island, purporting to be made from the decree of a Court acting by authority of the Earl of Derby, feudal proprietor of the island under the Crown, ought to have been made to his Lordship in the first instance. So it was argued, and so it was finally sustained; the time had not yet come for speaking of unconstitutional abuse of power, ill-treatment, contumacy, or anything else, but an order was made "that the first petition of appeal be dismissed, in regard the same ought to have been made in the first instance to the Earl of Derby as Lord of the Isle, from whom it would regularly have come before his Majesty."

As to the second petition, charging the officers, and Horne especially, with contempt and contumacious disregard of the King's order, their Excellencies were pleased to respite it for future consideration. In fact it was deferred by consent.

It was but too easy to foresee that the persons, especially the principal person, with whom the Bishop and his friends now again had to deal, would have no scruple in prolonging the time, enhancing the cost, and aggravating every difficulty to the extent of their power. However, there was but one thing to be done. The Bishop and Mr. Walker (for the other Vicar-General, Curghey, had not accompanied them to England, partly perhaps on account of his age and infirmities, and partly because of the inconvenience of their being all absent from the island at once) lost no time in preparing a petition to the Earl, the same in substance with that which they had first presented to the Council. It was ready by the 31st of July, and dry and technical as it was in itself, it was destined to undergo

XVIII.

a series of adventures which may remind us of nothing so CHAP. much as of the difficulty of conveying papal mandates according to their address, as exemplified in the romantic history of Archbishop Becket.

First of all, on July 31, the petitioners having, as I imagine, Difficulty of getting left London (where the Bishop preached on the 28th) for the appeal Warrington, in order to be near at hand for convenience presented. in dealing with the Earl-they sent Anthony Halsal, Chaplain of Douglas, a person greatly trusted, and constantly employed by them in this emergency, to deliver their petition to his Lordship, whom they knew to be then at Knowsley. But the Earl would not see Halsal: only a Mr. John Murrey signified to him, in his Lordship's name, that the appeal and complaint must first be sent to his officers in the Isle of Man, for their acceptance, before he could receive it himself.

Upon this, with great trouble and expense, they sent Mr. Halsal with the petition to the Isle, who presented it in their name, Aug. 19, to Mylrea, then Deputy-Governor in Horne's absence, to Moore the other Deemster, and to Rowe the Comptroller, Sandforth acting with them as WaterBailiff. They took a week to consider, and then frankly accepted and indorsed it. For Halsal, Aug. 26, saw their names on the back of it, and read them several times, in their own hands.

Their acceptance is recorded in the Registry as follows:— "The officers accepted the Bishop of Man and his VicarsGenerals' appeal in these or the like words :

"Castle Rushen, August 26, 1723. "Notwithstanding the method and form of the above appeal is not agreeable to the usual practice of appeals within this Isle, yet in all submission to the Right Honourable Lord's prerogative, the said appeal is accepted from our judicial proceedings, the parties applying to Governor Horne, who presided in this affair, for his acceptance, and giving in bonds to prosecute and make good the said appeal in such time as shall be appointed by his Lordship, and also to answer all costs, damages, and expenses that have been, or shall be sustained by the parties complained of by this complaint, and likewise that they take authentic copies of all proceedings relating to this affair, and lay them before his Lordship.

"CHARLES MOOR, JOHN Rowe, DANIEL MCYLREA."

CHAP.
XVIII.

It appears that at this point Mr. Sandforth withdrew him

self from the affair.

But they very soon repented of this deviation into straightforwardness. Three days after, Aug. 29, they took on them to require of Mr. Halsal a bond under penalty of £500 on the part of the Bishop and Vicars-General, one condition being that they should make good their appeal, another "for payment of all costs and charges, past or to come." Until this bond were given they declared they would neither return the appeal with their acceptance, nor give an authentic copy of it.

Halsal, who seems thoroughly to have justified the Bishop's confidence in him, declined this arbitrary demand, but offered an engagement to the same amount to prosecute the appeal with effect, and to answer all ensuing costs, or to give any other bond that was according to law and precedent. He reminded them of an appeal which they had themselves accepted only two months before, not imposing any such condition. But they would not listen to his proposal.

The next fact may best be given in the very words of the document :

"That your petitioners having notice of what passed in the island, a petition thereupon to the said Earl of Derby was prepared, and sent by Mr. Christian, one of the 24 Keys of Man, to be presented to his Lordship, then at Buxton; who endeavoured to get an opportunity of laying the same before his Lordship, and used all decent means he could think of, but in vain, not being able to gain access to his Lordship."

Upon this it would appear that the Bishop and Mr. Walker, confident in their just cause, authorized Halsal to accept the required bond in their names, strange and unreasonable as its terms were. He did so on the 4th, and again on the 8th of October, offering to have it executed in the very terms the officers had insisted on, " or any other bond that they should require, the said Mr. Halsal trusting that his Lordship, upon hearing the cause, would detest and condemn such unreasonable proceedings." But now they had got up another plea: they said the time for appealing was elapsed, although they had six weeks before signed and sealed their acceptance of that very appeal. Rowe went on to tell Halsal that he