CHAP. "That the said Earl, having on all occasions shewed himself a great favourer of liberty and property, did soon after he became Lord of the Isle of his own mere motion most generously grant to all the inhabitants of the said isle their fee and inheritance of all the lands in the said isle under very small quit-rents-whereas all the said lands had before, time out of mind, been, and then were, the absolute fee and inheritance of the said Earl and his predecessors, and had been granted out by them as they thought fit; and such grant was made by the said Earl without receiving or stipulating for any consideration whatsoever in respect thereof, and with no other view or expectation than that the inhabitants of the said isle, when they should have a more permanent, valuable, and independent interest in the said lands, would become more active in improving the same, and more industrious in promoting the trade of the said isle. "But after the people of the said isle had got such grant of their said land, instead of being reminded of their allegiance and the great gratitude due from them to the said Earl on account of the said grant, they were taught and often told by some of their clergy that by virtue of the said grant they were become independent of the said Earl as to their estates, and need not fear or regard what he could do to them; and from the time of the said grant the people have been industriously encouraged to a disregard of the civil power, and at the same time as industriously taught to pay an unlimited regard and obedience to the Ecclesiastical power in the said isle, and no means have been omitted to advance the one and debase and embarrass the other; and these respondents beg leave to hope that the petition now before your Lordships will appear to proceed from the same spirit and fountain only, and not from any real grievances any of the people of the said isle have been or are under. "And it is very observable, as these respondents humbly apprehend upon the face of the said petition, that the same is calculated and framed designedly to asperse and draw an unjust odium on the said Earl and his officers in the said isle, by raking up and ransacking for many years backwards several articles of illegal and arbitrary practices, as the petitioners term them, done by the former Governors and officers of the said isle, and wherein these respondents are no-ways concerned; and in order to make out such complaints, the said petition has stated the said complaints very partially and imperfectly; omitting and suppressing, on the one hand, every circumstance tending to justify the said former Governors and officers, and, on the other hand, stating not only such facts as appear against them in virulent and general terms, and in a manner that renders it impossible without great prolixity to answer the same; but the said petition has also stated falsities for facts, and though a great part of the petition is taken up with complaints stated in this manner against the late Governors and officers of the said isle, the two last of which Governors are now living, and one of them in his Majesty's service, and many of the other former officers are now also living, yet are [not?] they or any one of them, though the only persons who should answer such complaints against them, made parties to the said petition, which evidently shews that the aim of the said petition must be to XX. calumniate, asperse, and injure the said Earl in his honour, and his officers CHA P. in their reputations, and to prejudice them in his Majesty's and your Lordships' opinion. "And these respondents further say that though, and for some time, more persons have been prosecuted and sentenced to imprisonment and shameful punishments-such as wearing the bridle on their heads and a bit in their mouths, and led about in public markets within the said island by the Spiritual Court there, for pretended offences, or suspicion of rape, adultery, fornication, and affronts or pretended affronts to the spiritual power in the said island than have been during the time imprisoned by all the Temporal Courts there for temporal crimes or offences; and though the oath ex officio is rigorously imposed and enforced by the Bishop and his officers on all persons whom they are pleased to suspect of fornication or adultery, and such persons put either to charge or purge themselves, to the great harrassing and expense of the people and introduction of perjury, as was found by the said oath in England till abolished by Act of Parliament in the reign of King Charles the Second, yet the said Bishop and clergy have, by their artifices and endeavours, all along hindered the said oath from being abolished by the legislature in the said island. And though the arbitrary practice and proceedings of the Spiritual Courts in the said isle are carried on and exercised to the great destruction and ruin of numbers of families there, a power arrogated by the Bishop and clergy utterly destructive of and inconsistent with the liberties and properties of the inhabitants, and with the Protestant religion itself; yet it is observable that there is not the least complaint mentioned in the said petition of any misbehaviour in any one spiritual person or officer, but, on the contrary, complaints of discouragements or restraints put upon them in the exercise of the power they assume in the island-which the respondents take notice of the further, to shew your Lordships from whence the complaints in the said petition do really and truly proceed..... "And as to the said dungeon complained of by the petitioners to be so damp and unhealthy a prison as to cause death to a person in a few hours, these respondents say that, on the contrary, it is a dry wholesome prison, and is, and time out of mind has been, a common and public prison for persons imprisoned by the civil power in the said isle; and is now, and has been ever since these respondents remember the same, in good repair, and in such-like condition as the respondents are informed and believe it has usually heretofore been in. And it is very remarkable, that though the said Bishop's prison being [? be] a dungeon under the graves of the dead, and infinitely more noisome and unwholesome than the said public prison can be pretended to be; and though so many persons are imprisoned in the said Bishop's dungeon for even bare suspicion of what the said clergy term spiritual offences,-that the present petition to your Lordships shewed to [?should be] so long with complaint against the public prison, and yet take no notice of the said Bishop's prison; and [?om. "and"] which the respondents have taken the liberty to observe, as a further testimony that the said petition now before your Lordships is not founded upon any real XX. CHAP. grievances of the people of the said isle, nor does proceed from them, as it pretends, but from very different persons, and from motives and views most destructive of and inconsistent with the civil and natural rights and properties of the said people. . "And as for the assistance the then Governor and officers are charged with withholding from the Ecclesiastical Courts, it is an assistance of soldiers which the Ecclesiastical Court claims to have from the Governor to enforce their arbitrary spiritual censures, and to harass the poor people, and on sundry trifling occasions to carry them prisoners to be imprisoned in the said Bishop's prison or dungeon, aforesaid; which said pretended power of the Spiritual Court as made use of in the said isle is, as they apprehend, utterly inconsistent with the civil and natural rights of every free subject and with religion itself. And in regard the parties so imprisoned have no means of being released save by submitting to whatsoever is imposed upon them by such pretended Church power, or appealing to the Bishop of York, which is too expensive for most of them at so great a distance to do; therefore the said Governor, to prevent the rights and liberties of the people of the said isle from being overturned and destroyed by such pretended Church power, and to preserve the poor sort of them being utterly ruined thereby for mere trifles, may have refused to order any of the Lord's soldiers to be aiding and assisting therein in such cases only as [were] against all conscience and ruinous to the party, and [?del. “and”] which they apprehend was just and laudable for them. And as to the prisoners said to be legally confined by the Ecclesiastical Court's order, that they were severely treated in an unlawful manner by the Governor and officers, the respondents say that they know nothing of these matters of their own knowledge, but have heard that at the time of the late rebellion in Scotland, and for some time afterwards, for the securing and safe-keeping of the garrison of Peele, (within which is the Bishop's said prison of St. Germans,) orders were given and strict rules observed to stop strangers and others not belonging to the garrison from loitering or walking about within the same, to prevent discoveries to the enemy of its strength or situation. And in this time the respondents believe that those numbers of prisoners sent into St. Germans' hole by the Bishop and the Spiritual Court (who had sometimes before, by the indulgence and connivance of the soldiers, and not by any law as the petitioners untruly suggest, been suffered to ramble about in the said garrison) were now kept close to their prison, and for the reason abovementioned; but as to any other of that kind, the respondents say that the same are groundless. "And the respondents say that the Attorney-General, both by oath and office, is obliged to prosecute and defend all the Lord's causes; but as for the legality of the Bishop's and Vicar-Generals' demands of calling the twenty-four Keys to deem the law in any point where the deemsters are not doubtful, it is what the respondents humbly conceive not to be warranted by, or consistent with, the known and undoubted laws and customs of the said island. But the respondents humbly crave leave to observe to XX. your Lordships, that through the whole tenor of the present petition, either CHAP. the pretended power and jurisdiction of the spiritual [? officers], or the authority, privilege, and independency of the Keys, which is endeavoured to be made auxiliary to it, are the principal ground and cause of every complaint; which shews that the petition has not in view the liberty and property of the subject. "And these respondents further say, and humbly insist, that the representation of the petitioners of Aug. 4, 1726, in the said petition mentioned, is irregular and extra-judicial, and without any foundation of law or justice; for they say that the pretended spiritual customary laws mentioned in the said petition, which they therein artfully style and call the national laws, are only divers absurd arbitrary pretended practices, devised, contrived, and from time to time made use of and set down by such clergy as were officers of the Ecclesiastical Court at their own pleasure, and never received or had any sanction or authority, consent, or allowance of the lord or legislature of the said island, and are many of them gross impositions and infringements on the civil rights, liberties, and properties of the lord and people of the said isle, and calculated only to enslave them to the clergy to a degree inconsistent with the Protestant religion itself. And such impositions never being authorized by any legislative power in the said isle, are not, nor ever have been or ought to be, recorded amongst the laws and records of the island; for many of these impositions being [be] directly repugnant and contradictory to statute laws in force, and others contrary to declarative opinions of the legislature in points of law. And some of the petitioners themselves, sensible of the oppressions accruing from these pretended spiritual laws, drew up and delivered to the respondent, the Governor, a draught in writing containing many amendments and alterations thereof, and also a draught of an order to be signed by his Lordship mitigating the severity which had been in the execution of them, till they should be so altered and amended and passed into laws by the legislature; which order was signed and transmitted by his Lordship to the said island, and such alterations of the said pretended spiritual laws were recommended by his Lordship to be passed into laws by the whole legislature, and to be published and recorded amongst the other laws of the said island; and the bishop, clergy, and twenty-four Keys expressed their desire to have the same accordingly done. But the respondents have never been able to get the said alterations enacted into laws, though everything on their part has been done towards it; which makes it very extraordinary that the petitioners should now (as these respondents humbly conceive) turn this order into a country grievance; and the rather for that no complaint has yet been made by any of the said people, save by the said petition, of such order, or of the least hardship or inconvenience sustained thereby, or any ill consequence ensued or [by] possibility to ensue therefrom. And as for the recovery of debts, the civil and temporal laws and courts have, as the respondents apprehend, provided proper and sufficient means, and the cognizance or recovery thereof are not matters proper for or appertaining to any spiritual jurisdiction: and the respondents also apprehend that the temporal laws of CHA P. the said Isle are sufficient, and the only proper national security for body, goods, and fame of every subject. XX. "And all these respondents say that the office and place of GeneralSumner of the said isle hath time out of mind been granted by the Lords of the said Isle, and held and enjoyed accordingly, till the death of Ewan Christian, the late Sumner-General, who died a few years ago, when the present Bishop, without the knowledge or privity of the Lord of the Isle, and without any foundation of right or title, took upon him to put in Thomas Corlett, one of the petitioners, to officiate in that place. But the Lord of the Isle being acquainted therewith, according to the undoubted right duly granted the said office to Capt. William Christian, a fit and proper person, with authority to enter upon and execute the same. But the said Bishop, abetting his nomination of the said Corlett to the said office, though without pretending to shew any lawful right, power, or foundation for the same, a sequestration was duly issued and executed for sequestering the profits of the said office till the said Corlett or the Bishop should shew some legal title thereto, which neither of them have ever yet done: which therefore cannot as to the article be proper, as the respondents apprehend, before your Lordships, in regard the cognizance thereof must primarily and originally belong to the Lord and his temporal courts in the said isle. And as the said Corlett never had any grant for life thereof, nor the least colour of right thereto, the respondents apprehend, that to infer from his being hindered to act in the said office that he and others in general were disseized and dispossessed of their freeholds unjustly or illegally, is mere calumny, and without the least colour of sense, law, truth, or justice." The Bishop's bereave ments. CHAPTER XXI. THE DISCIPLINE STRUGGLING AGAINST DECAY. 1729—1733. THE death of the Vicar-General seemed almost to leave the Bishop in a more forlorn condition than he had ever before found himself in from the beginning of his episcopate. Many losses he had had of late: the friends of his earlier years and companions of his pastoral work were beginning to drop away from him, both in his diocese and in England. It could not be otherwise from his time of life. His first bereavement after his return in 1724 was the death of his "kind brotherin-law, Mr. Thos. Patten" of Warrington, the head of the family, whose name appears as a seasonable helper more than once in his negotiations with Lord Derby. He died |
