tachment to the ecclesiastical principles and practices of the fourth century. Now, supposing that Dr Deacon had really produced this effect on the minds of his clerical friends, the next step in the process of persuasion would be easy enough; -which would be to join the Doctor in an address to the Sovereign Pontiff himself of the Church of Christendom, craving, upon the strength of the universal and widely embracing principles which they professed, to be acknowledged as still within the true Roman Catholic communion. But the request, as we might naturally expect, was unsuccessful. His Holiness was far from thinking that the Manchester clergy were even yet sufficiently orthodox, and was therefore indisposed to countenance a schism in his church.

Such was the charge made against certain members of the Collegiate Church of Manchester. At the first glance it would appear to be of itself so absurd as scarcely to merit a moment's discussion. But from the confident manner in which it has been published, and from certain subsequent events yet remaining to be noticed, we are required to hesitate before we conceive it to be morally impossible, that amidst the violence and ebullitions of political contest, and when the human mind was wound up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm for the restoration of a Popish Prince, it was wholly incapable of a fanatical sacrifice of Protestant principles before the altar of hereditary right.

The evidence upon which this statement rests will be given in the course of the present chapter; and in the meantime, the Genius of Protestantism may console herself with the reflection, that if such wild and quixotic views did actually exist, they were happily confined to the political focus of Manchester.

3. The Rebellion of 1745, and the distractions with which it was followed. The events connected with the memorable year of 1745 relate much less to the religious than to the political history of this period. But as it is often difficult to draw this line of distinction, the many important transactions in which the Church of Manchester was less immediately concerned, will be given at the close of the chapter in the form of illustrations.

The causes which led to the jacobitism which prevailed in the town of Manchester have been fully explained. They were now fast ripening into a plot, in connection with the conspiracies which were going on elsewhere in the kingdom, to restore the house of Stuart to the throne of Great Britain.

The parties implicated in the conspiracy were, first, certain of the leading gentlemen of the town, most of whom were embarked in commercial affairs; secondly, the clergy of the Collegiate Church, all of whom, with the exception of

Dr Peploe, were among the most zealous of the jacobites; and, thirdly, Dr Deacon and the band of Nonjurors under his immediate influence.

In aid of the preparations which the Chevalier de St George was making in his renewed attempts to recover the throne of his ancestors, the Manchester jacobites, in the secret communications which they maintained with the exiled court, made great professions of loyalty to the house of Stuart, and of their conviction that the town of Manchester would rise almost in a mass against the pretensions of the Elector of Hanover. Allured by this promise, as well as by a similar representation made him by his noble partizans in England, that the metropolis of the British dominions would unite in the same cause, Prince Charles was induced, after his landing in Scotland, and after the successful stand he had made at the battle of Prestonpans, to bend his march towards England.

The greatest disappointment followed. In Manchester, although most of the leading inhabitants of the town were enthusiastic jacobites, their spirit had been more sparingly diffused among the middle and lower classes, with whom a strong bias only existed in favour of the Pretender, by no means ardent enough to induce them to venture on the hazardous stake of a chivalrous contest in defence of the antiquated doctrine of the divine right of kings. Accordingly, the Prince, upon entering Manchester, found that all the exertion which the town could make in his favour, was the formation of a regiment consisting of little more than three hundred men. With this trifling reinforcement, therefore, and in extreme dejection, he continued his march to Derby, where, upon learning that by the fresh enlistment of three thousand men in Scotland, and expected succours from France, he could make a better stand in the north, he resolved to retrace his steps. ing this retreat, the Manchester regiment suffered materially by desertion; its numbers gradually decreasing to about one hundred and fourteen, whom, in company with some Scottish troops, the Prince left to defend Carlisle. Soon afterwards the Duke of Cumberland appeared before the walls of this garrison, and the citadel surrendered at discretion. The fatal battle of Culloden succeeded, and, as vindictive severity pervaded the councils of the victorious party, many of the unfortunate Manchester insurgents were doomed to expiate the price of their rebellion at the public scaffold, while others were transported to distant colonies.

Dur

During these unavailing exertions in favour of the house of Stuart, none of the Prince's Manchester partizans had showed greater fervency and truer nobleness of spirit than Dr Deacon. He bade his three children join the forlorn hope, and when the head of his first born son was placed upon the public exchange of the town, he firmly joined his friends in the reverence which they paid to the relic,

and, heedless of the cruel jeers and odious ribaldry of his whig opponents, gloried in having possessed a son who had bled in such a cause.

One of the chaplains also of the Collegiate Church, Mr Clayton, personally aided the jacobite cause; and for publicly offering up prayers for the deposed family, was obliged so seek his safety in flight. A young priest, Mr Cappock, educated at the Grammar School of Manchester, joined the ranks of the Pretender, and suffered death at Carlisle.

After the suppression of the Rebellion, the town was in a state of agitation unequalled since the time of the great Rebellion. Commercial pursuits were suspended or impeded, and poverty and famine prevailed.

Many severe examples having been made of the promoters of the Rebellion, the government was at length induced to proclaim a general amnesty. Mr Clayton then returned from his concealment, and was restored to his office of chaplain of the Manchester College; which event was proudly celebrated by his jacobite friends.

4. The attacks made against the Fellows and Chaplains of the Manchester College for the support which they were alleged to have given to Dr Deacon's religious principles.

About three years after the Rebellion, the Popish principles attributed to the fellows and chaplains of the college excited the most lively interest. Dr Deacon's exposition of the customs of his Catholic church of the fourth century having made its appearance, in which many of the superstitious rites of the church of Rome met with a very learned defence, this book, which the Manchester clergy are said (though probably without any foundation) to have assisted in composing, was so earnestly recommended by them to the perusal of the parishioners of Manchester, that in the course of a very short time many hundred copies were sold. A ready explanation of this conduct is suggested in the probability, that from no other motive than respect to the Doctor's political principles, the clergy had patronized the volume which he had written. But although we must admit this apology to a certain extent, it is certain that the doctrines of the Deaconists had excited some degree of spiritual influence in the Manchester Chapter-House, since an attempt was made to amalgamate the Doctor's impertinent and superfluous ceremonies with the sober services of the Church of England. For instance, in adopting the recommendation, that when the Devil was to be renounced, we should stretch out our hands in defiance towards the west, because that point being directly opposite to the east, which is the place of light, doth symbolically represent the Prince of Darkness;—that when prayers were to be offered up to the Deity,

we should turn our face to the east, in memory of Paradise, from which we were driven ;—and that the summary of all prayers was the sign of the cross. The mode in which these fopperies were introduced in the Collegiate Church is said to have been as follows:-" The two chaplains face to the west, step once; face to the east, bow,-face to the south; step once, and then face to the reading desk at each Gloria Patri."-" The chaplains," it is added, "being of contrary sides, the facing to the north and south is vice versa the one to the other. Clayton has the most religious bow, and the most pious rowl of his eyes, besides the mysterious cross he makes with his hands before him." Y

This conduct caused a great sensation in the town, which was heightened by a discovery, affirmed to have been then made, that the Manchester clergy, in conjunction with Dr Deacon, had two or three years before actually corresponded with the Popish hierarchy, in the wild hopes that their Catholic Church would be acknowledged as still in the communion of that of Rome. The charge was first made by Mr Owen, a dissenting minister of Rochdale, in a letter to Dr Byrom, the particulars of which are related after the following manner :-" You undoubtedly know, (and 'tis fit that every Briton should know the same, for must not every Briton be alarmed at the discovery ?) that your Manchester friends (well affected ones be sure!) have been carrying on a secret correspondence with Rome, in order to rivet her chains on British necks, and establish the worship of her puppetshow gods in Britain. This has appeared from a very extraordinary letter found among the papers of one of the fellows of the Manchester Collegiate Church, lately deceased: Though the particular contents of none but this have transpired, many more papers of the like tendency are acknowledged to have been found on the same occasion. This letter had no superscription; and who would imagine that so dangerous a correspondence should, where there were any private ways of conveyance? But it was dated at Rome, October 1746, which was some time after the extinction of the late rebellion, and was wrote by your most holy father's, the Pope's, direction, and subscribed Obrian. It abounded with compliments and expressions of condolence; but the purport of the whole was as follows: That his holiness was very sensible of the sufferings and distresses of his Manchester friends,—was well pleased with the zeal and services of his partizans among 'the Manchester clergy,—but could by no means admit of a schism in the church.'

y This account is copied from "A Letter to the Clergy of the Collegiate Church," &c. &c. published A. D. 1748. It has been attributed to Thomas Percival, Esq.

z This I quote from a work entitled " Jacobite and nonjuring principles examined. In a let

But whatever weight is due to this charge, it would be most unreasonable either to suppose that all the fellows and chaplains of the Collegiate Church were implicated in so strange a scheme, or to make a whole Chapter-House accountable for the extravagancies of some two or three of its members.

A remonstrance was soon made to the Manchester clergy, addressed to them by an individual who subscribed himself "A sincere believer in the doctrines of the Church of England." But less to this cause than to the flimsy fabric itself of the theoretical system which Dr Deacon had built, the good sense of such of the Manchester clergy as, during the dementating effervescence of Jacobitic contests, had been induced to give it their support, soon returned; and very shortly after, Dr Deacon's church could only boast of about three or four dozen mystical visionaries, among whom was mingled a due proportion of old women.

At the end of four or five years, the ebullition of Jacobites and Whigs underwent a remission. Commercial industry was revived, and a new era in the annals of Manchester commenced, the happy character of which was,-THE DIMI

NISHED INTEREST WHICH THE CLERGY TOOK IN THE POLITICAL AFFAIRS OF THE TOWN.

From this time, the annals of the Collegiate Church of Manchester cease in a great measure to be identified with political contests.

ter to the Master Tool of the Faction in Manchester. By J. Owen, &c. Manchester, 1748." This pamphlet, from the interest which it excited, as a reply to the principles of the Deaconists, ran through two editions.

But as Owen, from being a violent leader of the whig party, may be considered as a doubtful authority, I shall merely mention that the charge, besides being repeated by him in a subsequent pamphlet, is also made with the addition of new circumstances, by other persons, as by Mr Percival in his letter to the Manchester clergy, and by the author of a pamphlet entitled " Manchester Politics." I believe a reply was attempted, for I find some allusions to it, but have not been able to procure a copy of the publication. It would, however, appear that the denial was rather evaded than peremptorily made. Other particulars relative to this controversy will appear in the illustrations appended to the present chapter.