304 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 



To give but one passage more, and omit all 

 the rest, that are of the same strain. 



1709-10. Friday, February 3. "I went to 

 the Queen at twelve o'clock, and staid prayers 

 w^ith her. She then earnestly pressed me to 

 vote against the Bill of Officers, coming up 

 from the House of Commons ; and told me it 

 would look strange that I should be the only 

 bishop of the bench that voted for that bill, 

 which was so much against her prerogative. I 

 endeavoured to convince her it was a good bilL 

 But though I could not do that, yet I have 

 stuck to my point." 



It will be very natural for those who consider 

 him as attached to a party, to interpret all these 

 reserves to his own judgment, as the effect of 

 a resolution not to d7^op or desert the Tories. Had 

 he indeed gone in with that party in every step, 

 this might have been more reasonably suspected. 

 But this was not the case, for he would not only 

 vote against them, but evert his ijiterest too in op- 

 position to them, as often as he judged they were 

 taking wro)ig steps. Two pretty remarkable in- 

 stances of this shall here be given. 



The first in the endeavours he used to prevent 

 the tack of the Occasional Conformity Bill to a 

 Money Bill, in 1704. He was entirely for bring- 

 ing in an act for preventing occasional confor- 

 mity, and espoused it whenever it was proposed ; 



