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SEBASTIANSECESSION. 



story. Finally, according to some reports, he was 

 sent to Castile, where he died. Sebastian's enter- 

 prise destroyed the flower of the Portuguese no- 

 bility, and the treasury was exhausted in the equip- 

 ment of his fleet. There were no immediate heirs 

 to the throne, and three separate houses claimed it 

 Parma, Braganza, Spain. The last, under Philip j 

 II., succeeded by its superior strength. The con- ! 

 quest of Portugal was the last military exploit of 

 the aged Alba. 



SEBASTIAN, SAN; a town of Spain, at the 

 mouth of the Gurumea; twenty-two miles south- 

 west of Bayonne ; Ion. 1 58f W. ; lat. 43 20' N. : 

 population, 12,000. It is seated at the foot of a 

 mountain. The harbour lies within two redoubts, 

 between which only one ship can pass at a time. 

 Near its entrance is a fort, with a garrison. The 

 town is surrounded with walls; besides which it is 

 defended by bastions and half-moons ; and on the 

 mountain under which it lies is a citadel. The 

 streets are broad, straight, and clean, the houses 

 neat, and the churches fine. A considerable trade 

 is carried on in this place, particularly in iron, steel 

 and wool. San Sebastian has become celebrated 

 for two sieges which it sustained in 1813 and 1823. 

 After the battle of Vittoria. Wellington despatched 

 general Graham to occupy tha town, then defended 

 by Ney. He besieged and bombarded it from the 

 beginning of July, and on the 25th attempted to 

 carry it by storm, but was repulsed with the loss of 

 2000 men, and compelled by a sally of the garrison 

 to raise the siege. The siege was renewed after 

 the defeat of Soult at the foot of the Pyrenees 

 (July 30), and was continued to August 31, during 

 which the British suffered heavy losses in repeated 

 assaults. On that day they became masters of the 

 most important works, at the expense of 3000 men ; 

 and the French still remained in possession of the 

 citadel, which did not surrender till September 9. 

 In the campaign of 1823, the French succeeded only 

 after several assaults in getting possession of it by 

 capitulation. They occupied it until 1828. 



SECANT. In trigonometry, the secant denotes 

 a right line drawn from the centre of a circle, which, 

 cutting the circumference, proceeds till it meets 

 with a tangent to the same circle. In the higher 

 geometry, it signifies the straight line which cuts a 

 curve in two or more points. 



SECESSION; a large body of presbyterians, 

 chiefly in Scotland, whose founders, in 1733, with- 

 drew from the established church of that country, 

 on account of the toleration of certain alleged errors 

 in doctrine the evils of patronage, and general 

 laxity in discipline. But, as the first seceders ap- 

 pealed to and contended for that establishment of 

 religion, which obtained from 1638 to 1656, it will 

 be proper, for the purpose of exhibiting more 

 clearly the grounds of secession, to glance at the 

 ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland from the former of 

 these periods to 1733, when the secession took 

 place. Charles I., soon after the death of his father, 

 instigated and assisted by archbishop Laud, used 

 every endeavour to introduce into Scotland the 

 episcopal form of church government and worship. 

 But the violent measures which he and his court 

 had recourse to, for this purpose, led to their own 

 defeat; for the majority of the nation were highly 

 indignant at the tyrannical imposition of the book of 

 canons and the liturgy, and after a bold and pa- 

 tient struggle obtained permission to hold a free 

 parliament and general assembly, the latter of 

 which met 1638. This assembly had much to undo ; 



the six previous meetings of assembly which had as- 

 sisted James I. in his attempts to substitute the 

 canons arid liturgy of the English church for the 

 more plain and simple forms of presbytery, were 

 condemned, and all their acts declared to be "null 

 and void." The oflice of bishops, the high com- 

 mission courts, and the civil offices of churchmen, 

 were denounced as unlawful. They then proceeded 

 to censure the chief actors in, what they termed, 

 " the late apostacy." All the bishops were sum- 

 moned to appear at their bar ; and they, in despite 

 of the authority of the king's commissioner, ex- 

 communicated nine of them, and passed sentence of 

 suspension and deposition against others. This 

 assembly also restored the presbyterian form of go- 

 vernment prohibited the intrusion of ministers on 

 reclaiming congregations and enacted a number of 

 rules for the maintenance of order and purity in the 

 church. So determined were they to rectify all 

 abuses, and provide for the future well-being of the 

 church, that they continued to sit in assembly after 

 the king's commissioner had formally dissolved it, 

 affirming that they had both divine and civil autho- 

 rity to hold assemblies when it appeared necessary 

 that " the sole and only power within this kirk 

 stands in her sessions, presbyteries, synods, and 

 general assemblies." Charles denounced this assem- 

 bly as an unlawful and seditious meeting, after his 

 commissioner had in due form dissolved it. How- 

 ever, the principal acts then passed, with trifling 

 modifications, were ratified by parliament in 1640. 

 Three years after this " The Solemn League and 

 Covenant" was framed, for the purpose of uniting 

 in one common bond the friends of reformation 

 that thereby they might the better secure their 

 privileges and promote uniformity in religion. This 

 bond was approved by the general assembly and 

 the convention of estates in Scotland, by both 

 houses of parliament, and by the famed assembly of 

 divines at Westminster, and sworn and subscribed 

 to by persons of all ranks. During nearly eleven 

 years of this reforming period, patronage retained its 

 legal force, but its evils were little felt, great care 

 being taken that no minister should be obtruded 

 upon the people contrary to their desire. - And in 

 1649, it was abolished as an oppressive. grievance, 

 and injurious to the interests of the church. But 

 this comparatively prosperous state of things was 

 not of long continuance ; men of little or no prin- 

 ciple were admitted to places of power, and, obse- 

 quious to the will of a profligate prince, abolished 

 presbytery, restored prelacy, and declared the king 

 to be supreme in all ecclesiastical causes. The 

 consequence was, that discord and dissatisfaction 

 pervaded both church and state. Charles, (himself 

 a covenanter) declared the covenants unlawful and 

 not binding on the swearers, and obliged many of 

 his subjects to renounce them. This was a pecu- 

 liarly trying time for those presbyterians who could 

 not go all lengths with the king and his court, in 

 their foolish attempts to establish episcopacy in 

 Scotland, whose inhabitants have all along mani- 

 fested an unconquerable aversion to the forms of 

 worship used by their brethren in the south. Those 

 who refused to justify the measures of the court, 

 were subjected either to fine, imprisonment, banish- 

 ment, or death, and that frequently in its most 

 cruel and revolting forms. 



But the revolution in 1688 turned the day in 

 favour of the persecuted presbyterians. The first 

 parliament abolished prelacy, and the king's autho- 

 rity in ecclesiastical affairs did away with the 



