CHARLES WATERTON, ESQ. xix 
nothing contained in the act should be construed 
** to give ease to any papist or popish recusant.” 
My grandfather had the honour of being sent 
prisoner to York, a short time before the battle of 
Culloden, on account of his well-known attachment 
to the hereditary rights of kings, in the person of 
poor Charley Stuart, who was declared a pretender! 
On my grandfather’s release, he found that his 
horses had been sent to Wakefield, there to be kept 
at his own expense. But the magistrates very gra- 
ciously allowed him to purchase a horse for his own ° 
riding, provided the price of it was under five pounds. 
My own father paid double taxes for some years 
after he came to the estate. 
Times are better for us now: but I, individually, 
am not much better for the change; for I will 
never take Sir Robert Peel’s oath. In framing 
that abominable oath, I don’t believe that Sir 
Robert cared one fig’s end whether the soul of 
a Catholic went up, after death, to the King of 
Brightness, or descended to the king of brim- 
stone: his only aim seems to have been to secure 
to the church by law established, the full possession 
of the loaves and fishes. But, as I havea vehement 
inclination to make a grab at those loaves and fishes, 
in order to distribute a large proportion of them to 
the poor of Great Britain, who have an undoubted 
claim to it, I do not intend to have my hands tied 
behind me: hence my positive refusal to swallow 
Sir Robert Peel’s * oath. Still, take it or refuse it, 
* “7 do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention 
to subvert the present Church Establishment within this realm.” &c, (See 
Sir Robert Peel’s Oath.) 
a 2 
