A HISTORY OF DORSET 



though bound over to appear again ' came joyfully home,' and continued tO' 

 preach every Lord's Day till 17 August, when he gave a final address to a 

 ' weeping auditory ' from Acts xx, 32. On 26 October the place was declared 

 vacant and an order given to sequestrate the profits, ' but his people had given 

 him w^hat was his due.' Wesley then established himself with his family at 

 Melcombe Regis, but the corporation made an order against his settlement 

 there, imposing a fine of ^(^20 upon his landlady and 5J. per week upon him. 

 These proceedings forced him out of the borough and he went to Bridg- 

 water, Ilminster, and Taunton, where he met with great kindness from the 

 three denominations of Dissenters, and was almost daily employed in preaching. 

 At length a gentleman living at Preston, two or three miles from Melcombe, 

 offered him the use of his house as a residence rent free. The offer was- 

 accepted ; he removed thither,'^' and his son Samuel, the father of the 

 Revivalist, is said to have been born at Preston. But the Five Mile Act 

 subsequently drove John Wesley from this refuge. After being concealed 

 for some time he ventured to return again to his family, was seized,, 

 imprisoned, and finally died before his father."' At Dorchester, always a 

 lively centre of Puritan feeling, it was reported at the close of 1664 that 

 out of nine Nonconformist ministers four had been lately arrested on 

 suspicion of being privy to the plot.'^* Six ministers and seventy others were 

 now in prison for Nonconformity, ' the town is most factious and has daily 

 conventicles.' '^° 



The proclamation of an Indulgence for Nonconformists in 1672 was 

 quickly followed by applications for licences to hold Nonconformist services in 

 the following places : Beaminster, Bettiscombe, Bothenwood, Bradford Abbas, 

 Bridport, Broadwindsor, Cerne, Dorchester, East Morden, Fordington, Hawk- 

 church, Lyme, Marshwood, Milton Abbas, Morden, Motcombe, Over 

 Compton, Quarleston Stickland, Stalbridge, Shaftesbury, Stour Provost, Tarrant 

 Monkton, Thornhill, Wareham, Weymouth, Wimborne, Winterborne King- 

 ston, Winterborne Zelstone, Wootton Fitzpaine ; "^ and a ' thankful address ' 

 signed by thirty-eight dissenting ministers in Dorset was presented to the 

 king thanking him for his clemency and promising continually to pray for 

 ' Your Royal Person, familie, Councill and Government as Dutie obligeth us 

 your loyal subjects and ministers of the Gospel.' "^ In all the principal towns 

 in this county Nonconformity can show an honourable succession of dissenting 

 ministers, many dating from the ejection of St. Bartholomew's Day, 1662, 

 and subsequent persecutions. ''' 



Before quitting a period which closes with the passing of the Act of 

 Toleration in 1689, a word must be said of the Quakers, of whom a consider- 



''- Calamy, Continuation, i, 448. The borough records of Weymouth during 1665-6 record a number of 

 people of Melcombe Regis and the neighbourhood convicted of meeting to hold services other than those 

 allowed in the liturgy of the Church of England. Most of these meetings appear to have been held in the 

 house of Henry Saunders, mariner of Melcombe Regis and Dorothy his wife, the latter being convicted several 

 times. For a first offence they were fined, on a second conviction committed to the town gaol ' for the space 

 of 3 months and a day.' In all probability John Wesley was present at some of these meetings. Beal, Fathers 

 of the Wesley Family, 96—8. 



'" Ibid. Blog. Notices of Wesley Family, 31. 



^" In 1663 it was reported that a rising was daily expected in Somerset and Dorset ; Cal. S.P. Dom. 

 1663-4, P- 150- 



^'^ Ibid. 1664-5, p. 130. "« Ibid. i67i-2,p. 664. 



^" Ibid. 527. The Indulgence was withdrawn the following year. 



'" Somerset and Dorset N. and Q. ; Nonconformist Succession In Dorset, vols, i, ii, passim. 



40 



