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 have a 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, 



* " I 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.) 



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