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 
CuUoden, 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 grandfathers 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 PeeUs oath. In framing that abo- 
minable 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 brimstone : 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, the new 
* " 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.) 
a 2 
