INTRODUCTION. XXV Lord General,a the Duke of Albemarle, he told him that the guns, a Collins,p.204. stores, and ammunition he left them were worth more than the French were to give for the place (500,0001.), and that he had left him one thing more, that his Majesty might not think of, and that was 10,0001. in an iron chest, which he had saved, against a siege or any other exigency that might happen." By a fragment of a letter given in the Appendix,b it will be seen that the Earl of Montague was " Appendix, p. told by the King " that he would not have parted withDunkirk if he 245. could have been permitted to retain Colonel Harley in that post, which he would have preserved for his Majesty; but, said the King, I am continually disturbed, because he is represented to be a notorious Presbyterian." The King was clearly not insensible to the worth of the man whohad declined a viscountcy, lest his zeal and his services for the restoration of the ancient Government should be reproached as proceeding from ambition and not conscience ; and his being made a Knight of the Bath was done without his know- ledge : when employed at Dunkirk, the King inserted his name in the list, with his own hand. Sir Edward Harley was a member in all the Parliaments of Charles the Second, after the Restoration, either for the town of Radnor or the county of Hereford; and, as he complied not with the corrupt measures of the Court, so he never entered into the plans of others, who, under pretence of serving the public, pursued their own interest or revenge. He vigorously opposed all the acts for persecuting the Dissenters, and the actwhich made the holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper a civil test; and, when King James II. came to the throne, and set up a dispensing power, under cloak of which, he intended to bring in Popery, he endea- voured, without success, to prevail with Croft, bishop of Hereford, and with the Dissenters of that county, with whom he had justly a great influence,not to read the King's declaration, nor make any address upon it: and neither he nor any of his family ever took any oath to that King CAMD. SOC. d
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=