-nine Noes. That the City of
London did not consider Somers as the destroyer, and his enemies as the
protectors, of trade, was proved on the following morning by the most
unequivocal of signs. As soon as the news of his triumph reached the
Royal Exchange, the price of stocks went up.

Some weeks elapsed before the Tories ventured again to attack him. In
the meantime they amused themselves by trying to worry another person
whom they hated even more bitterly. When, in a financial debate,
the arrangements of the household of the Duke of Gloucester were
incidentally mentioned, one or two members took the opportunity of
throwing reflections on Burnet. Burnet's very name sufficed to raise
among the High Churchmen a storm of mingled merriment and anger. The
Speaker in vain reminded the orators that they were wandering from the
question. The majority was determined to have some fun with the Right
Reverend Whig, and encouraged them to proceed. Nothing appears to have
been said on the other side. The chiefs of the opposition inferred from
the laughing and cheering of the Bishop's enemies, and from the silence
of his friends, that there would be no difficulty in driving from Court,
with contumely, the prelate whom of all prelates they most detested, as
the personification of the latitudinarian spirit, a Jack Presbyter in
lawn sleeves. They, therefore, after the lapse of a few hours, moved
quite unexpectedly an address requesting the King to remove the Bishop
of Salisbury from the place of preceptor to the young heir apparent.
But it soon appeared that many who could not help smiling at Burnet's
weaknesses did justice to his abilities and virtues. The debate was hot.
The unlucky Pastoral Letter was of course not forgotten. It was asked
whether a man who had proclaimed that England was a conquered country, a
man whose servile pages the English Commons had ordered to be burned
by the hangman, could be a fit instructor for an English Prince. Some
reviled the Bishop for being a Socinian, which he was not, and some
for being a Scotchman, which he was. His defenders fought his battle
gallantly. "Grant," they said, "that it is possible to find, amidst an
immense mass of eloquent and learned matter published in defence of the
Protestant religion and of the English Constitution, a paragraph which,
though well intended, was not well considered, is that error of an
unguarded minute to outweigh the services of more than twenty years? If
one Ho