ut to the High-Church party in
1709, when the High Sheriff, George Sacheverell, of Callow, was attended
by Dr. Henry Sacheverell as his chaplain, and the walls of All Saints
Church resounded with the denunciations of that vehement, and
ill-judging man. The seed that was thus sown fell into a land fertile in
High Church propensities; the Grand Jury intreated Dr. Sacheverell to
print his discourse; and, eventually, when they considered that, by the
mild sentence given against their Preacher on his trial, they had gained
a triumph, bonfires proclaimed their joy, in the market-place of that
town, where the warfare of Sacheverell had first begun.

On the accession of George the First, and when the Chevalier landed in
Scotland, fresh manifestations of the Jacobite party broke forth. The
Church of All Saints was again the scene of its display. Three principal
clergymen in the town openly espoused the Stuart cause. Sturges, the
Rector of All Saints, prayed openly for "King James"--but, after a
moment's pause, said, "I mean King George." "The congregation became
tumultuous; the military gentlemen drew their swords, and ordered him
out of the pulpit, into which he never returned."[121] Perhaps the event
which tended most to quiet the spirit of Jacobitism among the lower
classes in the town, was the erection of silk mills, in 1717. Nothing
tranquillises extreme views in politics more surely than employment; few
things attach men's minds to a Government more, than efforts crowned
with success. Notwithstanding the memory of Sacheverell, a Whig member
had been returned, in the last election, for the borough; the great
merits and influence of the House of Cavendish overpowering the
uproarious Tories, who, in vain, broke windows, and attacked their
enemies. But discontent again broke forth. The winter of 1745 found the
whole nation in a state of suffering and discontent; and many of the
constitutional securities for liberty and property had been given up, in
order to secure the stability of the throne. Taxation had been imposed,
in the worst and most unpopular form, that of excise duties, in order to
maintain an expensive Court, and to pay for Continental wars, which were
maintained to preserve the hereditary German possessions of the King.
Yet, in spite of these crying evils, such is the difficulty of inducing
Englishmen to incur the risk of forfeiture and disaster, that even the
town of Derby had diligently provided itself with a defe