ge amount of the collection
which had been made in obedience to his own call. He knew, he said, what
all this liberality meant. It was mere Whiggish spite to himself and his
religion. [78] He had already resolved that the money should be of no
use to those whom the donors wished to benefit. He had been, during some
weeks, in close communication with the French embassy on this subject,
and had, with the approbation of the court of Versailles, determined on
a course which it is not very easy to reconcile with those principles of
toleration to which he afterwards pretended to be attached. The refugees
were zealous for the Calvinistic discipline and worship. James therefore
gave orders that none should receive a crust of bread or a basket of
coals who did not first take the sacrament according to the Anglican
ritual. [79] It is strange that this inhospitable rule should have been
devised by a prince who affected to consider the Test Act as an outrage
on the rights of conscience: for, however unjustifiable it may be to
establish a sacramental test for the purpose of ascertaining whether
men are fit for civil and military office, it is surely much more
unjustifiable to establish a sacramental test for the purpose of
ascertaining whether, in their extreme distress, they are fit objects of
charity. Nor had James the plea which may be urged in extenuation of
the guilt of almost all other persecutors: for the religion which he
commanded the refugees to profess, on pain of being left to starve,
was not his own religion. His conduct towards them was therefore less
excusable than that of Lewis: for Lewis oppressed them in the hope of
bringing them over from a damnable heresy to the true Church: James
oppressed them only for the purpose of forcing them to apostatize from
one damnable heresy to another.

Several Commissioners, of whom the Chancellor was one, had been
appointed to dispense the public alms. When they met for the first time,
Jeffreys announced the royal pleasure. The refugees, he said, were too
generally enemies of monarchy and episcopacy. If they wished for relief,
they must become members of the Church of England, and must take the
sacrament from the hands of his chaplain. Many exiles, who had come full
of gratitude and hope to apply for succour, heard their sentence, and
went brokenhearted away. [80]

May was now approaching; and that month had been fixed for the meeting
of the Houses: but they were again prorogued t