The King was but half satisfied with the manner in which the ecclesiastical polity of Scotland had been settled. He thought that the Episcopalians had been hardly used; and he apprehended that they might be still more hardly used when the new system was fully organized. He had been very desirous that the Act which established the Presbyterian Church should be accompanied by an Act allowing persons who were not members of that Church to hold their own religious assemblies freely; and he had particularly directed Melville to look to this.788 But some popular preachers harangued so vehemently at Edinburgh against liberty of conscience, which they called the mystery of iniquity, that Melville did not venture to obey his master's instructions. Adraught of a Toleration Act was offered to the Parliament by a private member, but was coldly received and suffered to drop.789William, however, was fully determined to prevent the dominant sect from indulging in the luxury of persecution; and he took an early opportunity of announcing his determination. The first General Assembly of the newly established Church met soon after his return from Ireland. It was necessary that he should appoint a Commissioner and send a letter. Some zealous Presbyterians hoped that Crawford would be the Commissioner; and the ministers of Edinburgh drew up a paper in which they very intelligibly hinted that this was their wish. William, however, selected Lord Carmichael, a nobleman distinguished by good sense, humanity and moderation.790 The royal letter to the Assembly was eminently wise in substance and impressive in language. "We expect," the King wrote, "that your management shall be such that we may have no reason to repent of what we have done. We never could be of the mind that violence was suited to the advancing of true religion; nor do we intend that our authority shall ever be a tool to the irregular passions of any party. Moderation is what religion enjoins, what neighbouring Churches expect from you, and what we recommend to you." The Sixty and their associates would probably have been glad to reply in language resembling that which, as some of them could well remember, had been held by the clergy to Charles the Second during his residence in Scotland.
But they had just been informed that there was in England a strong feeling in favour of the rabbled curates, and that it would, at such a conjuncture, be madness in the body which represented the Presbyterian Church to quarrel with the King.791The Assembly therefore returned a grateful and respectful answer to the royal letter, and assured His Majesty that they had suffered too much from oppression ever to be oppressors.792Meanwhile the troops all over the Continent were going into winter quarters. The campaign had everywhere been indecisive. The victory gained by Luxemburg at Fleurus had produced no important effect. On the Upper Rhine great armies had eyed each other, month after month, without exchanging a blow. In Catalonia a few small forts had been taken. In the cast of Europe the Turks had been successful on some points, the Christians on other points;and the termination of the contest seemed to be as remote as ever. The coalition had in the course of the year lost one valuable member and gained another. The Duke of Lorraine, the ablest captain in the Imperial service, was no more. He had died, as he had lived, an exile and a wanderer, and had bequeathed to his children nothing but his name and his rights. It was popularly said that the confederacy could better have spared thirty thousand soldiers than such a general. But scarcely had the allied Courts gone into mourning for him when they were consoled by learning that another prince, superior to him in power, and not inferior to him in capacity or courage, had joined the league against France.
