Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/116

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Long
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Long

was clerk of the House of Assembly (Cal. State Papers, Col. Ser., Amer., and the West Indies, 1661–8, p. 47). In November 1664 he was charged with treason by Sir Thomas Whetstone, acting on behalf of the king, before the governor, council, and assembly. He had, it was alleged, in May of that year caused himself to be unlawfully elected speaker of the assembly, and had later contrived illegally his appointment as clerk, and he had caused to be passed orders and votes with intention to seize the legislative power into his own hands, including an act for the establishment of a particular treasury of the island, with himself as treasurer, into which all the king's revenue was to be paid, and from which no moneys could be issued without order from the assembly. He had, moreover, it was said, done his utmost to 'infuse his traitorous principles' into the members. A warrant for his apprehension was issued, but popular feeling favoured Long, and no further steps were taken (ib. 1661–8, pp. 251, 277, 287). Long had in fact made a bold attempt to reform existing financial abuses. In 1671 he was acting as judge for the parishes of Clarendon and St. Elizabeth (ib. 1669–74, p. 251). He was elected to the assembly as member for Clarendon in January 1672, having then acquired the rank of captain, and on 1 Feb. following was chosen speaker on the nomination of the governor (ib. pp. 314, 326, 331). In May 1673, and again in February 1674, he was returned member for St. Katherine, and was reappointed speaker (ib. pp. 489, 554–5). On 14 Aug. 1674, being then colonel, he was sworn of the council and appointed chief justice (ib. p. 603). Long died on 28 June 1683, and was buried in the cathedral in St. Katherine's parish (Archer, Mon. Inscriptions of British West Indies, p. 53). By his wife, Elizabeth (who remarried John Towers, rector of Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambridgeshire, and died 1710), he had, with three daughters (of whom the eldest, Elizabeth, born 1670, married, first, Henry Lowe of Goadby Marwood, Leicestershire, and, secondly, Henry Smallwood), three sons, one of whom, Charles, born in 1679, alone survived. He was seated at Longville, Jamaica, and was a member of council and colonel of horse. Ultimately he came to England, settled at Hurts Hall, Saxmundham, Suffolk, became in 1716 M.P. for Dunwich, and died on 8 May 1723.

[Sharpe's Peerage, s.v. 'Farnborough;' authorities cited.]

G. G.


LONG, THOMAS (1621–1707), divine, son of 'Mr. Richard Lonng,' was born at Exeter, and baptised in the church of St. Lawrence on 14 Dec. 1621 (par. reg.) He became a servitor of Exeter College, Oxford, on 5 April 1639, and graduated B.A. on 29 Nov. 1642. He became in 1652 vicar of St. Lawrence Clyst, near Exeter, and, being a staunch churchman and royalist, he lay under a long sequestration during the troubles, upholding the interests of the king and the church by constant preaching and writing (Letter from Lamplugh, bishop of Exeter, to Sancroft, 16 April 1634, Tanner MSS. in Bodl. Libr. xxxii. f. 30). At the Restoration he was created B.D. of Oxford, by royal mandate, on 20 Sept. 1660, and prebendary of Exeter Cathedral on 18 Jan. 1660-1661. He resigned his prebend on 3 Oct. 1701. In 1684 he declined Bancroft's offer of the bishopric of Bristol on account, it is said, of his age and large family (Wood, Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iv. col. 485). But another authority (Willis, Survey of Cathedrals, ii. 781–2) represents him as 'scrupling it at first,' and having it denied him afterwards, 'when he would have accepted it.' His letter of refusal is among the Tanner MSS. xxxii. f. 25. He was proctor for the clergy of his diocese (Exeter) in convocation in 1689 (Long, Vox Cleri, p. 61), in 1693 (Long, Dr. Walker's account, epist. ded.), and in 1694 (Chamberlayne, Angliæ Notitia, 1694, p. 144). He died on 7 Dec. 1707, and was buried at St. Lawrence, Exeter, on 11 Dec. (par. reg.)

Long was well read in both ancient and modern literature, and was a voluminous controversial writer. Wood says of him that he 'hath also undergone that very toilsome drudgery of reading many or most of Mr. Richard Baxter's works.' Baxter complained of Long's 'Unreasonableness of Separation,' as being ' so fierce a book . . . that I never saw any like it' (Reliq. Baxter, pt. iii. p. 188). His 'Vox Cleri,' condemning alterations in the liturgy (of which two editions appeared in 1690),' called forth a mass of smaller writings, of which the principal was by Dr. William Payne (see Birch, Life of Tillotson, p. 210). He was firmly persuaded that Charles I was the author of the 'Eikon Basilike,' and in support of this view took part in the war of pamphlets which followed the publication of Walker's 'True Account of the Author' in 1692 [see Gauden, John].

His works (with the exception of No. 29 all published in London) include: 1. 'An Exercitation concerning the frequent use of our Lord's Prayer,' 1658. 2. 'Calvinus Redivivus,' 1673. 3. 'Apostolical Communion in the Church of England,' 1673. 4. 'The Picture and Character of a Separatist,' 1677. 5. 'History of the Donatists,' 1677. 6. 'Hales's Treatise of Schism examined and censured,' 1678 (see letter from Baxter to Long in Reliq. Baxter.