My narrative might here be closed, since the Scottish Bishops and Clergy were no longer Nonjurors: but as several years elapsed before they were put in possession of the rights and privileges of all other British subjects, I shall subjoin a few notices of this primitive Church, until the penal enactments were removed by legislative interposition. At this time they were not molested in their worship, because the Government would not permit any such violation of the principles of justice: but still the penal laws of 1746 and 1748 remained unrepealed.
The determination of the Bishops was approved and commended by his Majesty, King George III.: and a communication to that effect was made by one of the Secretaries of State. The King expressed his satisfaction at the proof of their attachment, which they had given. The Bishops were also assured, that the penal statutes would be repealed. In 1789, three of the Bishops proceeded to London, just at the time of the King's recovery from a severe illness. A Bill for their relief was brought into the Commons, and passed without any opposition. Mr. Dundas, afterwards Lord Mellville, though a Presbyterian, bore his most unqualified testimony in favour of the Scottish Episcopalians: stating, that as they had submitted to poverty and distress for one hundred years, from a conscientious, though mistaken,
plained of what the Bishops had done. Brown, moreover, made an attempt to continue the succession through himself. He went to Bishop Rose, then in a state of imbecility, and, it is said, caused him to perform the office of consecration. When the aged Prelate was questioned on the subject, he replied in the simplicity of childhood, "My sister may have done it, but not I." The disaffected were removed in a few years by death; and the disaffection ceased. Skinner's Annals, 83.
