represented Burnet as a Tory of the worst class. "There
should be a law," he said, "making it penal for the clergy to introduce
politics into their discourses. Formerly they sought to enslave us by
crying up the divine and indefeasible right of the hereditary prince.
Now they try to arrive at the same result by telling us that we are a
conquered people." It was moved that the Bishop should be impeached.
To this motion there was an unanswerable objection, which the Speaker
pointed out. The Pastoral Letter had been written in 1689, and was
therefore covered by the Act of Grace which had been passed in 1690. Yet
a member was not ashamed to say, "No matter: impeach him; and force
him to plead the Act." Few, however, were disposed to take a course so
unworthy of a House of Commons. Some wag cried out, "Burn it; burn it;"
and this bad pun ran along the benches, and was received with shouts of
laughter. It was moved that the Pastoral Letter should be burned by the
common hangman. A long and vehement debate followed. For Burnet was
a man warmly loved as well as warmly hated. The great majority of the
Whigs stood firmly by him; and his goodnature and generosity had made
him friends even among the Tories. The contest lasted two days. Montague
and Finch, men of widely different opinions, appear to have been
foremost among the Bishop's champions. An attempt to get rid of the
subject by moving the previous question failed. At length the main
question was put; and the Pastoral Letter was condemned to the flames by
a small majority in a full house. The Ayes were a hundred and sixty-two;
the Noes a hundred and fifty-five. [395] The general opinion, at least
of the capital, seems to have been that Burnet was cruelly treated.
[396]

He was not naturally a man of fine feelings; and the life which he had
led had not tended to make them finer. He had been during many years
a mark for theological and political animosity. Grave doctors had
anathematized him; ribald poets had lampooned him; princes and ministers
had laid snares for his life; he had been long a wanderer and an exile,
in constant peril of being kidnapped, struck in the boots, hanged and
quartered. Yet none of these things had ever seemed to move him. His
selfconceit had been proof against ridicule, and his dauntless temper
against danger. But on this occasion his fortitude seems to have failed
him. To be stigmatized by the popular branch of the legislature as a
teacher of doctri