The Francis Jessop, who is to be claimed as one of the Puritans of Basset-Lawe, and who appears afterwards as an active member of Robinson's church in Holland, was the third son of Richard Jessop and Anne Swyft, and was left very young by his father, who died in 1580. The Basset-Lawe property was left to him and another brother, named Richard, while the eldest son took the lands which had been inherited from the Swyfts. The father directs in his will that the children shall be brought up in learning; and it may be added as illustrating the domestic antiquities of the English nation, that he directs the surplus of the rents of the lands given them to be placed in a box with three locks, to be kept for their use. We have seen that Richard was the friend of Clifton and Toller, and the confidence which he placed in them, and we have now to add that Francis Jessop sold his lands at Tilne, and there can hardly be a doubt that he is the Francis Jessop who appears at Amsterdam fighting by the side of Clifton in his sharp controversy with Smith on the baptismal ques

I will not cease to pray for," then the daughter is to live with him : if not, he desires she may be placed where she shall hear the word of God faithfully taught.

tion. His tract is entitled A Discovery of the Errors of the English Anabaptists: and there is further the strong presumption that he is the Francis Jessop, a prominent member of Robinson's church at Leyden, whose name stands first in a joint letter from the Leyden people to their brethren at New Plymouth announcing the death of Robinson. This was in 1625. The other names are Thomas Nash, Thomas Blossom, Roger White, and Richard Maisterson. Three vessels at different periods had conveyed members of the Leyden congregation and their families to New Plymouth. These persons as well as their pastor Robinson had not taken that step. They were ever intending to go, but were hindered. They stood "on tip-toe," but there is no reason to believe that Jessop, who was then sixty years of age, ever took that step, but rather that he returned to England and died here.

We have direct and positive evidence on which to show two other persons who were members of the Separatist Church before it left England.

Jackson and
Rochester both
of Scrooby,
Separatists.

These were,

RICHARD JACKSON and

ROBERT ROCHESTER. They were both

inhabitants of Scrooby, and both included with

Brewster in the penalties imposed by the Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical in 1608. I have not seen any other notice of them.

The proceedings of the Separatists were in pointed

opposition to the law as it then stood, and

can only be justified on the ground that

in affairs so sacred and important as those

The proceed-
Separatists

ings which the

took, contrary

to law.

of religion, there is a law which is above all human institutions, to which every man is bound to be obedient, when its requirements are made manifest to his own understanding. A principle full of danger, for who is equal to discern for himself that pure and perfect way! Yet the wrong, if wrong there was, was not so great as that done by the legislature, which, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth passed the act, "for the punishment of persons obstinately refusing to come to church." Conformity to what is the national will in affairs such as these, is indeed desirable; but this was purchasing conformity at far too dear a rate; and so the nation in a wiser age was brought to think, and the toleration under which Separatists now live, became part of the law of the land.

Of course while such a law existed, conduct like that of Brewster and his friends could not long be

Animadverted

permitted; and could not long be connived at, for doubtless amongst that generous body of upon. men, who administered the law in the provinces, there were many who, though they took no part in such proceedings, and did not approve of them, were unwilling to oppress under such a statute some of their neighbours whose only fault may have been, that they had an overstrained or ill-informed conscientiousness, while they discharged well their other duties under a deep sense of their responsibility. Bradford speaks in general terms of the people being harassed, as well as of the ministers, who stirred them up, being silenced; but he gives us no particular instances, not even showing us what happened to Brewster himself. Nor have I been able to discover more than one particular instance of the law being brought to bear on any of these Basset-Lawe nonconformists, besides the Proceeding of silencing of some of the Ministers. Toby sioners for Ec- Matthew, Archbishop of York, in the return which he made to the Exchequer,

the Commis

clesiastical

causes.

on the 13th of November, 1608, of the fines which had been imposed within his diocese in the preceding year, for the purpose of the fines being levied, inserted the following:

"Richard Jackson, William Brewster, and Robert Rochester, of Scrooby, in the county of Nottingham, Brownists or Separatists, for a fine or amercement of £20. a piece set and imposed upon every of them by Robert Abbot and Robert Snowden, Doctors of Divinity, and Matthew Dodsworth,59 Bachelor of Law, Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical within the province of York, for not appearing before them upon lawful summons at the Collegiate Church of Southwell, the 22d day of April, anno Domini 1608-£60."

Before this return was made to the Exchequer, the Basset-Lawe Separatists had formed the resolution to seek in another country that protection and toleration which were denied to them at home; and they saw at no great distance another country where was a public toleration of all forms of Protestantism. Holland; and the track had been trod

for them by several persons of like sentiments with themselves; first, people from

This was

The Scrooby Church decides upon emigration.

59 These Commissioners were persons of note at the time. Dr. Robert Abbot became Bishop of Salisbury; Dr. Robert Snowden, a Nottinghamshire man and a Prebendary in the church of Southwell, was afterwards Bishop of Carlisle; Dodsworth was the father of Roger Dodsworth, the great charter antiquary, and principal collector of the materials for the Monasticon.