When this Declaration was published, the hopes of ejected ministers began to revive. Independents took courage; Philip Nye, in spite of age and poverty, manifested some eagerness to revive public Nonconformist worship. Although personally under the ban of the law, he, with some other brethren, found admission to Whitehall, and was graciously allowed an interview with Charles. We do not exactly know what passed; but Nye received so much encouragement from His Majesty's conversation, that he told Baxter, the King had resolved to grant them liberty. The day after New Year's Day, the Independent diplomatist appeared at the house of the Presbyterian Divine to discuss the propriety of acknowledging the King's Declaration and seeking indulgence. Baxter resolved not to commit himself; nor would other Presbyterians take a share in the business; they had had enough of it, they said: the reasons, at the bottom of their policy, being that they dreaded a toleration which they knew would be extended so as to embrace Roman Catholics. They looked on the Declaration as a Trojan horse; but Nye, whose ideas of religious freedom perhaps had grown, so that he might be willing to concede it to Roman Catholics, and who certainly had a strong desire after unfettered action for himself and his party, thought the tactics of the Presbyterians unwise, and he considered that, through them, he and his brethren "missed of their intended liberty."[411] [Sidenote: DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE.] Further discussion followed between Baxter and the Independents. They said that they had heard from the Lord Chancellor, that liberty had been intended for them, but that the Presbyterians had opposed the measure. Old sores were re-opened, and Baxter, evidently rather nettled, records how the Independents became affected towards the Popish Earl of Bristol, thinking that the King's Declaration had been obtained by him, and that he and the Papists would contrive a general toleration. Burnet confirms what Baxter says of the Earl's influence, by informing us, that just before, there had been a meeting of Papists at that nobleman's residence, where it had been resolved to make an effort in favour of the Roman Catholics, and with such a view to help Dissenters.[412]