It is impossible that I, or any of my family should be so. Your Majesty cannot but remember that you sent me down into Cornwall to quell Monmouth’s rebellion, and I am as ready to do what I can to quell another, if there were occasion.” The Bishop of Chichester backed his Episcopal brother by saying, “Sir, we have quelled one rebellion, and will not raise another;” and the rest, after professing their loyalty, continued their objections. James, insisting upon the rebellious tendency of the document demanded that he should be obeyed, and have the Declaration published; but, he said, if he altered his mind he would let them know.[218] The conversation ended, and they retired. Now the Archbishop had written the petition himself, that he might prevent its being published, but in some way a copy of it got abroad, and being fast multiplied, the paper the very same evening in which it reached the hands of His Majesty reached also the hands of hundreds, and perhaps thousands of the people. Afterwards it received the signatures of the Bishops of London, Norwich, Gloucester, Salisbury, Winchester, and Exeter, who were not present at the earlier meetings. [Sidenote: 1688.] The Declaration was read at Whitehall “by one of the choir, who used to read the chapters.”[219] It was read in Westminster Abbey; but there arose so great a noise, that nobody could hear it, and at the end of the publication none remained present, except the prebends, the choristers, and the Westminster scholars. The number of instances in which it was published in London is reckoned by Burnet and Kennet at seven, and by Clarendon at four.[220] In dioceses, where the Bishops ordered the clergy to comply, the command met with only limited obedience; within the diocese of Norwich, not more than three or four parishes, out of about twelve hundred, heard a single word of the document; and a story is told of an incumbent, who informed his people, that he had been enjoined to read, but they were not compelled to hear, and, therefore, he suggested that they should retire, whilst he repeated the proclamation within empty walls. [Sidenote: THE SEVEN BISHOPS.] The following singular letter by Barlow, the Bishop of Lincoln, indicates at once the difficulty felt by his clergy, and his own lukewarmness in the matter. Addressing a correspondent, he says:--