Samuel Pepys, who lost his official appointment upon the accession of William and Mary, and consequently at that time retired into private life, wearied in his last days with cares and jaded with pleasures, sought relief in the duties of religion, and inquired through Nelson for a spiritual adviser. Nelson’s reply to his request throws a curious light upon the circumstances of the Nonjurors’ condition: “After the strictest inquiry, I find none of our Clergy placed in your neighbourhood nearer than Mitcham, where lives one Mr. Higden, a very ingenious person, who married the late Lord Stowell’s sister; but I believe you may have one with greater ease from London, by reason of the conveniency of public conveyances. Our friend, Dean Hickes, is at present at Oxford; but if you will be pleased whenever your occasions require it to send to Mr. Spinckes, who has the honour of being known to you, he will be sure to wait upon you, and take such measures that you may always be supplied whenever you stand in need of such assistance. He lodges at a glazier’s in Winchester Street, near London Wall.”[479] Pepys died in the summer of 1703, and, in a letter to Dr. Charlett, Hickes described the services he rendered the dying man, and the effect which they produced upon him. [Sidenote: 1694–1702.] Some Jacobites who took the oaths with certain qualifications repented afterwards, and openly threw in their lot with such as refused to swear. One of them drew up a penitential confession, in which, with morbid conscientiousness, he dwelt upon what he called his sinful compliance. Acknowledgment after acknowledgment of minute particulars, expanded in terms which magnified each, occurs in the document, closing with the reiterated prayer: “I accuse, and judge, and condemn myself: God be merciful to me a penitent!” Retraction was accompanied by a petition to the ejected Bishop, in which the writer exclaims: “Blessed Jesu! though I cannot now glory in my not having fallen, yet I will take all the shame of my fall to myself, that I may give Thee glory; and though I cannot now rejoice in my innocence, I desire to cause joy in heaven (and if Thou pleasest, many penitents on earth) by my repentance.”[480] No one who is at the trouble of perusing this tedious composition can doubt the sincerity of the writer, but nobody of common sense can fail to perceive his weakness, not to speak of the mischief he did to morality and religion by exaggerations of minor casuistical points. For though this man mentions his “first dismal step of taking the sacred name of God in vain,” he does not dwell upon the sin of perjury, but expatiates upon the wickedness of having connived at, though he never used, the prayers introduced at the Revolution.