Such were “the times that went over him.” Watts lived through all those curious transactions round the Court of Queen Anne; lived also through the great Sacheverell riots—and a curious time that was for Dissenters, as he bears testimony again in his little outline of coincidences with his autobiographical memoranda. “March 1st, 1710. The mob rose and pulled down the pews and galleries of six meeting-houses, that is, Mr. Burgess, Mr. Bradbury, Mr. Earle, Mr. Wright, Mr. Hamilton, and Mr. Charles Taylor, but were dispersed by the guards under Captain Horsey, at one or two in the morning.” He passed through all that excitement of public feeling arising from the introduction of the “Schism Bill,” which, beyond anything, covered with gloom the last days of the reign of Queen Anne. When she ascended the throne, Watts wrote a lyric in honour of her happy accession; there was no inconsistency in his expressing almost a burst of gladness and joy at her decease. The “Schism Bill” was worthy of the very worst days of the Stuarts; it was intended to crush all Nonconformist schools, and all Dissenting academies; any Nonconformist teacher was to be imprisoned three months, every schoolmaster was to receive the sacrament and take the oaths, and if afterwards guilty of being present at a conventicle, to be incapacitated and imprisoned. Earl Stanhope, in his quiet, very interesting, and, on the whole, impartial history, speaks of “this tyrannical act,” and well remarks: “It is singular that some of the most plain and simple notions, such as that of religious toleration, should be the slowest and most difficult to be impressed upon the human mind.”[35] It is interesting to notice that this measure was greatly the creation of Lord Bolingbroke, a man who, while “he thought it,” as Earl Stanhope says, “necessary to crush Dissenters,” was himself altogether independent and incapable of any religious faith or conviction. Infidelity has never found its interests on the side of true freedom, but only of lawlessness and licentiousness, to which it is ever fond of applying the glorious term. In the midst of the panic created by this measure the Queen died, died on the very day the Schism Act was to have taken effect, and George I. succeeded to the English throne. He commenced his reign with a noble declaration of liberty of conscience. At his first appearing in council he said, “I take this occasion to express to you my firm purpose to do all that is in my power for the supporting and maintaining the Churches of England and Scotland as they are by law established, which I am of opinion may be effectually done without the least impairing the toleration allowed by law to her Protestant Dissenters, so agreeable to Christian charity.”