The Minister presently directed him to the Clerk’s house, and desired him to come and take a Glass of Wine with him after the Peal was ended, (but the Ringers coming together, they rung sundry Peals) and he returned the Keys to the Minister. The People of the Town were exceeding Joyful, and began to drink the Prince of Orange’s Health. The Country People in the Town were well inclined towards us; and here was the first favour we met with worth mentioning. His Highness was most kindly receiv’d and entertain’d at Sir Will Courtney’s, the Souldiers generally well treated by the Vulgar. Oldmixon, in his _History of the Reign of the Stuarts_, simply says that “the first place the Prince of Orange’s Declaration was publicly read was Newton Abbot, a market town near Exeter, and the first man who read it was _a_ clergyman.” No doubt the fact that it was read by a clergyman gradually changed into the statement that it was read by _the_ clergyman of the parish, and so Reynell became credited with a bold act, which, from Whittle’s account, he was far too cautious a man to commit, however favourable he may have been to the Prince’s cause. The lettering of the inscription is evidently modern, and the Rev. H. Tudor, the present Rector of Wolborough, informs me that a man, now dead, told him he was employed to cut or re-cut it, and was never paid for doing so. The question remains, and it is an interesting one, who was the divine who first proclaimed the Prince by reading the Declaration? I was first inclined to believe, from the detailed manner in which the story was told, that it was Whittle himself. It is not improbable, however, that it was the renowned Dr. Burnet, afterwards Bishop Burnet. He was the Prince’s own chaplain, and doubtless the head and chief of the clergy who accompanied the Prince, and from his undaunted spirit, and the leading part he took in the Cathedral at Exeter, he was undoubtedly the divine most likely to have performed this act. One gentleman with whom I have been in communication on the point, and whose opinion always carries weight, says:— Burnet was such a busybody, that I feel certain if anything was to be done by a clergyman he would have put himself forward to do it.