Leisler and his son-in-law, Milbourne, were hanged for what seemed an untimely patriotism and still more uncalled-for religious zeal. The cry was practically a “No Popery” cry upon which Leisler had risen to such prominence in the affairs of New York. It had appeared scarcely to attract the notice of the king, and he was prone to believe that Leisler was more influenced by a hatred of the Established Church than by zeal for the crown. It was not, however, without some effect. A few words added to the instruction of the new governor had materially changed the condition of religious toleration in the province. Earlier governors had been directed “to permit all persons, of what religion soever, quietly to inhabit within the government.” Under Governor Sloughter’s instructions papists were excepted from this toleration. Was such intolerance really needed for the safety of the English colonies? They had been so far in the main a refuge for those who in Europe had suffered because of their liberal and anti-Roman religious opinions, and had never been much sought by Catholics.[468] The conditions of life in the colonies were hardly favorable to a church which brands private reasoning as heresy; and even in Maryland—which was established, if not as a Catholic colony, yet by a nobleman of that faith—there were, after fifty years of existence, only about one hundred Romanists. Public opinion and the political situation in England had now raised this bugbear of popery. It was but the faint echo of the cry which prompted those restrictions in the instructions to King William’s governor which sought to enforce in New York the policy long in vogue in the mother country. The home government seemed ignorant of the fact that the natural enemies of the Church of Rome, the Reformed and Lutheran clergymen of New York, had not only not shared Leisler’s fears, but, supported by the better educated and wealthier classes, they had opposed him by every means in their power. When, however, with Leisler’s death the motive for their dislike of his cause had been removed, the general assembly, composed to a great extent of his former opponents, willingly enacted a law, the so-called Bill of Rights, denying “liberty to any person of the Romish religion to exercise their manner of worship, contrary to the laws of England.”[469] After the attempt on the life of King William in 1697, further laws, expelling Roman Catholic priests and Jesuits from the province, and depriving papists and popish recusants of their right to vote, were passed in 1700 and 1701. It was reserved for the Revolution of 1776 to change the legal status of the Roman Catholics of New York, and place them on an equal footing with the believers in other doctrines. * * * * *