We have felt it necessary to go at greater length than we wished into this part of Samuel Wesley’s history, because of the importance which has been attached to it by a most able article on “The Ancestry of the Wesleys,” in the _London Quarterly Review_ for April 1864. Our conviction is, that Samuel Wesley was an intensely loyal man; and that, notwithstanding all the outrageous tyranny of King James, he would never have taken part against him; but when James ignominiously fled, and William and Mary, by the voice of the nation, were proclaimed his successors, Wesley felt that he owed to them the loyalty and obedience that he had paid to James; and, to use his own words, as a proof of his loyalty, he wrote, in answer to an out-of-door speech, the first defence of the government that appeared after William and Mary’s accession; and afterwards published many other pieces, both in prose and verse, having the same end in view.[27] ----- Footnote 27: I have examined a large number of pamphlets published at this period, hoping to find the “first defence” of Samuel Wesley. A list of some of these will be found in Appendix B. I incline to think that Mr Wesley’s is in that list, but I am not sure.—L. T. ----- CHAPTER V. NATIONAL AFFAIRS—1685–1688. A quarter of a century was the time that Charles II. occupied the throne of Great Britain. His reign was a continued scene of royal perfidy and sensual dissipation. He was a deceiver, a despot, and a defiler. He was the slave of women, and his court was the school of vice. For five-and-twenty years he played the hypocrite, by professing himself an orthodox Protestant, when, all the while, he was, in fact, an infidel. In all the relations of life, public and private, he was unprincipled, profligate, false, vicious, and corrupt; whilst, from the example of his debauched and licentious court, public morals contracted a taint which it required little less than a century to obliterate, and which for a time wholly paralysed the character of the nation.[28] He had good talents, and in society was kind, familiar, communicative; but he was indolent, negligent of the interests of the nation, careless of its glory, averse to its religion, jealous of its liberty, lavish of its treasure, and sparing only of its blood. It has been remarked of him, and with some amount of reason, that he never said a foolish thing, nor ever did a wise one. He had enormous vices, without the tincture of any virtue to correct them. He died in 1685, begging forgiveness of his neglected queen, blessing his bastard children, asking for kindness to be shown to his mistresses, and receiving from a popish priest the Romish communion, extreme unction, and a popish pardon.[29] ----- Footnote 28: _Ency. Brit._, “Great Britain.” Footnote 29: