Note 37 — PREFACE.

Of this intolerance William stands in a great measure acquitted. His known liberality subjected him to the suspicions of the party who forged the penal statutes for Ireland, and who accused him of infidelity, because he was unwilling to become a persecutor. When left to act for himself, he exhibited a wisdom, wanting in the measures of those to whom he was occasionally obliged to submit. In his instructions to the commissioners in Scotland, dated 1689, he says expressly, “You are to pass an act establishing that church government which is most agreeable to the inclinations of the people.”