10) was ordered January 21st, and received the Royal Assent March 3rd, 171-1/2, [W.S.J.]] [Footnote 28: P.Fitzgerald says "North Britain." [W.S.J.]] [Footnote 29: The Scotch Patronage Bill was ordered March 13th, [1711], passed April 7th, and received the Royal Assent May 22nd, 1712 (10 Ann c 21).

It did not refer to the Episcopal Church.

[W.S.J.] The Church of Scotland viewed the bills for restoring to the gentry the right of patronage, and for tolerating the exercise of the Episcopal persuasion, with great jealousy.

The Reverend Mr William Carstares, who had been secretary to King William, and was Principal of the College of Edinburgh, was deputed to go to London at the head of a commission of the church, to oppose the bills while in dependence.

His biographer has justly remarked, that these enactments considered at the time as fatal to the interests of Presbytery in Scotland, have, upon experience, proved her best security.
"Upon the one hand, the Act of Toleration, by taking the weapon of offence out of the hands of the Presbyterians, removed the chief grounds of those resentments which the friends of prelacy entertained against them, and in a few years almost annihilated Episcopacy in Scotland Upon the other hand, the Act restoring Patronages, by restoring the nobility and gentlemen of property to then wonted influence in the settlement of the clergy, reconciled numbers of them to the established church, who had conceived the most violent prejudices against that mode of election, and against the Presbyterian clergy, who were settled upon it.