iv

PREFACE.

cution of which I was not likely to fatisfy myself or others, I would fain have refigned the task to those who were much better qualified for it than myself, as well by their fuperior abilities, as by their longer acquaintance with Mr. Romaine. But being preffed to it as to the performance of a promise, I could not refift the folicitation. I have therefore done the best I could fought information from various quarters, and got it from others without feeking, for which I am thankful. I have given a detail of facts -a hiftory, not a panegyric. Let Mr. Romaine be confidered as having been a man of bike paffions with others, liable to miltakes, and compaffed with infirmity. But let God be glorified in him through Jefus Chrift, and his end in living, and mine in writing his life, will be fully anfwered.

THE

THE LIFE

OF THE

Rev. WILLIAM ROMAINË, &c.

THE Rev. William Romaine was born on the
twenty-fifth day of September, 1714. The place
of his birth was Hartlepool, a town in the county of
Durham, fituated on a small promontory ftretching
into the German ocean. It is now a neat fishing
town, with a very good pier and harbour, as well
as a place of refort for the purpose of bathing. It
has risen from obfcurity to eminence in that part
of England, through the bounty of the neighbour-
ing nobility and gentry, whofe cuftom it has been to
accept by turns the office of Mayor, and to fub-
scribe upon that occafion one hundred pounds to-
wards the improvements of the town, and particularly
for fupporting and repairing the pier. The father
of the Rev. Mr. Romaine was among the French
Proteftants who took refuge in England upon the
revocation of the edict of Nantes: he fettled in this
place as a merchant, and became a member of the
corporation, which is a very ancient one.
He was
B

a dealer

a dealer in corn, and a man fearing God and hating covetoufnefs, of which he gave a remarkable proof in the year 1741. This country was then at war with Spain, and, whether from this circumstance, or from scarcity, there was a confiderable advance in the price of wheat, from fix to fifteen fhillings per bol, the bufhel of that country, containing about two of the Winchefter measure. Upon this occafion the people rofe, and came in great numbers, a formidable mob, to Hartlepool. Mr. Romaine went out to meet them, asked them their wants, and was answered that they wanted corn cheaper. He put an immediate and an effectual stop to these riotous proceedings, firft by promifing to fell all the corn that he had at five fhillings a bufhel, and then by performing his promife; for he fold to all that came, while the other merchants refused to fell any.

Such traders, however fingular, as he was, are no lofers themselves in the end, and great friends to the public in the mean time; what is more, they are ranked among the friends of God; for, There is that fcattereth and yet increafeth, and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal foul fhall be made fat, and he that watereth Shall be watered alfo himself. He that withholdeth corn, the people fhall curfe him, but bleffing shall be upon the head of him that felleth it. Prov. xi. 24,

25, 26.

This fcripture was ftrictly verified in Mr. Romaine of Hartlepool; for the bleffing of God and

of

of the poor rested upon him. He brought up a family of two fons and three daughters, who were all comfortably and respectably settled in this world, and taught both by the precept and example of their parents to look for permanent fettlements, or manfions, in the world to come. Their father was a man of God, and consequently of strict morals; a fteady member of the church of England, a constant attender upon her fervices, and fo exact an observer of the fabbath-day, that he never suffered any of his family to go out upon it, except to church, and spent the remainder of it with them in reading the fcriptures, and other devout exercifes, at home. In this manner he lived to the age of eighty-five, and to the year of our Lord 1757*.

The furviving widow and one unmarried daughter continued in the bufinefs at Hartlepool, much respected and beloved, being noted for their attention not only to the bodily wants, but to the spiritual concerns of their fellow-creatures; for it was their custom to read and explain the fcriptures to their neighbours, which by some was called preaching; but was probably no more than domeftic inftruction, to which they admitted all who wished to partake of it, with a view to the mutual comfort and edification one of another; and fuch are deservedly ranked among thofe women who labour with

For this account of the birth and parentage of the Rev. Mr. Romaine, we are indebted to Mr. Callender of Newcastle, who married one of his fifters.

us in the gospel, and whofe names are in the book of life. Phil. iv. 3.

The Rev. William Romaine was the second* fon of these believing parents †. Viewed perhaps with the eye of faith, and feen to be a proper child: that is, as the original word acreios fignifies, poffeffed of a certain grace called urbanity, and, in its facred use, describing one of a fair aspect to God and his people, which indicates a formation for usefulness in the city of the great King. His early discoveries of great talents, and an equal defire to improve them, induced his parents to fend him to the grammar school at Houghton le Spring, in the county of Durham, founded by the cele

His elder and only brother was fettled as a Grocer in London, and died fuddenly at the George Inn at Buckden, in the thirtieth year of his age.

+ I call his parents believers by his own authority, finding the following expreffions in a letter to a friend, dated July 30th, 1784. "We hope next Monday to fet out for the north. In all probability for the last time. I have three fifters alive, all in years as well as myself, and we are to have a family meeting, to take our leave final as to this life. It has brought a great folemnity upon my Spirits; and would be too much for my feelings, had I not all the reafon in the world to believe that our next meeting will be in glory. Mr. Whitfield used often to put me in mind, bow fingularly favoured He had none of his family converted; and my father and mother and three fifters were like those blessed people, And Jefus loved Martha, and her fifter, and Lazarus; and, as they loved Him again, fo do we."

I was.

brated