} LXVII. 1678. king; but he had displayed such diligence and humanity CHAP. in extinguishing the flames, that even the Jesuits relented, and spared his life. Besides these assassinations and fires; insurrections, rebellions, and massacres, were projected by that religious order in all the three kingdoms. There were twenty thousand catholics in London, who would rise in four and twenty hours or less; and Jennison, a Jesuit, said, that they might easily cut the throats of a hundred thousand protestants. Eight thousand catholics had agreed to take arms in Scotland. Ormond was to be murdered by four Jesuits; a general massacre of the Irish protestants was concerted; and forty thousand black bills were already provided for that purpose. Coleman had remitted two hundred thousand pounds to promote the rebellion in Ireland; and the French king was to land a great army in that island. Poole, who wrote the Synopsis, was particularly marked out for assassination; as was also Dr. Stillingfleet, a controversial writer against the papists. Burnet tells us, that Oates paid him the same compliment. After all this havoc, the crown was to be offered to the duke, but on the following conditions; that he receive it as a gift from the pope; that he confirm all the papal commissions for offices and employments; that he ratify all past transactions, by pardoning the incendiaries, and the murderers of his brother and of the people; and that he consent to the utter extirpation of the protestant religion. If he refuse these conditions, he himself was immediately to be poisoned or assassinated. To pot James must go; according to the expression ascribed by Oates to the Jesuits. OATES, the informer of this dreadful plot, was himself the most infamous of mankind. He was the son of an anabaptist preacher, chaplain to colonel Pride; but having taken orders in the church, he had been settled in a small living by the duke of Norfolk. He had been indicted for perjury; and by some means had escaped. He was afterwards a chaplain on board the fleet; whence he had been dismissed on complaint of some unnatural prac tices, not fit to be named. He then became a convert to the catholics; but he afterwards boasted, that his conversion was a mere pretence, in order to get into their secrets VOL. VII. I 58 LXVII. 1678. CHAP. and to betray them." He was sent over to the Jesuits?' college at St. Omers, and, though above thirty years of age, he there lived some time among the students. He was despatched on an errand to Spain; and thence returned to St. Omers; where the Jesuits, heartily tired of their convert, at last dismissed him from their seminary. It is likely, that, from resentment of this usage, as well as from want and indigence, he was induced, in combination with Tongue, to contrive that plot of which he accused the catholics. THIS abandoned man, when examined before the council, betrayed his impostures in such a manner, as would have utterly discredited the most consistent story, and the most reputable evidence. While in Spain, he had been carried, he said, to don John, who promised great assistance to the execution of the catholic designs. The king asked him, what sort of a man don John was: He answered, a tall lean man; directly contrary to truth, as the king well knew." He totally mistook the situation of the Jesuits' college at Paris.P Though he pretended great intimacies with Coleman, he knew him not, when placed very near him; and had no other excuse than that his sight was bad in candle light. takes with regard to Wakeman. He fell into like mis NOTWITHSTANDING these objections, great attention was paid to Oates's evidence, and the plot became very soon the subject of conversation, and even the object of terror to the people. The violent animosity, which had been excited against the catholics in general, made the public swallow the grossest absurdities when they accompanied an accusation of those religionists: And the more diabolical any contrivance appeared, the better it suited the tremendous idea entertained of a Jesuit. Danby likewise, who stood in opposition to the French and catholic interest at court, was willing to encourage every story, which might serve to discredit that party. By his suggestion, when a warrant was signed for arresting Coleman, there was inserted a clause for seizing his n Burnet, Eehard, North, L'Estrange, &c. o Burnet, North. 5.9 papers; a circumstance attended with the most important CHAP. consequences. LXVII. 1678. letters. COLEMAN, partly on his own account, partly by orders from the duke, had been engaged in a correspondence Coleman's with father la Chaise, with the pope's nuncio at Brussels, and with other catholics abroad; and being himself a fiery zealot, busy and sanguine, the expressions in his letters often betrayed great violence and indiscretion. His correspondence, during the years 1674, 1675, and part of 1676, was seized, and contained many extraordinary passages. In particular he said to la Chaise, "We have "here a mighty work upon our hands, no less than the "conversion of three kingdoms, and by that perhaps the 66 utter subduing of a pestilent heresy, which has a long "time domineered over a great part of this northern "world. There were never such hopes of success, since "the days of queen Mary, as now in our days. God "has given us a prince," meaning the duke, "who is beแ come (may I say a miracle) zealous of being the author "and instrument of so glorious a work; but the opposition 46 we are sure to meet with is also like to be great: So that ' it imports us to get all the aid and assistance we can. In another letter he said, "I can scarce believe myself awake, or the thing real, when I think of a prince in "such an age as we live in, converted to such a degree "of zeal and piety, as not to regard any thing in the "world in comparison of God Almighty's glory, the sal"vation of his own soul, and the conversion of our poor kingdom." In other passages the interests of the crown of England, those of the French king, and those of the catholic religion, are spoken of as inseparable. The duke is also said to have connected his interests unalterably with those of Lewis. The king himself, he affirms, is always inclined to favour the catholics, when he may do it without hazard. "Money," Coleman adds, "cannot fail "of persuading the king to any thing. There is nothing "it cannot make him do, were it ever so much to his "prejudice. It has such an absolute power over him, "that he cannot resist it. Logic, built upon money, has “in our court more powerful charms than any other sort of argument." For these reasons, he proposed to father 66 CHAP. la Chaise, that the French king should remit the sum of LXVII. 1678. 300,000 pounds, on condition that the parliament be dis- It WHEN the contents of these letters were publicly known, they diffused the panic, with which the nation began already to be seized on account of the popish plot. Men reasoned more from their fears and their passions than from the evidence before them. It is certain, that the restless and enterprising spirit of the catholic church, particularly of the Jesuits, merits attention, and is, in some degree, dangerous to every other communion. Such zeal of proselytism actuates that sect, that its missionaries have penetrated into every nation of the globe; and, in one sense, there is a popish plot perpetually carrying on against all states, protestant, pagan, and mahometan. is likewise very probable, that the conversion of the duke, and the favour of the king, had inspired the catholic priests with new hopes of recovering in these islands their lost dominion, and gave fresh vigour to that intemperate zeal by which they are commonly actuated. Their first aim was to obtain a toleration; and such was the evidence, they believed, of their theological tenets, that, could they but procure entire liberty, they must infallibly in time open the eyes of the people. After they had converted considerable numbers, they might be enabled, they hoped, to reinstate themselves in full authority, and entirely to suppress that heresy, with which the kingdom had so long been affected. Though these dangers to the protestant LXVII. 1678. religion were distant, it was justly the object of great CHAP. concern to find that the heir of the crown was so blinded with bigotry, and so deeply engaged in foreign interests; and that the king himself had been prevailed on, from low interests, to hearken to his dangerous insinuations. Very bad consequences might ensue from such perverse habits and attachments; nor could the nation and parliament guard against them with too anxious a precaution. But that the Roman pontiff could hope to assume the sovereignty of these kingdoms; a project which, even during the darkness of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, would have appeared chimerical: That he should delegate this authority to the Jesuits, that order in the Romish church, which was the most hated: That a massacre could be attempted of the protestants, who surpassed the catholics a hundred fold, and were invested with the whole authority of the state: That the king himself was to be assassinated, and even the duke, the only support of their party: These were such absurdities as no human testimony was sufficient to prove; much less the evidence of one man, who was noted for infamy, and who could not keep himself every moment from falling into the grossest inconsistencies. Did such intelligence deserve even so much attention as to be refuted, it would appear, that Coleman's letters were sufficient alone to destroy all its credit. For how could so long a train of correspondence be carried on, by a man so much trusted by the party; and yet no traces of insurrections, if really intended, of fires, massacres, assassinations, invasions, be ever discovered in any single passage of these letters? But all such reflections, and many more, equally obvious, were vainly employed against that general prepossession with which the nation. was seized. Oates's plot and Coleman's were universally confounded together: And the evidence of the latter being unquestionable, the belief of the former, aided by the passions of hatred and of terror, took possession of the whole people. THERE was danger, however, lest time might open 17th Oct. the eyes of the public; when the murder of Godfrey com- murder. Godfrey's pleted the general delusion, and rendered the prejudices of the nation absolutely incurable. This magistrate had |