BOOK II. land, already shaken to its centre, shall perish with it.* 1696. Jon Fenwick. The attention of the house was for a great part of the session engaged and almost engrossed by a business, which, in the view of distant posterity, can by no means appear of that moment and importance which it accidentally and artificially acquired in consequence of the temporary warmth Case of sir of political contention. Sir John Fenwick, a man deeply concerned in the late conspiracy, had been apprehended in the month of June at New Romney, in his way to France. He had been accompanied during part of his flight by one Webber, to whom he entrusted a letter to his lady, which was unfortunately intercepted. In this confiden tial effusion of affection and terror, he said, "that nothing could save his life, but the endeavours of lord Carlisle his brother, the family of the Howards, &c. or else the securing a jury." "to *“It seems not more reasonable," says Dr. Johnson, leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief."-Thus, by a dangerous illusion, are wit and metaphor too often by men of parts substituted for grave and solid argument. In the present instance, the edge of the remark has been with great felicity turned against the remarker, by the counter-observation, "that to suffer no book to be published without a licence is tyranny as absurd as it would be to suffer no traveller to pass along the highway without producing a certificate that he is not a rob ber."-HAYLEY's Life of Milton. On his examination before the lords of the re- BOOK III. gency, he resolutely denied the charges brought 1090. against him but at length the letter was produced; the surprise of which so affected him, that he could not conceal his dismay and confusion, and no longer persisted in his former protestations of innocence. Soon after this, on hearing that a bill was found against him by a grand jury, he petitioned for a delay of trial, and offered to discover all he knew, on condition he might have a pardon, and be excused from appearing as an evidence. This proposal was transmitted to the king, then in Flanders, who refused to accede to it; and declared, that he would be left at full liberty to judge both of the truth and importance of his discoveries. Sir John then, resolving to throw himself upon the king's mercy, sent him a paper, in which, after a very slight and unsatisfactory account of the plots and projects of his friends the Jacobites, he had the egregious indiscretion to bring forward an accusation against the earls of Shrewsbury, Marlborough, and Bath, the lord Godolphin and admiral Russel, for having made their peace with James, and engaged to act for his interest. By this imprudence he made of course the most powerful men in the kingdom his inveterate and determined enemies. —and the charge having its foundation in truth, though blended perhaps with some inaccuracies BOOK II. and exaggerations, it behoved them to adopt bold 1696 and decisive measures to silence the accuser whose safety he himself had rendered incompatible with their own.. "Till the year before the business of La Hogue," says sir John Fenwick, in that fatal confession, which of itself constituted a crime too great for absolution, "we knew only of my lord Godolphin concerned in this government who held a correspondence with him (i. e. king James) from the time he went over.-This winter my lord Middleton came to town, who had often becn desired to go over (i. e. to St. Germaine's), believing it would be of great service to king James to have him there in his business. He alleged he could do little service by going, unless he could engage and settle a correspondence here before he went that he had entered into this affair with lord Shrewsbury and lord Godolphin already; and there were some others whom he believed he should gain, and then he would go. Soon after captain Floyd, a groom of the bed-chamber to king James, was sent over to him from my lord Marlborough and admiral Russel, with an assurance from them of their interest in the fleet and army, which they did not doubt to secure to him if he would grant them his pardon for what was past. At his return, which was within a month, he acquainted me with some things king James had ordered him, and told me he had to difficulty 1090. in Mr. Russel's affair: but the answer to lord Marl- BOOK I borough was, that he was the greatest of criminals, where he had the greatest obligations: but if he did him extraordinary services, he might hope for pardon. My lord Middleton, having settled his correspondence, went over in March following-Sir Ralph Delaval and Killigrew were both engaged to serve king James: their opinion was asked of Shovel; they said, he was not a man to be spoke to, &c." This information was treated with great contempt. The king would not appear to give any sort of credit to it; and an order was issued for bringing him to trial, unless he made fuller and more material discoveries.* But various delays, * No doubt the parties concerned endeavoured to vindicate themselves as well as they were able from these accusations: but the duke of Devonshire, to whom sir John Fenwick read the papers, told him, " that the king was acquainted with most of those things before."-There is a curious letter extant from Shrewsbury to the king, in the Kensington cabinet, dated September the 8th, 1696, containing protestations of innocence to which it is unpleasant to be obliged to refuse credit. "I want words," says he, "to express my surprise at the impudent and unaccountable accusation of sir John Fenwick. I will, with all the sincerity imaginable, give your majesty an account of the only thing I can recollect that should give the least pretence to such an invention. After your majesty was pleased to allow me to lay down my employment, it was more than a year before I once saw my lord Middleton. He told me, he intended to go beyond seas, and asked if I would command him no ser BOOK III. 1090. i tervened; and sir John Fenwick, perceiving how little chance he had of escape from this quarter, thought it necessary to play a new game, vice. I then told him, by the course he was taking, it would never be in his power to do himself or his friends service; and if the time should come that he expected, I looked upon myself as an offender not to be forgiven.-He seemed shocked at my answer, and never mentioned any thing else to me, but left a message with my aunt (lady Middleton) that I might depend upon his good offices upon any occasion; and in the same manner he relied upon mine here, and had left me trustee for the small concerns he had in England.' I only bowed, and told her I should always be ready to serve her, or him, or their children. Your majesty now knows the extent of my crime; and, if I do not flatter myself, it is no more than a king may forgive." In a subsequent letter, October 1696, he craved permission to resign the seals on account of the ill state of his health, and the suspicion he lay under-but to this the king would by no means hearken. Mr. Macpherson, on the authority of the MS. Memoirs of king James, imputes the attainder of sir John Fenwick to a personal enmity of William against him. Macpherson's Hist. vol. ii. chap. iii.-But, as Dr. Somerville in his History of Political Transactions, &c. justly and judiciously observes, "If the Life of James is admitted as authentic, on the one hand, with respect to every allegation and fact favorable to his own character, and as equally authentic on the other, in establishing every insinuation reproachful to the character of William, it is obvious what the consequence must be, and how unfairly a person trusting to such information must judge of the conduct of James and William.-Had he been prone to resentment, he might have gratified it more extensively and effectually by saving sir John Fenwick, and admitting him as an evidence against those men whose treachery was aggravated by ingratitude; but upon this and many other |