I. government in this conspiracy, and to the alledged CHAPTER intention of murdering the King, to satisfy ourselves that it was a forgery. justification Rapin, who argues the whole of this affair with Disingenuous a degree of weakness as well as disingenuity very of it. unusual to him, seems at last to offer us a kind of compromise, and to be satisfied if we will admit that there was a design or project to introduce Popery and arbitrary power, at the head of which were the King and his brother. Of this I am as much convinced as he can be; but how does this justify the prosecution and execution of those who suffered, since few, if any of them, were in a situation to be trusted by the royal conspirators with their designs? When he says therefore, that, that is precisely what was understood by the conspiracy, he by no means justifies those who were the principal prosecutors of the plot. The design to murder the King, he calls the appendage of the plot: a strange expression this, to describe the projected murder of a king! though not more strange than the notion itself when applied to a plot, the object of which was to render that very king absolute, and to introduce the religion which he most favoured. But it is to be observed, that though in considering the Bill of Exclusion, the Militia Bill, and other CHAPTER legislative proceedings, the plot, as he defines it, I. that is to say, the design of introducing Popery The proceedings on it disgraceful to the nation. and arbitrary power, was the important point to be looked to; yet in courts of justice, and for juries and judges, that which he calls the appendage was, generally speaking, the sole consideration. Although therefore, upon a review of this truly shocking transaction, we may be fairly justified in adopting the milder alternative, and in imputing to the greater part of those concerned in it, rather an extraordinary degree of blind credulity, than the deliberate wickedness of planning and assisting in the perpetration of legal murders; yet the proceedings on the Popish plot must always be considered as an indelible disgrace upon the English nation, in which King, Parliament, judges, juries, witnesses, prosecutors, have all their respective, though certainly not equal, shares. Witnesses, of such a character as not to deserve credit in the most trifling cause, upon the most immaterial facts, gave evidence so incredible, or, to speak more properly, so impossible to be true, that it ought not to have been believed if it had come from the mouth of Cato; and upon such evidence, from such witnesses, were innocent men condemned to death and executed. Prosecutors, whether attornies I. and solicitors-general, or managers of impeach- CHAPTER ment, acted with the fury which in such circumstances might be expected; juries partook naturally enough of the national ferment; and judges, whose duty it was to guard them against such impressions, were scandalously active in confirming them in their prejudices, and inflaming their passions. The King, who is supposed to have disbelieved the whole of the plot, never once exercised his glorious prerogative of mercy. It is said he dared not. His throne, perhaps his life, was at stake; and history does not furnish us with the example of any monarch with whom the lives of innocent, or even meritorious, subjects ever appeared to be of much weight, when put in balance against such considerations. Corpus Act. 1675. The measures of the prevailing party in the Habeas House of Commons, in these times, appear, (with the exception of their dreadful proceedings in the business of the pretended plot, and of their violence towards those who petitioned and addressed against Parliament,) to have been, in ge, neral, highly laudable and meritorious; and yet I am afraid it may be justly suspected, that it was precisely to that part of their conduct which related to the plot, and which is most reprehensible, that I. CHAPTER they were indebted for their power to make the noble, and, and in some instances successful, struggles for liberty, which do so much honour to their memory. The danger to be apprehended from military force, being always, in the view of wise men, the most urgent, they first voted the disbanding of the army, and the two Houses passed a bill for that purpose, to which the King found himself obliged to consent. But to the bill which followed, for establishing the regular assembling of the militia, and for providing for their being in arms six weeks in the year, he opposed his royal negative; thus making his stand upon the same point on which his father had done; a circumstance which, if events had taken a turn against him, would not have failed of being much noticed by historians. Civil securities for freedom came to be afterwards considered; and it is to be remarked, that to these times of heat and passion, and to one of those parliaments, which so disgraced themselves and the nation, by the countenance given to Oates and Bedloe, and by the persecution of so many innocent victims, we are indebted for the Habeas Corpus Act, the most important barrier against tyranny, and best framed protection for the liberty of individuals, that has ever existed in any ancient or modern commonwealth. But the inefficacy of mere laws in favour of CHAPTER I. the subjects, in the case of the administration of Exclusion them falling into the hands of persons hostile Bill. 1679. upon it. The dispute was no longer, whether or not the Observations dangers resulting from James's succession were real, and such as ought to be guarded against by parliamentary provisions; but whether the exclusion, or restrictions, furnished the most safe, and eligible mode of compassing the object which both sides pretended to have in view. The argument upon this state of |