A LETTER TO THE Right Honourable Sir JOHN HOLT, Kt. Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench; OCCASIONED By the Noise of a PLOT.  
The Second Edition Corrected.  
LONDON, Printed in the Year, MDCXCIV.   

A LETTER to the Right Honourable My Lord Chief Justice HOLT, occasioned by the Noise of a PLOT.  
MY LORD,  
THE Character which you bear, and the Office which you have several Years discharged with so much Credit to the Government, Reputation to yourself, and Justice to the Nation, have rendered You both the Object of all Honest Men's Esteem, and the Sanctuary to which they fly and retreat, when either through the P●que and Revenge, or the Jealousy and Credulity of Ministers of State, and their Subordinate Officers, they find themselves assaulted ●n their Lives, pursued as to their Estates, or deprived of their Liberties, upon the Depositions of a few Necessitous, Bribed and Suborned Fellows. And seeing it is not possible that any can be illegally Prosecuted, unduly Convicted, or unjustly Condemned, without your coming to suffer both in your Honour, which you so sensibly value, and to forfeit that Integrity which is accounted natural unto You, Pray suffer one, who is your most real, though unknown Servant, to lay such Things with all Humility and Deference before you, as may serve to prevent your being surprised and circumvented to do any Thing unworthy of yourself, or injurious and destructive to Innocent Men.  
With what Blushing and Grief do those imbued with any degrees of Wisdom and Virtue, reflection the Ignominy and Gild brought upon the Nation by Oats and his Complices, who, ●s they were the first Pack of Witnesses the Kingdom was ever acquainted with, that were established under the Encouragement of Salaries & Pensions, to be Standing Evidence in Capital and Criminal Cases, so the dismal Effects of that method of administering Government, and executing Laws were soon felt, not only by the Advantage which other Miscreants endeavoured to make of that mischievous Precedent, in setting up to imitate them, upon prospect and hope of the like Profit and Reward, but through their own growing emboldened to invade the Reputations, and attaque the Lives of High and Low, in order to merit the increase as well as the continuance of the Price of Blood, upon which they projected to subsist, and which one of them hath the Fortune still to enjoy: But whether it proceed from the Generosity of the Government, or be owing to the Wisdom of it, as reckoning it to be serviceable to its Interest, I shall not presume to determine. Nor will I deny but that those State-Witnesses of the first Muster and enrolment may be allowed to have sworn truly in some Particulars, but it must withal be acknowledged that they perjured themselves in many others: So that my Lord Chief Justice Scr●ggs, who had raised them to the Reputation of being held Credible Persons, by giving Faith Himself to their Testimony in some Trials, and thereby gaining and reconciling others to do the like, was, upon observing the impossible as well as improbable Things they grew up into a Confidence of deposing, and how they could not only Perjure themselves without Shame or Remorse, but with an Air of Assurance and Sincerity, forced to detract from, and lessen their Credibility in future Trials as much as he had raised it in former. Though he could not be unsensible that the best Returns he would meet with from many for this Aftergame of Candour, Probity and Justice, was to have his Discretion and Righteousness reflected upon for the Sentences he had pronounced before, upon no other or better Testimony than that of those whom he found it needful at last to render Infamous.  
Nor can it escape your Lordship's Remembrance what Convulsions the Kingdom was thrown into, by a Sett of Mercenary Rascab, Anno 1681, who wanted nothing but the obtaining Belief to their Testimony against the Earl of Shas●●b●ry, to the involving vast numbers of Protestants, of all Qualities and Degrees, under the Gild of a Horrid Conspiracy against His t●en Majesty's Person and Government: For the Villains having been Trained up ●o swear Men out of their Lives, without the least regard to their being Guilty or Guil●less, all that they minded was whom the influencing Ministers were ready to Start, being ready to Halloo and pursue them to Scaffolds and Gibbets, if they might be but plentifully paid and rewarded for it: And having Breakfasted on those of one Party, they wer● prepared to Sup on them of another. For being habituated to Blood, it was indifferent to them whom they murderously destroyed; and all that obtained a Room in their Thoughts, was the being assured beforehand in whose Slaughter they should make the better Meal: Yea it was but for any to outbid those that trained them up, and the Cannibals were ready to fly upon them that bred them to devour, upon the first Prospect they had of doing it with Impunity, and of finding their Interest in't; Which, upon observing what had befallen others, I wish some at this Time may take warning by. Only permit me to tell you, that the Interposition and Influence which some of King Charles' Ministers had, both in forging and forming that pretended PLOT, (in 81) and in Suborning Miscreants to support the belief of it by Falsehood and Perjury, was that which gave Provocation and Encouragement to the designed Insurrection in 1682. For when Men can't find Safety in their Innocency, they will seek to obtain it by their Swords. And if the Laws be not sufficient to cover and protect them, they will be tempted to try what Back and Breast can do. Nor is it unworthy of your Lordship's Reflection, that though several Persons of Quality and Virtue had the Misfortune to suffer for what they had then contrived, and were ready to execute; yet the Justice of their Endeavours hath been abundantly vindicated ●y the Repeal of their A●tainders since this Revolution: And the Combination in which they were embarked, upon the Motive and Necessity o● being (through the Subornation of Witness against them); deprived of all other mean● of Safe●y, ha●h had the Commendation of this Government, in the many H●nours and 〈◊〉 bestowed not only upon the Friends and Relati●●● but on the Surviving Complices of those that perished. Nor is your Lordship's Memory so weak and unfaithful, but that it will furnish you with Memoirs of the Barbarous Infamy which a certain Zealous and Credulous Gentleman, endeavoured upon weak and trivial Suggestions to have fastened upon the late King Charles, the Duke of York, and diver● other Persons of the First Figure and Quality, by charging and accusing them of being conscious and accessary to the murder of the Earl of Essex: And 'tis not without Shame and Detestation, that Men of Discretion and Probity reflect upon, and call over, the groundless and malicious Rumours upon which the whole Court, especially his then Royal Highness, were impudently slandered, the Nation strangely alarmed, and the Peace of the City and Kingdom attempted to have been shaken and disturbed. Nor will it be easy for a certain Sort of People to wipe off the Blots and Aspersions they deservedly brought upon themselves, of wanting either Sense or Integrity, by their giving belief to those weak and ill-invented Suggestions, which nothing but Folly mixed with Rancour could feign, nor any receive and give credit to but those of a strange Bigotry, and of parallel Disaffection and Disloyalty: For besides the wounding Princes, and several Noble Peers, in their Honour by them, which the Laws are framed to protect with an equal Tenderness, as they do the Crown, the Constitution, and the Lives of the most valuable, innocent and deserving Subjects, Who can conceive, or apprehend without Horror, the many other mischievous Effects which those malicious Accusations were adapted to have produced, had not they who administered Justice in that Court, where your Lordship, to the Conten●ment and Joy of the whole Nation, now doth, unravelled that whole Mystery of audacious Villainy, and with a Wisdom, Zeal and Fortitude becoming their Places, both detected the Conspiracy against the Honour of those that had been traduced, and punished it in the credulous but feeble Supporter of it? Nor do●h the Righteousness of their Procedure in that Matter need any other Justification, nor ●e Innocency of that Prince, who was d●●amed with so much Insolency and Falsehood, require a more convincing and satisfactory Vindication, than to observe with what Scorn, Contempt and Ridicule the House of Lords treated and dismissed that Affair, when with a revived Malice it was staged before them, and enforced with an Art properer to misled than to inform, since this Revolution, For it cannot be imagined, but that it would have been very grateful to those who had divested King James of his Royal Power and Dignity, to have found him sullied with a Crime that would have contributed more towards the supporting the Equity of their proceeding against him, than all he hath been loaded with besides, as the Motives to his Abdication. And forgive me, my Lord, if I presume to add, that as King James' Innocency, in reference to the Death of that unfortunate Peer, cannot receive a more Illustrious, as well as Public a Vindication, than by the House of Lords dismissing that Criminal Accusation with a Derision of the presumptuous and groundless Vanity of it, after they had for many Days inquired into it with all the penetration they could, and that by a Committee of their Members the most and longest alienated in their Affections from him of any of that House; so it cannot escape the Observation of thinking and indifferent Persons, how that barbarous Aspersion, which the Malice and Industry of some Persons had fastened and continued upon him, influenced as much to this Revolution, and all the Calamities which have attended him upon it, through having sunk him in the Love, Esteem and Confidence of his People, as any one Thing whatsoever whereof he hath been accused. Nor was it difficult to deprive him of his Crown, and drive him from his Throne, upon very little and weak Pretences, when by an Accusation so calumnious, as this appears now to have been, they had cast and kept him out of the Hearts and Veneration of his People so long before. And for Mr. Braddon to persevere after this to slain King James with the Murder of the Earl of Essex, or with any thing relative to his D●ath, doth serve only to discover his Vanity, accompanied with an implacable Malice, and gives occasion to the most modest and reserved Censurers of Persons and Things, to judge that his cherishing himself, and studying to obtrude the Belief of it upon others at first, was not so much from a weakness in his Understanding, which is no disparagement to him to think him capable of, as from a Crime in his Will, which rendereth him a very bad and wicked Man; whereas the former would have only published him credulous and silly: And it argueth a great deal of Impudence and Pride, as well as of inveterate Rancour and Spleen, for him to fancy that more credit ought to be given unto him, upon his daring and bare Aspersions, than either to the nearest Relations of that unfortunate Lord, or to the House of Peers, in disclaiming and stifling the slanderous Accusation in the manner they did. However the Miscarriage in this one Adventure, of blackening King James, makes it violently suspected what unsuccessfulness they would have had in the Proof of other Imputations, with which he hath been no less rudely than audaciously charged. It is true, his Dispensing with some Laws is too notorious to be denied; but at the same time it is very questionable, whether he had not a Right by his Prerogative to do it; and it is most certain that he had the Opinion of the Judges that he might, who were the only known Expositors of Laws, and the living Oracles of the bounds and limits of Sovereignty in the Intervals of Parliaments: And if there be any ground to blame him for giving us an Original, in this Matter, of Royal Authority and Power, I am sure it hath since been Copied over and over, by a barefaced departure from the Laws, in things more out of reach of Majesty than any in which he pretended to supersede the Obligation of the Statutes of the Realm.  
And whereas my Lord, among the many real or pretended Grievances, which upon this Revolution we hoped to be delivered from, there was none so mischievous in itself, and from which we with more assurance promised ourselves the being redeemed, than that of holding our Lives precariously, and being kept in daily Jeopardy of losing them, by the Perjuries of Suborned and Hired Villains, notwithstanding our quiet and peaceable Deportment towards those seated in the Throne, which we thought that we might with the more Confidence expect, having been rescued from it during all the Reign of King James; it having, until now, been a Reproach and Disparagement peculiar to the Government of his Brother King Charles; being unknown in all other Reigns▪ but unhappily introduced and too much practised to his Dishonour and his Subject's Danger and Vexation, while he sat on the Throne. But it seems, that upon this as well as many other Accounts, his Reign, which gave occasion to all the Mischiefs that have since ensued, is chosen to be the Pattern of Administration and Management under this. For among other Disappointments we have met with under the late Change, and our being frustrated in Things of the vastest Moment, which we expected to have seen redressed, it is with extreme Sorrow that we find that Crime unknown to Turks and Heathens, as well as to all Nation professing Christianity besides these, namely, not only of countenancing mercenary and infamous Rascals, to swear quiet and innocent Men out of their Lives, but of bribing, instructing and training them thereunto, still kept up with all the scandalous Openness that it heretofore was, yea better encouraged and rewarded, and thereupon more frequently and audaciously practised, than ever it had been in the Reign o● King Charles, of which we have wi●h so much Reason complained. How scandalous doth it look, And what Dishonour and Infamy doth it derive upon this Government, to find the Emissaries of our Statesmen and Ministers hawking up and down for Indigent and Necessitous Jacobites, and accosting them with a Commiseration of their poor and starving Condition, and how willing they are not only to relieve, but to render them happy and opulent, provided they will only make themselves capable Subjects of Favour and Bounty, by detecting what they know against the Government, and discovering whether they be not conscious of the Criminal Designs of such and such, and prepared to depose and swear against th●m●! Which, considering their Poverty, together with that decay of Morality as well as Religion, and that strange growth not only of Practical but of Speculative Atheism in the Nation, much occasioned by late Practices and Transactions, is equivalent to the tempting those miserable Wretches to forswear themselves for Bread, and is the giving them aim in the murdering of whom they may do the most meritorious Act to the Government, and make the most advantageous Bargain to themselves: And if this doth not prevail upon those indigent Creatures, whom Poverty and Irreligion have disposed for the Impression of the weakest Temptation, the next Assault upon them is, under the pretence of relieving their Want, to give them a Crown or an Angel, and then to call it Levying and Subsistence-Money; and thereupon to necessitate them either by Perjury to destroy others, or to fall and perish themselves, upon the Accusation of those that pretended charitably to supply them. Nor can it seem strange or astonishing to your Lordship to find such Courses and Methods pursued towards the ruining particular Men, when you observe the ways that are notoriously taken to make Members of Parliament so treacherously and feloniously destroy the Kingdom: For besides the many Members of the House of Commons, with which the beginning and original Grants of all Money for the Support of the Government is undisputably lodged, who have Places and Employments equivalent to Pensions, and by which, as the standing and meritorious Qualification that entitleth them unto, and giveth them an indefeasible Title in their Posts, they are biased to give whatsoever is demanded, there are many others purchased by Gratuities, Gifts and Salaries, to concur in and promote all public Aids, which they too readily do, without the least respect to the Welfare and Safety of the Kingdom, upon the mere foot of finding their own Interest wrapr up so eminently in what they give. And it is beyond all contradiction, that whosoever will hire and bribe Members of Parliament, to subvert a●d destroy the Constitution and murder the Kingdom, which the Practice I have laid before you palpably and uncontrollably doth, such Persons will never scruple the ruining individual Persons, by the worst and most infamous Arts, if it be but subservient to their revengeful, haughty and covetous Ends. And while there is so general a failure in Virtue, as well as a departure from all Honour, save that of Parchment, it is a wonder that instead of a few little Miscreants, (who in the best and most innocent Ages would have been reckoned amongst the Refuse of Mankind) they have not furnished themselves with a multitude of Witnesses adorned with Titles, and distinguished from the Vulgus, by Names and Characters which used in times of Morality and Religion to be of some Esteem and Veneration. I shall not descend to a particular mentioning of those that have withstood the Temptation, upon their being caressed and menaced, in order to their being gained and disciplined for Evidences, as judging it will be more useful to reserve the Declaration of them to a Parliament; and the rather because divers of them have been questioned about the Guiltiness of some Members of both Houses, which is in effect the telling them that they would have such and such destroyed, and that they shall be plentifully rewarded if they put on an Eff●ontry with a little speciousness to do it. I will not, my Lord, be so rude and uncivil as to ruffle you on ●he account of those that have suffered since this Revolution, for the Crimes of High-Treason against the Government, seeing that might not only be interpreted a want of Deference and Respect to your Lordship's Honour and Integrity, but accounted an impeaching and arraigning the Justice of the Nation: Yet suffer me, with the utmost Modesty of one that highly esteems you, and who would both promote your Repentance towards God, for any hasty and indiscreet Excesses that are past, and prevent your falling into any thing that may savour of intemperate and unrighteous Zeal for the future, to call over▪ and bring to your remembrance, the Four Antecedent Trials and Condemnations of this kind, and to tell you with the Candour and Fidelity of your faithful Servant, how little the Credit of those that sat upon them is raised at present, or their Memory likely to be embalmed hereafter, by the Wisdom and Justice displayed in the manage and conduct of them. I acknowledge that your Lordship's Access to the obtaining the Conviction of Persons Arraigned useth to be less than that of some others joined in Commission with you, and your Deportment during the Trials is more decent and becoming your Character than that of divers of your Assessors. Yet a little Reflection on the Trials I am now to mention will quicken your Remembrance, Whether th●re was that Scrutiny about, and Enquiry into the Credibility of the Witnesses, which so important a Case as the Lives of Men, and the forfeiting their Estates, to the impoverishing their Families and Posterity, do●h require: And whether all that Help and Assistance was given to the Arraigned which the Law doth allow, and makes incumbent upon the Judge to yield. For to begin with the First, which was the Convicting and Sentencing the Chairman to Death, For Levying War to disturb the Tranquillity of the Nation, and to Dethrone and Dispossess King William; which had it not been transacted in a Court of Justice, would have looked rather like a Banter upon the Government than a Testimony of Loyalty and Zeal to support it. I do very well know, that all for w●ich he was found Guilty and Condemned was express, swo●n against him; But can it obtain credit with any, who allow themselves the liberty seriously to think, that one of his Meanness had either the Interest, Power o● Treasure to make the least Commotion in the Kingdom; or that a Person bred all his Days to so inferior and servile an Employ as he was, had either the Courage and Boldness to muster Forces or ●he Sauciness and Vanity once to imagine● that he could overturn Thrones, and wrest Scepter● out of the Hands of Princes? Had he been accused and convicted for designing to have Assassinated either of the Two vested with the Supreme Authority, there might have been some probability in it, as being practicable, and of the like whereof the Records of former Times have furnished us with Instances and Examples: But for a poor Creature ●o be thought capable of enrolling Troops, and commencing War against a Prince encompassed with a large disciplined Army, and that in the Honey-Month of his Government, when the Nation generally was fond of him, may be reckoned among the last of Incredibles; and seems obtruded upon the Faith of the Kingdom merely to expose our Credulity. And I have often observed, that your Suborned Fellows do, either out of too much Haughtiness, or too little Sense, make the same sport at the Majesty of Courts of Judicature, and at the Understandings of the ●ell of Mankind, that they do with the Lives of those they are hired to murder. In a word, all that with the least shadow of Truth can be conceived of what the Man was accused of, is, that he had been charitable to those he apprehended in greater Distres● than himself, which administered occasion to the ungrateful Wretches that received it, to gain a Reward from those at the Helm of Affairs, through their styling and swearing it Levy and Subsistence Money, And as for cross the Kentish Attorney, who was Tried and Condemned for going aboard the French Fleet, when they lay upon the Coast; it is known that he was as passionate and violent a Williamite as was in the Kingdom, and that he went thither merely out of Curiosity, conceiving it no Crime, nor apprehending any danger by it, and not upon a disloyal and treacherous account: For what better Testimony could be given of the poor Man's Zeal and Affection for the Government, than praying with that Heartiness that he did, for the Preservation and prosperous Reign of William and Mary, at the time and place of his Execution, when and where none, without being highly uncharitable, can imagine that he would dissemble. And were the Jacobites capable of taking tha● Pleasure in the Ruin of innocent Men, which your scandalous W●igs and too many of your bigoted fanatics seem to do, his Execution was a thing wherein they would have thought themselves extremely gratified: And they will at all times reckon your Severities of that kind, if not Favours they take Pleasure in, at least Actions which will neither provoke their Resentment nor Indignation: Nor is it unworthy of your Observation, that the unhappy Man was hallooed and pursued to Death, by Persons who valued themselves heretofore for being in a Faction, of which few are Loyal to Monarches out of Principle, but solely for Interest; and of whom there are t●o many, who out of Devotion to their Idol of a Republic, will be ready to sacrifice, and give up to Scaffolds and Gibbets, all that are addicted to Kingship, whosoever be the King. As for Mr. Ashton's Ca●e, the Severity he met with hath been already represented in Print, without any Reply hitherto given, in Vindication of the Justice of the Nation, to what is there declared and laid open. And it is sufficiently known by all of any Conversation at White-Hall and about the Town, that he was not so much condemned for what was produced against him at the Bar, as for what was concealed, being unfi●●o be discovered: For the Papers concerning the Legitimacy of the Prince of Wales, which he was carrying over to King James, first for his Perusal, and then for his Approbation, in order to have presented them to the Parliament▪ was that which influenced more to his Destruction, than all besides whereof he was accused, which in the Opinion of very wise and impartial Men were but trifling and insignificant Things, and which as they did not deserve so hard a Fate, so they would never have prevailed upon an unprejudiced Jury to have found him guilty, without a very strange and laboured Misleading. And pardon me▪ my Lord, if I bewail the Suppression of the forementioned Papers, and take the liberty to tell you, that the refusing the Nation the favour of seeing, them, renders it very much suspected, That the last Invasion was not, in all things alleged as the Motives to it, founded in that Justice and Honour which we were made to believe. But to wave that, I shall only presume to subjoin, that though the Providences and Judgements of God are inscrutable, yet it ought not to be let pass without Observation, That the only Judge at that time on the Bench, who treated him with uncivil as well as uncomely Malice, and who by his whole Behaviour seemed to have an unquenchable Thirst after his Blood, died soon after wallowing in his own. Nor is it to be imagined what recommended that Person to the Bench, after his having promoted and hastened the Execution of so many in the West, Anno 1685, unless it was, that having given so signal a Testimony of his inhuman and implacable Cruelty to those of the same Party and Interest of which he pretended to be, he was thereupon taken and held for a Person that would be no less barbarous to all such of another Faction, as should have the Misfortune to fall within the Circle of his Power and Rage: For it is most certain, that though Jefferies underwent the Clamour, and bore the blame of those Executions, yet most of the Gild lay upon Pollex●en, of whom I have been speaking. And for Anderton, who is the last that since the Revolution hath been Executed for High-Treason of this kind, there needeth no more to show both the Perjury of the Witnesses that swore against him, and the Severity and hastiness of his Conviction and Condemnation, than that a Person arraigned and condemned since at the same place, hath openly confessed and avowed, that he Printed and Published the Book, for which poor Anderton was Cast and Executed. Nor is it for the Credit of those that sa●e as Judges, or were upon the Jury, that so infamous a Fellow as Stephens was the principal Witness at the Trial, and the Person upon whose Testimony especially the arraigned was cast: For besides his being universally known for a Rascal that will be purchased to perpetrate any Villainy, provided he may find Impunity in doing it, his whole Behaviour at that time when he gave his Evidence was so excessively Rude and rancorous towards the Prisoner, as might give any indifferent M●n a just c●use to believe, that he was provoked by Malice, or swayed by Command and encouraged by Reward to what he did. My Lord, I do not design by this brief Recollection of these Trials▪ to detract from your Prudence and Moderation, and much less ●o charge you with Injustice, as to the Portion and Share you had in them; but the whole I propose, is humbly to represent, that there seems to have been a Bl●m●ableness somewhere; and particularly, that as Juries are generally too credulous in such Cases, and many times prepossessed and prejudiced upon the Motive of Party and Faction, so the Witnesses are oftentimes too Mercenary and Revengeful to be easily believed. And among other Examples of the Corruption of Witnesses, and of the easiness of Juries to be imposed upon, and the rigorous Excesses which (through their being of a different and opposite Party to the Prisoner before them) they are liable to be hurried into, the Conviction of Mrs. Merrywether is one that has sensibly affected you, and has furnished you with an Occasion of testifying your Goodness, Compassion and Fortitude, as well as declaring your love and regard to Justice, in your co-operating with others at first for her Reprieve, and recommending her since as a Person whom it is for the Reputation and Honour of the Government to pardon: And your styling her Conviction Summum Jus (as you frequently have done) is equivalent to your pronouncing, that there was Summu Injuria in it. My Lord, In what I have been calling over to you, I have written with the Temper and Deference, which a regard to the Honour and Justice of the Nation, after Persons have been convicted and sentenced, exacteth from me: But I cannot forbear being a little more Piquant, in laying before you the Dangers which many of all Ranks, since the Revolution, have (notwithstanding their Peaceableness) been subject unto, by means of Suborned, Bribed and Infamous Miscreants, through whose Perjuries great Numbers were to have been destroyed, had not the villainous Conspiracies against high and low been seasonably detected. Nor is it needful I should be large in telling you, to how many, and of what Quality, the murderous Design of Fuller extended; and of what Esteem he was with divers of the Ministers, as well as with many other People, upon the hope and prospect of the Slaughters they should have been enabled to make by his Discoveries: And for his Encouragement to enlarge his Accusations, and maintain them with Assurance, he was the Darling both of divers Members of Parliament, and of several Officers of State: Your A. and C. vouchsafed him frequently their Company to raise hi● Credit; and their Eloquence was employed wheresoever they came. In proclaiming his Praise, and in extolling his Ingenuity and Presence of Mind; yea, whilst the Government was running daily into Debt to those ●hat industriously and substantially served it, Money was plentifully lavished out to embolden and reward him: Nor did their being conscious how prodigally he wasted it on his Lusts, discourage them from esteeming him a very credible Witness; for to gain b● Falshood and Perjury, and to consume in Luxury and Whoredom, are equally overlooked by some People, when they have proposed an End and form a Design wherein they want to be served. And though there is too much Reason to believe, that they who gave Countenance to the Rogue, as well as they who managed him, knew from the beginning that whatsoever he told them was Shame and Fiction, yet they not only filled the City and Kingdom with the Noise of the mighty Discovery of a horrid Plot, but hoping to have imposed upon the Parliament (as had been done in a parallel Case) they took the Confidence to bring it into the House of Commons; where the Rascal telling his Story with the utmost degree of Boldness and Assurance, and giving an amazing Coherence to those Things he had impudence to say, the belief of a PLOT was greatly strengthened and increased▪ But the Villain having told the House of concurring Witnesses whom he had, but whom (after all the Sums he bubbled some People of) he could never produce; and having slandered and accused several Persons of Condition, whom he no ways knew, or had at any time obtained an Access unto, his Credit at first dwindled by degrees, and at last, his having forged whatsoever he had said, became notorious: Upon which the House, for the vindication of its own Honour, but to the Grief of many without Doors, and of some within, not only voted him an Infamous Person, but ordered that he should be prosecuted, which after a long Delay, (the reasons whereof they are best able to assign who were guilty of it) he was before your Lordship, and, upon being convicted, was adjudged to the Punishment which the Law appointeth and allows, but not what the Crime deserves, through a fatal defect in the Rule● of our Government: For whereas by the Laws of Nature and Revelation, as well as by the established Sanction of all other Nations, a Villainy of this high and horrid Nature is made not only punishable with Death, but a Death accompanied with all the cruel and infamous Circumstances which the calumnious Conspirators would have brought upon innocent Men; it is the Disgrace and Reproach of this Kingdom, which with a ridiculous Vanity so much boasteth of the Excellency of its Constitution and Laws, that it is made only obnoxious to the Chastisement which ●he pet●iest Transgression subjecteth Offenders unto. And whereas we hoped upon the Revolution to have been relieved against this, as well as many other Grievances, yet to our Disappointment and continued Calamity, and to the Dishonour of those who are become possessed of the Throne, we have not (by rea●on of the Influence of the Government upon some bigoted and revengeful, and other Pensionary Members of Parliament) been so much as able to procure the passing of a Bill for giving us the common Favours, Help and Assistances in Trials of High Treason, which we are allowed in Pecuniary Matters, and in all other Cases: And who, with Industry, Vigour and Spleen, opposed and hindered our obtaining of it, but your Riches, ●oung's, Clark's, Arnold's, etc. that both so much needed and bewailed the want of it heretofore, which, in the Righteousness of God, they or their Posterity may do a sin, and by a just Retaliation be refu●ed? Now this that I have laid before your Lordship, of the audacious Conspiracies of Fuller for the destruction of innocent Persons, ●ully showeth ●hat necessitous Miscrean●● are capable of attempting, and what countenance the worst Barbarities may meet with from some, who, by their Places, as well as by their Characters and Quality, should not only discourage, but endeavour by all means to have them punished. And it do●h withal serve to instruct you not to be too credulous, nor to believe every one guilty, whom indigent and immoral Fellows have the impudence to swear against. And that you may be further informed, as well as forewarned, how little Men's Innocency signifieth to the ●kreening and covering them from Danger, I crave liberty to remind you, what Young the Parson, in conjunction with Blackhead, had contrived, in order to the murdering several of the First Quality in the Kingdom, besides divers Gentlemen of lower Degree: For these Fellows judging it too little and mean, for Persons of their transcendency in Villainy▪ merely to swear that such and such had conspired and combined to Restore and Re-establish King James, they had the audacious and unpresidented Impudence, to forge an Association, and to counterfeit and affix the Hands and Names of Honourable Peers and Worthy Persons unto it, importing their having mutually and jointly undertook to dispossess K William, and to bring back and re-advance K. James. And though it was morally impossible as well as altogether incredible, tha●, had there been such a Design, and so concerted and stipulated, Wretches of the meanness of Young and Blackhead should have b●en admitted upon a Secret of such Importance in itself, and whereof the Discovery would have rendered those concerned liable to the loss of Life, Honour and Estates: Yet not only with what Easiness, but Lechery, was the belief of it entertained by divers of our Supreme, and reputed wise Ministers; and notwithstanding its being, in the whole mater of it▪ more Ludicrous than Farce, or Bartholomew-Fair-Shew, and fitter to amuse Gaping MOB, than to be staged before, and to be entertained by Statesmen; yet with what Seriousness and Gravity was it brought to the Council-Board, and received there as a Subject worthy of weighty and solemn Debate; Whilst in the mean while, the very har●●●specting that the Per●ons, whose Hands were forged to that invented and supposititious Paper, were capable of being guilty of so weak and silly a Thing, could not miss deriving upon the Government the Stain and Reproach of Simplicity and Folly, as well as of Ingratitude and Injustice: For as the two Reverend and Learned Bishops were secured by their Virtue, Modesty and Prudence from all just Suspicion of having been in the least accessary to that whereof they were accused: So my Lord Marlborough's hahaving contributed so eminently and effectually to the Revolution, was enough to render his Loyalty to this Government unquestionable because necessary; and his return to K. James' Interest incredible, by reason his Reception into the Grace and Favour of that Prince is impracticable. Nor could the Ministers be so great Strangers to the infamous Characters of the Witness (whose many and notorious Crimes had sufficiently published them before, through the whole Nation, as Rascals who had forfeited all Right to be believed and credited) as to hope to have their Integrity and Righteousness justified in seizing and prosecuting any upon their Testimony: And yet had it not been for the missing of the forged Paper, when it was at first so narrowly searched for at the Bp. of Rochester's, where one of the Rogues traitorously and feloniously lodged it, it is scarce to be conceived, how some of our Statesmen were prepared to have pushed on that Affair to the Imprisonment of several. But that Misadventure together with the Defences which the aforesaid Eloquent Bishop, after his Apprehension, made at his being examined before the Council, rendered them more slow and wary in their Proceeding: And thereupon through the gaining the Respite of a little time, there was an Opportunity obtained, no● only of discovering and laying open the many infamous and horrid Crimes whereof the Rogues sad at other times been guilty, but of fully de●ecting the Forgery of the Association, and where they had secretly laid it in the Bishop's House, in order to have destroyed him and others, in case it had been found by the Clerk of the Council and the Messengers, when it was so industriously sought for. And truly, My Lord, had not Young laboured under a strange defect of Morals, he was incomparably qualified in all o●her respects to have been a select, singular and standing Witness for the State: For as he has a sufficiency of Wit and Presence of M●nd, to be able to give things the best Gloss and readiest Turn of Thought; so he is furnished with a larger Stock of Impudence and Assurance than most Men in the World are: Of which your Lordship was an astonished Witness when you had him before you at the Bar, to be tried for the Forgery which I have mentioned, and to be condemned to the too gentle and feeble Punishment which the Law hath ordained for it: For with what Confidence did he stand, not only under the Load of a Thousand infamous Actions, of which all the Court (by the Perusal of the Bp. of Rochester's two Books) knew him to have been guilty, but under the fullest and clearest Proof of the malicious Forgery for which he was then Arraigned: Yea, with what Effrontry and air of Impudence, to the Amazement of all there, did he continue to assert his own Innocence, and persevere in his crimination of others? But that which filleth Men most with Sorrow in reference to that Transaction, and which keeps them under disquieting Fears ever since, is, that though Young and Blackhead were Instruments in it yet people of another Figure must have been the first Contrivers and Authors of it: And the handing Money to Blackhead, while kept i● Custody by Allen the Messenger, and conniving at his Escape from thence, gives us more than a Suspicion of it, and little less than a moral Certainty: For that Rogue having been the Tool employed too with Young by the superior Managers, and having threatened to squeak in case given up & abandoned to a public Punishment, it was so ordered, that he might not only be permitted to get away, but be sheltered and maintained in Ireland, whither he withdrew; and from whence the Government might have easily brought him back, were there not a Mystery in that Affair which it is not for some People's Honour to have unravelled. Nor was the Messenger, out of whose House and Custody he made his Escape, ever punished for his Carelessness and Neglect; but after a little menacing and Reprimand, which was mere Grimace, he hath been treated all along since with more distinguishing Favours than fell to the Share of his Fellow-Officers. Neither durst so mean and creeping Wretches a● ●oung and Blackhead (how impudent and malicious soever they are) have attacked Persons of the Earl of Marlborough and the Bishop of Rochester's Rank and Quality, and who had merited so well of the Government, and were believed at that time to stand in all terms of fairness with it, had they not been prompted, guided and encouraged to it by Persons of Authority, Grandeur and Eminency. And had the Villains acted merely under their own Conduct, and by the Influence of Personal Malice and Avarice, they would have singled out such to be accused, as are held indiscreet, talkative and rash, and with whom it might have been likely for them to have had some Conversation; and not Per●ons of the greatest Prudence, Circumspection and Reservedness of any in the Kingdom, and into whose Society it was morally impossible that any should judge them to have been admitted, nor so much as into their Presence, unless as Beggars and indigent Supplicants: So that this Conspiracy by suborning two infamous Rascals and of obtaining thereby Credit to a Plot, upon the Belief of which several Noble, Reverend and Worthy Persons were to have been involved under Gild of Ruin, m●y serve to instruct your Lordship not to be hasty and forward in giving Credit to the present importunate and noisy Clamours, and to make you extremely wary how you proceed to the Conviction and Condemnation of those that are accused and threatened to be arraigned. Nor will it be enough, either for your Absolution when you appear before the Tribunal of God, which you must shortly do, or for the Vindication of your Justice and the Support of your Honour before Men while you are here, to leave Things to a Jury▪ unless you inquire with the utmost Care and Penetration into the Credibility of those that depose and swear, and upon what Motives & by what Means they are prevailed upon and are brought to do it.  
Nor can it, my Lord, be now any matter of Wonder, if (after two such repeated Experiences as I have mentioned, of some men's having designed to destroy a quiet, innocent and peaceable People, upon invented and forged Conspiracies against the Government, supported by the Oaths & Testimonies of Mercenary and Bribed Fellows) the greatest Zealo●s for K. William and Q Mary, as well as they who are not 〈◊〉 f●nd of ●heir Sovereignty▪ a●e become ●ug●ly suspicious, That the Alarm now given ●o the N●tion by the 〈◊〉 of a fresh PLOT, hath no other Foundation than some Sha●-contrivance of some little Ministers, who would make themselves valued and necessary, and raise Fortunes out of the Ru●n●s of those, with whom, upon Distinction of Factions and Contrariety of Principles, they are displeased: For it is not enough to involve Men in the Crime, of designing to destroy the Government, that they cannot obtain Leave of their Consciences vigorously to support it. How many are there who cannot nicely distinguish themselves from under the Obligations that they owe to King James, that are nevertheless willing to remain quiet under the Power that is over them, and to sleep in whole Skins! And I am inclinable to bel●eve, that had not those styled Jacobites been made all of them uneasy in their Fortunes, and many of them impoverished, by double Tax●s, because they cannot renounce all the Religious, as well as Political Principles, with which your tillotson's, Burnet's, Sher: locks, etc. imbued them, but that they would sit as silent and quiet under this Administration as any others whatsoever, though they cannot equally approve and commend it. And were it not for the Respect that we are obliged to pay to the Wisdom and Authority of Parliaments, most Persons of Prudence and Temperance of Mind, would acknowledge this to have been as foolish a Project, as it is peevish and ill-natured; seeing all it amounts unto, is only the revenging themselves on their Neighbours upon the naked account of Opinion, and must have this effect, that they who are thus distinguishingly oppressed would be glad of a Change, how little soever they cooperate to i●, Nor was it ever found a successful Method, to render any sort of People either affectionate to a State or quiet under it, to single them out from the rest of a Community, to be the Objects of Severity and ill-Usage. The most that wise Governments have used to do, has be●n only to preclude those from Places of Honour and Profit under them that have not been zealously affectionate to them: And though they have sometimes found Incapacitating Laws necessary; yet they have always held such as are oppressive to b● no● only unwise bu● unrighteous: And as this of ours is a Precedent of the first Impression; so it is possible that, sooner or later, it may come to be copied and imitated upon some of them that have set the Pattern. But to dismiss this, I shall proceed ●o tell you, that the Jacobites do not only decline Plotting, because of the Hazard and Danger that attend it, but because they judge it needless and unnecessary: For this Government is hastening to Ruin, through the Folly, Lavishness and Knavery of those that serve it; so that it were superfluous for any to expose their Lives in attempting to subvert it: Through ill Conduct and Mismanagement, it is come almost to an Impossibility of supporting it much longer, and at the same time of preserving the Kingdom; and under that Dilemma, few will hesitate which of the Two i● to be dropped and abandoned: For notwithstanding all that huffing & ●●●utting of the Ministers about the Steadness, Streng●● and Greatness of the Government, it m●st nevertheless be owned, that whilst it remains engaged in the 〈◊〉▪ it is but in a Go-Cart, it walks and stands by the help of Leading-Strings, and can no longer subsist than as it is shoared and underpropt; and when the Expense of sustaining it grows insupportable, ●t sinks without any Man's running the Hazard of giving it a Push, by the mere withdrawing and withholding the Means by which it was sustained; which Poverty will reduce its greatest Partisans to do, notwithstanding all their Bigotry and Zeal: For it is now uncontrollably evident, that after the greatest Fund and Expense which was ever granted by Parliament, towards the raising and maintaining a more numerous and brave Land-Army than we have at any time had▪ and supported: And after all the united Strength of these three Kingdoms, in Conjunction with all the utmost Power which our good Allies the Dutch and our other Confederates are able to afford and furnish, that yet all we are in a Condition to do in the Spanish Netherlands, is by securing ourselves in Trenches to make a defensive War, and to come Home crowned with the Honour of doing nothing. And that while we are priding ourselves upon our infesting the French Coast and the burning a Fisher-Town, at an Expense, Charge and Loss vastly above the worth of it. We have not only abandoned our Merchant-Ships to the Mercy of the Privateers, but while we thus employ our Fleet, have suffered the French to possess themselves of Jamaica, which (as it was the most profitable of all our Plantations, so the loss of it, added to the Interruption and Destruction of our Trade from all other Places) will necessitate the whole Kingdom to grow weary of the Government, and to think of subverting it, to preserve the Little that remains, rather than to lose all, by studying longer to support it: And for that Devastation we have in the mean time been making on the French, it seems merely designed to provoke them to Revenge, seeing it is certain that they can make Reprizals on any parts of our Coast when they please. I confess, my Lord, that for the Jacobites to argue at this Rate doth not savour of too much Decency, but I am sure it is a way of reasoning, though possibly weak, as well as rude, is admirably adapted, and extremely proper, to restrain them from Plotting, and to keep them quiet: And the Folly and Unmannerliness of it may be better dispensed with, seeing it speaketh them upon these Hopes and fanciful Prospects, wholly alienated and at a distance, from promoting Disturbances: For however Enthusiastic and Chymerick this Reasoning may be in itself, as it will not escape being accounted so by o●hers, yet it has the same Influence upon them to continue peaceable as if it were Apodictical and Oracular. But suffer me, my Lord, to descend to some Particular● relative to this PLOT, which after all the mighty Noise concerning it, and the Imprisonment of so many, and the looking after more, upon Pretences and Allegation● of having been embarked in it, do wholly destroy the Credit of it with me, and I doubt not when represented to your Lordship, will very much enfeeble and detract from the belief of it with you. And to begin wi●h Hugh Speak and Harry Baker, to whom is entrusted the mustering and levying of Witnesses, as well as the conduct, instruction and Management of them; the One is such a Compound of Folly and Knavery▪ and the Other an Abridgement of Falsehood, Treachery and all sort of Villainy, that it i● impossible, where they are known, to conciliate Faith either to any thing they say or any Discovery they are concerned in: And whosoever they are of the Ministers; that have either advanced them unto, or do give them Countenance in this Post and Employ, they are more guilty of a PLOT against the Honour of K. William and Q Mary, the Reputation of the Privy-Council, and the Credit of the Justice of the Nation, than any Jacobites whatsoever (yea even Colonel Parker himself) can be, in a Conspiracy against the Safety of the Government and the Tranquillity of the Kingdom: And in truth it is a Lamooo● upon the State, to have it reported that any thing is conveyed by their Means, or through their Hands, either to the Secretary, or to the Officers of Justice. As for Mr. Speak, he hath never been otherwise looked upon, by reason of his Folly, accompanied with Vanity, than as the Sport of Society, and the Buffoon of the Town; having ●nly this to value himself upon, that answerable to the measure which God hath denied him of Understanding and good Sense, he is proportionably furnishe● with Conceit, which doth as well to his satisfaction. The Prank he played upon the Earl of Essex's having Assassinated himself, and the Trouble and Distress which by his Impudence and Folly he was then brought under, doth sufficiently serve both to call him to your Remembrance, and to give your Lordship the Character of the Man. Nor needs there more to expose as well as decipher him, than that he, who was ready a while ago to h●ve sworn h●mself off upon the Statute, for Nine Pounds he owed to a poor Woman near Grays. Inn, for Bread, Cheese, and Pots of Ale, is of lat●, since he turned Witnessmonger, no● only become Rival to the greatest Peers of the Realm ●n Grandeur of Living, but out-doeth them in Expense and Magnificence. And if he receives the Money, needful to support and defray so vast a Charge, out of the Treasury, as is believed he doth, having been heard ordering his Servant to go tell Harry Guy that he expected his Money should be ready for him by Four of the Clock such an Afternoon, then either the Treasure of the Nation is not so well disposed and expended as it should, or else there must be some terrible Prospect and Design on foot against the Jacobites, which they are forced to be at all this Expense to cherish and maturate. However it is very surprising, and possibly will not be very gra●eful to a Parliament when laid before them, that all our Troops in Flanders should two Posts ago, have wanted a Fortnight's Subsistence-Money, save what they received out of the private Purses of their Officers, and we in the mean time be so prodigiously squandering and lavishing it away here upon Rake-hells', who have not Virtue and Fortitude to make them capable of deserving a Shilling for a brave and generous Action. But some may think that the liberal paying of one Company of Witnesses at Home, may give us the Credit of a more glorious Campaign, against a few naked and disarmed Jacobites at the Old-Baily and Westminster-Hall, than all our vast and chargeable Forces are in a condition of obtaining against the starved and cowardly French in ●rabant. But to wave Pleasantry, the Subject being too tender and grave well to admit it, and which I should not have used, but that being obliged to re-encounter Hugh Speak▪ I cannot forbear falling into some of that Jocoseness, which all Persons are accustomed unto, when he is cast into their Company; for God hath made some Creatures to excite and humour our Risibility, as he has made others to gratify and exercise nor Reasoning and Intellectual faculties: But how contemptible soever Hugh Speak is in himself, and how much he appears ridiculous to all Wise Men, yet the more dangerous he is if countenanced and supported, and the more hurt he ●ay do, if any be so weak and wicked as to believe either him, or those under his Conduct. And upon the Encouragement, together with the large Sums of Money which have been already vouchsafed him, he is swelling to that excess of Vanity, as not only to equal himself to the wisest Ministers about the Court, in the knowledge of the Art of Government, but to prefer himself infinitely before them, calling them in his common Discourse Punies in Politics in comparison of himself: And is also arrived to that menacing and dangerous Arrogance, as to declare in open Companies that he had several of the Privy Counsellors at his Mercy and under his Power; which as it overthroweth the Credit of all he either says himself, or instructeth and suborneth others to say; so it renders it the less incongruous for him to boast what he can do against meaner People, who are not so well skreened from his extravagant mad Rage, as the Noble Persons may hope to be; though in justice he ought to be no more believed in reference to the latter, than he is to be accounted worthy to be in relation to the former. It is not credible how far the frantic Man's Ambition stretcheth since he has been entertained an Enroller and Trainer up of Witnesses: For he fixeth no narrower Bounds to what he is immediately to grow up unto, than the getting himself possessed of Four Thousand Pounds per Annum, besides a small Additional of ready Money about forty Thousand pounds. Now how many Confiscations, Forfeitures, Attainders and Murders must this Man have projected and designed, in order to compass so much to himself, besides what the Crown is to have, and the several Shares that are to go to others? Surely the poor Creature needs Hellebore and dark Lodging, and is fitter to have a Chamber assigned him in the Palace at Moorfields, under the rare Guidance of those that have the Oversight and Ruling of the Lunatic, than at an exorbitant Expense to be riotously maintained by the Court, in order to lay Gins and Snares for the Lives of innocent Men, by decoying and disciplining of Witnesses● And as for Harry Baker, who is not only the other Conductor, but the Suborner of the Evidence-Tribe, and who values himself upon their encompassing him at his Levees and Couchees with their Caps in their Hands, and in the being attended and guarded by them in his Journeys to Cheshire and Lancashire, where he lately went vested with a more than Despotical Authority, not only over his ●anditi and murdering Slaves, but over the Messengers of the Council, who were ordered to act with an implicit Obedience to his Directions and Commands: This Fellow is too notoriously known to your Lordship for his Cheating, Defrauding, Suborning & ignominious Course of Life about the Town for many Years, that you should need his infamous Character conveyed unto you by me. And the Memoirs of his Life, under the Title of the English Gusman, being preparing for the Press, in order to the Instruction as well as Diversion of Mankind, it were but to anticipate what is so well and amply said there, to interrupt your Lordship in your weighty Affairs, by giving you any long Detale of his fraudulent, enormous and infamous Practices: Only let me recommend your Lordship to the Right Honourable my Lord M●untague, who no doubt will vouchsafe to give you such an Account of him in reference to his Carriage towards, and Transactions in the Affairs of his Lordship's Sister, my Lady Harvey, as will not only fill you with Astonishment at his enormous Roguery, but sufficiently antidote you from being imposed upon and misled by any Persons whom he hath the Conduct of, and influenceth and governs in their Informations, Nor is it improper to lay before you, what Disquiet and Trouble this brazenfaced Fellow gave to most of the Vintners in and about the Town, a few Years ago, for drawing Wine in Bottles instead of drawing it in Pots; and how after he had compassed a great deal of Money to himself, by secret and clandestine Compositions, he eluded the Statute which had been made in that case, defrauded the Government▪ and became obnoxious to the Penalty and Punishment appointed in the Act: For it is known to Thousands in City and Suburbs, that whosoever were the little Scoundrels that appeared above-board in those Informations and Prosecutions, yet that it was he that 〈◊〉 and hounded out the Rascally Fry, of whom several, upon his Advice and Persuasion, perjured themselves, as well as made themselves guilty of all sorts of sharking, dishonest and opprobrious Tricks. And who, my Lord, but this Harry Baker has for divers Years been giving Vexation to several Roman Catholics in many parts of the Kingdom, in order to rob, and get them divested of very large Parts, Shares and Proportions of their Estates, under Pretence of their having been bequeathed unto and settled upon Popish Fraternities and Religious Houses, or their being some way made over and conveyed to Superstitious Uses. And this Barretor and Harpy growing sensible, that the infamous Witnesses whom he had lev●ed and suborned to attest and swear to those Disposals, would, by the indisputable Evidence of Persons of Rank, Quality and unsuspected Credit, he proved guilty of Perjury the next Term, he has thereupon changed the Scene, and to prevent that Infamy from falling upon his Witnesses, he has directed, swayed and influenced them to swear High-Treason against the Gentlemen ● That so upon Loss of their Lives, their Estates becoming forfeited, he and his Miscreants may obtain a Share of them that way, after their despairing of getting it the other: And it is upon the prospect of this, that 〈◊〉 boasteth to his Friends, and feeds himself with the criminal hopes of commencing suddenly a Man of Quality, and of living to the height of his lascivious and riotous Appetites. But in the interim, until he can attain to those Possessions, which through suborning of Witnesses he is about purchasing by Murders, how disgracefully doth it reflect upon the Government, and what indelible Reproach doth it fasten upon some in the Ministry, that not only a Person of his infamous Character, but against whom there are so many Actions for Debt, and Executions in the hands of Attorneys (it being his Principle, though never so well stocked with Money, to pay no Man if he can avoid it) should be so plentifully furnished by those who are trusted with the dispensing and issuing out of the Treasure of the Nation as to be able not only to live at the splendid and riotous rate he doth, but be in a Condition to feed and supply so many notorious Cormorants and Beasts of Prey, as attend him upon the Drudgery of Hallooing and Forswearing Men to Death! But, my Lord, it would be to paus●ate and offend you, as well as to slain and pollute myself to rake longer in this Sink and Kennel: And I dare refer any for obtaining a further Account of him to most of the Whiggish Zealots for the Government about the Town; to all whom he is sufficiently known for Frauds and Treacheries, and to none for his Truth, Probity and Justice: Yea, I can venture your Lordships being better informed of him to the Testimony of Mr. A. Smith, who (however zealous he be in Prosecutions for High-Treason, and affectionate, warm and steady a Partisan for those on the Throne) hath more regard for his own Credit, and more Concernment ●or the honour o● the Justice of the Nation, as well as more Compassion and Tenderness for the Lives of guil●le●s, innocent People, than to represent him as a Credible Person; or not to tell you (if you will do yourself, Mankind and the Na●ion that Right as to require it of h●m) that Trick and Falshood are to be suspected and feared in all that Harry Baker doth dip or intermeddle with. Nor would I be hopeless, but that Mr. Secretary Trenchard would concur with the rest of his old Acquaintance in branding Harry Baker for a Fellow unworthy of the least Credit in any thing where in he expects to find his Advantage and Interest; but that Mr. Secretary may be apprehensive, that what, upon the Calculation of his Nativity, was told him long ago, may be true, namely, That his Prosperity and Honour should commence at the time they did; and that after he had been easy and flourished Six Years, be should about the Period and Expiration of them, fall into Trouble and Disgrace, if he escaped other Distresses. And if it be in order to obviate and prevent his threatened 〈◊〉: Fortune, which according to that Prediction must be approaching and near, that he is so busy in finding PLOTS where there are none, and in trading with a Company of Villains, whom he encourageth to reveal what he is sensible they never knew, nor could, he may by that means both accelerate his Mortification and augment his Sufferings: However, this I am sure of, that such a Method in the Administration of his Office will render the worst that shall overtake him the more just, and him the less pitied under it. And were he as much a Christian as he pretends to be a Statesman, he would know, that it is Equity and Justice which fix the Nail in the Wheel, to hinder its rolling, and not Artifice, Tricks and Politics calculated to destroy such whom Laws are enacted to preserve. And it would not misbecome him to imitate the Pattern of Moderation and▪ Good-nature, which the very honourable Person in the same Post with himself doth daily set and yield unto him, and not to outrun and exceed it with so much fiery and undiscreet Heat: For as that truly Great Man contributed more to the Revolution, and the Establishment of this Government, than he had either In●erest or Courage to do; so that Noble Peer wants not Integrity, Zeal and Fortitude to support it by all honourable, righteous and proper Means, though he cannot meanly and indecently stoop to the unrighteous Methods or doings (which God will certainly blast) which others seem so fond of, and to practice wi●h so much Valuation of themselves upon them.  
My Lord, that which remaineth to be laid before you, ere I put an end to the Trouble that I have assumed the liberty to give you, is to afford some little account of those Witnesses whose Names I have been able to attain, af●er the best and most diligent enquiry I can make: But this may seem altogether superfluous, after the Representation given of those that have procured, and continue to manage them; seeing none but the most despicable, and most infamous of Men, as well as the most indigent and necessitous, can put themselves under the Power and Conduct of the Blades I have taken the pains to unmask. No● indeed is it easy to learn who all the Witnesses are, there being so much Art and Industry used to hide and conceal them, which I am sure casts no very honourable Aspect upon the Government, though it looks extreme unfavourably upon those that are accused: For the making it so great a Secret, who they are that inform, intimateth that they are sensible they are of no good Reputation, and therefore dare not venture the having their Credibility ●i●ted and inquired into: Nor was it ever found, but that laboured Concealments of this kind argued the weakness of Legal Proof, not the strength of the Nature of the Government against those that were to be prosecuted. Some talk as if many of them were Scotchmen, and as if those of that Nation, in the Administration of Affairs about this Court, were desirous that their Kingdom should have a share in the Glory of yielding a Pack of standing Evidence for the State as well as England and Ireland have done: And if the Character of Cunning, which is too justly as well as commonly given to the Scotch holds true, in those that are to be hired at this time to be Witnesses for the Government▪ it looks a● if there were a form Design of doing a great deal of Mischief, and that they have chosen their Tools accordingly: But then if we add to this the Character of False, which the English too commonly fasten upon many of that Kingdom, there is the less danger, because it is hoped none will believe them. And therefore, as to all the present Evidences of the Scotch Nation, I will leave it upon that issue: For not knowing who they are, but upon uncertainty and at random, I will detract from the Honesty and Faith of none, though it were easy to overthrow the Credibility of all that are suspected But let this or that Man's Reputation be never so bad, yet I will not expose them unless there be a very great necessity for it; and then there is, when the leaving them in the possession of a Credit, which they have justly forfeited, gives them the encouragement as well as opportunity of murdering innocent People, by coming in falsely as Evidence against them. But that your Lordship may have some knowledge of the whole Herd of Briars, by giving you a view and survey of some that are styled the best of them; I shall both attempt and speedily dispatch it, without importuning your Patience much longer. And to begin with your Dandys, your Omballs, and your Lunts, etc. which swore first against the Lancashire Gentlemen to deprive them of their Estates, and have done the like since to destroy their Lives; it is but your being acquainted with their Quality and Course of Living, and you will not only think it a Weakness, but criminal to believe their Testimonies: For Dand● he is a Converted Priest, or if you consider the Motives upon which he abandoned the Popish Religion to embrace the Protestant, which were to have ●●ope for his Lusts of all kind, as the whole Series of his Life ever since hath abundantly testified, you will rather call him an Apostate one: And it would have been for the Credit of our Church (for, my Lord, I am a Protestant, and will never sacrifice my Religion and Country to any Man) if he had never entered into the Communion of i●, and more for the Infamy of Theirs▪ if with allowance he had continued where he was: For since he became a Member of the Church of England, he hath wallowed in all the most scandalous Immoralities, and to defray the Expense of his Debaucheries, hath pilfered and stole where he could, till he fell upon the more safe and easy, as well as more gainful Trade of Informing And I can better compare him to no Man than to the ancient Evidence Smith, alias Barry, who having by Perjury fleshed himself upon the Papists, turned at last a perjured and false Witness against Protestants; which undoubtedly this Fellow will be ready to do (when he finds his Profit and Interest in it) against all Williamit●s, whigs and fanatics, who now cocker and cherish him, as he doth at present against the Jacobites of all Religions, that he is hounded at, and ●ed with Bread for. As to Omball, he is a broken Carrier, who by Sloth, Riot and Neglect, having brought himself to Poverty, hath set up to repair his Fortune out of Gentleman's Estates, by forged and forsworn Depositions against them. And as for Lunt, he was first Coachman to my Lord Carington, where he either Married or Contracted himself, and then becoming a Granadier in the Guards, he married another Woman, or 〈◊〉 her as his Who●e, but 〈…〉 the Life of this Second, he went and demanded his First Wife: And this profligate Wretch going afterwards into Ireland, while K. James was there, he would have imposed upon that Prince, that he had been a Trooper in the Guards; but a Gentleman that knew him informing the King what he had been, he was thereupon refused the being admitted into the Troop, which K. James was then re-establishing: And most surely, he who has the Impudence, and dare be so criminal, as to lie to his Prince, will never scruple doing the like to your Lordship, and to a Court of Justice. At last the Rakehell came from Ireland into Lancashire, where being so necessitous as to be ready to starve, he received Relief from several charitable Families, whom he so ungratefully requires, as perjuriously to swear them out of their Lives and Estates. Pray now, my Lord, do but vouchsafe to reflect upon the Civil and Moral Conditions of these Fellows, and judge whether it be possible, and much less likely, that they should be made acquainted with the Disposal and Conveyances of gentlemen's Estates, and least of all, that they should be admitted upon so important and dangerous a Secret, as Men of Quality's Plotting and Conspiring against the Government; which if any Gentleman shall be so weak and foolish as to allow, I will say, that instead of being put into the Tower and Chester-Castle, etc. they should be confined unto, and shut up in Bedlam, and be treated as Madmen, not as Traitors. But the many Persons of Esteem, Virtue and unsuspected Reputation, who are ready to prove the Wretches perjured in reference to their Depositions about the gentlemen's Bequeathments of their Estates, will thereby, if they would say no more, merely through having made them appear forsworn in that Case, overthrew their Credit, and render them infamous in every Thing else which they have the Impudence to depose. And suffer me upon this Occasion to tell you, how barbarous and unpresidented (save during the Reign and Rapine of Sir William Waller) as well as illegal and in●olent, the manner of apprehending Gentlemen, and of searching their Houses, ha●h been in Lancashire: For not to insist upon the going about and performing it, guarded and assisted with Dutch Horse, whom we have no need to keep and maintain in the Kingdom, being furnished with so large an Army o● British Subjects, and of whom (according to the P. of Orange's Declaration dated at the Hague, in the Year 88) we should have been rid and delivered long ago: But it is the Policy of this Government to observe and perform no part of that Declaration, in order to prevent and hinder our believing the Declaration of any other Prince after it, and thereby make the Restoration of King James impracticable; there being no other way, at least in their Opinions, to render it feasible but the recovering and reconciling the Subjects again to their Subjection and Duties, by the Concessions and Promises which he makes in a Declaration. Nor is it improbable, but that our Ministers having read, or at least heard (for all of them are not much conversant with Books) how one of the Monarches of France, coming from a Dukedom to a Sovereignty, said, that being King▪ he was not to revenge the Injuries he received as Duke; they may thereupon imagine, that King William is not obliged to perform the Prince of Orange's most Solemn Promises. But that which I call barbarous as well as illegal, is, that in many places whither they went, they plundered and violently took away whatsoever they were able to lay their Hands upon: For not being contented to apprehend Persons and seize Arms of War, they carried away Walking-Swords, Hunting▪ Saddles, S●affle-Bits, Servants clothes and Oats out of the Barns and Granaries; and which is more prejudicial to the Gentlemen than all the rest, under pretence of searching for Papers they rob them of, and carried away with them the Writings of their Estates; which if the Gentlemen do not receive Relief in, and others be covered from the like in time to come, it is easy to imagine that besides the Dishonour▪ redounding to the Government it will come to produce worse effects, and be followed with those fatal Consequences which I need not to foretell. For a Rumour diffused through the Kingdom, for the entertainment whereof it is pretty well disposed, that the Dutch are every where robbing and plundering, may occasion as general a flying to Arms, and with more Mischief attending it, as the false and groundless Report 〈◊〉 in 88 when it was spread through the whole Nation in one Nighf, how a few broken, scattered and disarmed Irish were burning Houses, and cutting Throats in all places! And suffer me to tell you, that for the Ministers to pretend to disallow these Things, but not to punish them, is both to encourage the Soldiers again to do ●he like, and to tempt others to think that it is very well approved of, though it be not yet convenient to commend and justify it. However, it gives occasion for the old Tories to say, that all the Complaints of the Whigs of the rigorous Oppressions of the former Reigns, was only because they had not the privilege to practise them; and that it is not the doing ill things that di●pleaseth them, but that they have not the applying of the Royal Authority to do all the Mischiefs they would. And it gives a very odd Id●● of a certain Gentleman at Court, that when Hopkins the Messenger was complained of t'other day, for having kept Sir Thomas Stanley, whom he had in Custody, without Meat eight and forty Hours, all the Punishment the murderous and bloody Villian received, was only a gentle Reprimand, But as this doth not satisfy the Kingdom, much less will it give Contentment to a Parliament, before whom it will be brought In company of many other Oppressions and Grievances the next Sessions; when possibly our national Dishonours and Losses, both at Home and abroad, may dispose them to hearken better than they have done to private and personal Complaints. And I may assure you, that ●f either the Messenger be not turned out, or Mr. Secretary Trenchard for continuing him in, which in the modestest Language is a conniving at his Crime, all men will believe, that whosoever is taken up and lodged in a Messenger's hands, is in a fair way to be destroyed without the Formality of a Trial or the Privilege of being judicially convicted and condemned▪ My Lord, there remains one Witness more, whose Name I have learned, and who is said to be of the best Reputation of any they have, and that it i● upon his Testimony they depend more than upon any other, for the Proof of this horrid PLOT; and therefore knowing his Character so well as I do, I shall convey him to you in his natural Colours, that by his Hue, you may judge of the Complexion of all the rest. The ●●llow is one Kingston, who styles himself a Parson of the Church of England, who being emulous of the Glory of the Dignified Clergy, who are labouring to prevent the Restoration of King James, and to support this Government by all their Wisdom and Eloquence, and whatsoever other Means they can, save the opening their purgest to the measure they have stretched those of the Jacobites, is desirous also to contribute his utmost Endeavours towards it, and being uncapable of doing it otherwise, offers to perjure himself in favour of so blessed Ends. It is somewhat surprising, and detracteth very much from the Character of the Ecclesiastical Order, and has lessened that Esteem and Veneration the World used to have for them, that there can scarce be the Discovery of a PLOT, or a Trial for High-Treason, but a Parson must be the Informer, and put in for a Place among the Witnesses; for though it may be sometimes honourable as well as necessary to be in a PLOT, otherwise so many of our Religious Clergy would not have so early and deeply concurred unto, and been concerned in the Descent of the P. of O. yet it hath been generally accounted disreputable to be a Discoverer, and to assume the Title of an Evidence● And it is not only so, but likewise infamous, when all that is pretended to be discovered is forged, and whatsoever is deposed is perjurious Falsehood, as it is in the Case of this Scandalous Fellow's Information; who having begun with forging his own Priestly Orders, conceiveth he may as well forge Treason against harmless and peaceable Men: And as the doing the former renders him suspected of doing the latter; so it makes him infamous to all Intents and Purposes, and precludes him from obtaining belief in any Judicial Court, how much soever it be prepossessed in prejudice of those he has the Impudence to accuse: And that this celebrated Witness did so, your Lordship will not only receive full Proof of it, both by an authentic Copy of his Conviction, duly attested out of the Episcopal Register o● Bristol, where he was convicted of the Crime of doing it, but by the Deposition of the present Bishop of Bristol to be given Judicially before you; That R●ght Reverend Prelate, having been Diocesan o● Bristol wher●●t was done. So tha● having represented this unto ●ou, it were to weary your Patience a●d not to inform your Judgement, to give your Lordship an account of his Polygamy, as we●l as o● his other most prodigious and criminal Offences, whereof you will have a large account both from Citizens and Countrymen, whensoever they whose Office i● is to prosecute Transgressor's, shall have the Confidence and Indiscretion to bring him before you as a Witness Only let me recommend your Lordship to Sir Samuel Astry for further Information concerning him, who has reason to know him, through having been defrauded by him of several hundred Pounds. So that I hope by this time the groundless and empty Noise about a PLOT I, made sufficiently appear, and that it is not for the honour of the Government to continue making so great a bu●●le about it, or to persevere in the apprehending so many Persons upon that account. Nor can my Lord Keeper, who hath hitherto enjoyed among all Men so fair an Esteem, expect long to preserve it, if he go on to give that countenance, which he is said to do ●o such infamous Wretches as come before him to make Discovery. Neither will he be thought fit to keep the King's Con●●●ence, who is not more tender of his own than to believe them: Nor doth it very well become his Place and Character, to have dipped and entangled himself so much in this Business, 〈◊〉 some represent him to have done. For we●e there some Irregularity, or undecent Excess in here and there a Jacobite, yet it is not for him, who by his Office is to moderate the Rigour of the Law, to have the principal Hand in styling little Faults Treasonable Crimes: And instead of that Equity which should only slow from him, to put on (upon the meet Score of Faction and Party) an immoderate and unrelenting Severity. And all Mankind would believe, that he should reckon the Province belonging to his Title large enough, without launching into that of the Secretary's, and Attorney General: But I hope all that is said of him is nor Truth, and that his Palace where he should decide Chancery Causes, is not dwindled into an Office of Intelligence; and that being satisfied with his own Place, he will not break in upon Mr. Aaron Smith also. My Lord, I have been ●oo tedious and prolix to leave Room for a Compliment at last; and therefore I will conclude without one, and only tell you, That by Inclination and choice, as well as upon the Motive of your own Merit, I am  
My Lord, Your Lordship's Most Humble an● Obedient Servant, T. N. Aug 2. 1694.  
FINIS.