sionaries have penetrated into every nation of the globe; "and, in one sense, there is a popish plot perpetually carrying "on against all states, Protestant, Pagan, and Mahometan." -Hume's History, Charles II. Anno 1678.

Is it likely, if the plot had been merely a "PRETENDED one, that LORD RUSSELL, that excellent and amiable noble

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LORD RUSSELL is well known to have been himself sacrificed for his attachment to the Protestant religion, and for his opposition to the Duke of York (afterwards James II.) then next in succession. It was he who carried up the Bill from the Commons to the Lords, the object of which was to exclude the Duke from the crown as a Papist, but it was lost in the Upper House. For this decided conduct, and for his observations in his place in the Lower House, the Duke never forgave him, but determined on his ruin; and the infamous JEFFERIES (then only King's Serjeant, but afterwards the Judge and Instrument of James II.) was the most active on his trial. In the paper which LORD RUSSELL delivered to the Sheriffs, he says, "For POPERY, I look on it as "an idolatrous and bloody religion, and therefore thought myself "bound in my station, to do all I could against it; and by that, I foresaw I should procure such great enemies to myself, and so powerful "ones" (alluding to THE DUKE), "that I have been now for some time "expecting the worst; and blessed be God, I fall by the axe, and not "by the fiery trial. I did believe, and do still, that Popery is breaking in 66 upon this nation, and that those who advance it, will stop at nothing to << carry on their design. I am heartily sorry that so many PROTESTANTS "give their helping hand to it, but I hope God will preserve the Protest" ant Religion, and this nation, though I am afraid it will fall under very “great trials, and very sharp sufferings.”—(See this paper at length in the Introduction to Lady Russell's Letters.)-May the prophetical fears of LORD WILLIAM RUSSELL be in no way applicable to Protestant England at the present moment! Rather may the prediction of LORD RUSSELL'S colleague, SIDNEY, who suffered in the same cause, be realized in her experience: "God will not suffer this land, where THE "GOSPEL has of late flourished more than in any part of the world, "to become a slave of the world. He will not suffer it to be made a "land of graven images."

Before this note is concluded, it may be observed, that RAPIN gives the following account of the debate in the House of Lords on the Bill for excluding the DUKE OF YORK (afterwards JAMES II.) from the succession to the Crown: "The Duke" (says he) "spoke on the Bill

man, would have lent himself to it, and engaged so actively in its conduct as he is known to have done, or that he would even on the scaffold have "protested that in the prosecution "of the Popish Plot, he had gone on in the sincerity of his "heart, and that he never knew of any practice with the wit"nesses!"-(Burnet's Own Times, vol. ii. p. 257, Edit. 1724.) -Could such a man have left the following words on record in the paper delivered by him to the Sheriffs, which may be found at length in the Introduction to Lady Russell's Letters: “As "for the share I had in the prosecution of the Popish Plot, I "take God to witness that I proceeded in it, in the sincerity "of my heart, being then really convinced, as I am still, "that there was a conspiracy against the King, the Nation, "and the Protestant Religion: and I likewise profess, that "I never knew any thing directly or indirectly, of any prac"tices with the witnesses, which I look upon as so horrid a "thing, that I never could have endured it; for, thank God, "falsehood and cruelty were never in my nature, but always "the farthest from it imaginable.”

Is it likely, if the Plot had been only "PRETENDED," that we should find the following testimony to its reality in BURNET: "About a year before this (1682) TONGUE died (who "first brought out OATES). They quarrelled afterwards, and "TONGUE came to have a very bad opinion of OATES, upon "what reason I know not. He (TONGUE) died with expres"sions of very high devotion; and he protested to all who

"for excepting himself with tears in his eyes, protesting that whatever "his Religion might be, it should only be a private thing between God and "his own soul, and no effect of it should ever appear on the government.’ (Tindal's Rapin, vol. xiv. p. 147, Edit. 1731.)-When this same Duke became King, we have seen how he kept his word; so far from his Religion being "a private thing," he strove to make it the public Religion of England; and so far from its not affecting ❝ the govern"ment," he would, in a short time, have completely overturned the government of the realm, both in Church and State, had not the nation discovered that Popery in power, and a Protestant Constitution, were things that could not exist together.

came to see him, that he knew of no subornation in all "that matter, and that he was guilty of none himself."— Burnet's Own Times, vol. ii. p. 203, Edit. 1724.

Is it likely, if the Plot had been only "PRETENDED," that TURBERVILLE, the principal evidence against LORD STafford, would have given his dying testimony to the truth of his own depositions, as we have already seen that BURNET reports him to have done?

It would surely, under these circumstances, have better become MR. DALLAS to have been more cautious in coming to a conclusion, that the Popish Plot in the reign of Charles II. was a fiction; and that LORD STAFFORD was "an innocent "victim" of it: and this hardy assumption on his part, of an hypothesis which rests upon no better foundation, irresistibly reminds us of certain persons mentioned by LOCKE, who "see "a little; presume a great deal; and so jump to the conclu❝sion.”

Two reasons rendered it necessary to dwell the more largely on this Plot. First-because the obscurity and ambiguity of MR. DALLAS's quotation from MR. Fox have led many to suppose that MR. Fox's authority was adduced in order to deny the existence of THE POPISH PLOT OF THE 5TH NOVEMBER; and secondly, because Mr. Fox's opinion respecting the Plot to which he does advert, is considerably shaken, if not entirely negatived, by the above testimonies, drawn from the period in which the Plot took place.

Before the subject of the Plot in the reign of Charles II. is entirely quitted, it may be observed, in conclusion, that the doubts which have been entertained by some persons respecting the attempt upon the King's life, appear to have been honest doubts; but the Plot comprised another object, namely, the change of the existing government and laws, and the setting up of Popery. Many respectable persons who doubted whether the King's life was ever meant to be taken, felt no doubt whatever upon the other part of the question, while certain difficulties in the large body of evidence which

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was brought forward, gave colour to the assertions of many (among whom were all the Catholics, many nominal Protestants, and the friends of both), that the whole Plot, from beginning to end, was a mere fiction invented for the purpose of getting rid of the Jesuits and the Papists. In this number MR. Fox and MR. DALLAS are to be found, who take occasion, from some contradictory testimony which appeared on the part of the prosecution, to conclude, that no part of the evidence produced on that side ought to be believed, but that the whole evidence brought forward by the prisoners ought to be believed, although there appeared in it many contradictions not less palpable, and still more difficult to reconcile, than in the other case. Of such reasoners as these, RAPIN gives a striking, though brief, description in the following passage: "These are the improbabilities that have induced many people, "notwithstanding their persuasion of the reality of the Plot, "as far as it concerned the government and religion, to sus"pend their judgment with relation to the King's murder : "the same improbabilities likewise have furnished others with 66 a pretence for denying the whole Plot, because they are "pleased to confine it to this single article; in which they im66 pose upon themselves, or are desirous to impose upon their "readers."-Tindal's Rapin, vol. xiv. p. 235, Edit. 1731.

MR. DALLAS endeavours (p. 37) to weaken the authority of the STATE TRIALS, not by a direct attack (which would have been too glaring), but by a contemptuous notice of them: unless, however, MR. DALLAS means to contend that these are not authentic records of the trials which they report, and therefore that Lawyers as well as Scholars have been under a great error in referring to them, both as authorities in criminal law, and as valuable in the investigation of history; this indirect mode of casting a shade upon those documents will only share the fate of MR. DALLAS's more open attacks upon the authentic sources of public information.

In the same page we have an attempt to bring into disre pate the "ACTIO IN PRODITORES" or the Account of the

Trials of the Traitors in the Affair of the Gunpowder Plot, drawn up by the Judges of England; and in order to shew that we ought not to take the words of British Judges, MR. DALLAS informs us, that SIR WILLIAM SCROGGS, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, behaved with great partiality, and said to the Jury on the verdict of Conviction: "You have "done, Gentlemen, like very good subjects and very good "Christians, that is to say, like very good Protestants.” This statement is taken from HUME; where HE got it, does not appear, for he rarely gives authorities when it would be inconvenient: but RAPIN's account of the conduct of SIR WILLIAM SCROGGs is very different; and on one occasion where he had been blamed, RAPIN expressly defends him.-(See Tindal's Rapin, vol. xiv. p. 189, Edit. 1731.)—RAPIN's account also of the observation made to the Jury is totally different from HUME's; for RAPIN states, that SIR WILLIAM SCROGGS merely said on the verdict, "that they had found the same "verdict that he would have found, if he had been one with "them."-Tindal's Rapin, vol. xiv. p. 191, Edit. 1781.

BURNET also reports, that on the trial of WAKEMAN who was acquitted, SIR WILLIAM SCROGGS was so far from being thought by the Papists to have pressed hard against the prísoner, that the Portuguese Ambassador went publicly on their behalf to thank the Chief Justice the next day for his beha viour on the trial. (See Burnet's Own Times, vol. ii. p. 155, Edit. 1724.)

If, however, it were to be admitted, that SIR WILLIAM SCROGGS was a disgrace to the Bench, how would this help MR. DALLAS in proving the ACTIO IN PRODITORES unworthy of credit? It was in the year 1678, that SIR WILLIAM SCROGGS incurred the displeasure of HUME and MR. DALLAS by the address to the Jury, which they are pleased to impute to him; but it was in the year 1605, that the Judges of England drew up and published the ACTIO IN PRODITORES. How then can MR. DALLAS connect the conduct of a single Judge, who might have deserved censure, with the credibility of several