such a profligate Rascal's Affidavit were both to bring upon themselves the guilt of innocent blood and betray their own and other mens Lives into his hands whensoever it may be profitable to him to swear Treason against them Upon the whole As my Lord Chief Justice had some weighty Reasons why he would not allow the Jury to ask Mr. Booth Whether ever he had been Indicted for Fellony so the Jury had sufficient Reasons from common Fame and the Informations of others as well as just grounds of suspicion from my Lord's Inhibition and the Fellow 's avoiding to answer to believe that he had and consequently to judg what little Credit was to be given to his Testimony The next person who appeared upon the Stage at the Old Baily upon the preferment of the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury was Mr. Turberville and accordingly we shall endeavour to satisfie the world that his Depositions against this Noble Peer ought to be no ways believed or regarded I love to tread softly upon the grave of the dead and therefore shall not discover the gross immoralities of his Life I mean such as detract from the Reputation of a man's Word and Oath For being delivered from his malice I shall not load his Memory more than the being just to our selves and the whole Protestant party in this Kingdom makes indispensably necessary Mr. Sampson deposeth upon Oath That he and Mr. Turberville being together at the Sign of the Cock by the Pall Mall Two or Three days before Colledg's Tryal Mr. Turberville told him of a design that was on foot against Protestants but swore That he knew nothing against the Earl of Shaftsbury the Lord Howard or any other Protestants save only of Colledg ' s idle words and Rous ' s keeping back the charity of the City from the Evidence William Clerk Esq informeth likewise upon Oath That upon the 5th of July he went to see Mr. Turberville and having found him in a house in Lincolns-Inn-Fields in bed he told him That he had heard by Sir Allen Apsley how he the said Turberville had given Evidence against my Lord of Shaftsbury and that Turberville replied to this He would meet Sir Allen any where but at his own house and would justifie that he was never in Town since my Lord Stafford ' s Tryal and that he never gave Evidence against the Earl of Shaftsbury neither did he know any thing against him Nay there are many other persons of Quality such as Sir Francis Rolls William Herbert Esquire Hobbs Esquire John Trenchard Esquire Gentlemen of great Honour and Truth who do all testifie That after the Commitment of the Earl of Shaftsbury Mr. Turberville declared the same to them with many solemn protestations That he neither was nor could be a Witness against this Noble Peer So that the Grand Jury before whom the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury was preferred had just ground for the question which they put to the said Turberville viz. Whether having been challenged by some after my Lord's Commitment concerning his being a Witness against him he had not protested before God and sworn deeply that he knew nothing against my Lord. And all men of Judgment and Sense are wonderfully surprised both at the Attorney General 's objecting That they were not to be allowed to ask such a question and at my L. C. J. insinuating That this was no ground to cavil with the Witnesses upon for so according to our Manuscript tho' it be in gentler terms in the Print he was pleased to express it For as a Jury are to take equal care to defend the Lives and Reputations of the innocent as to convict suchas are criminal and guilty so they are obliged to take notice of every thing which lies in a subserviency to the discovery of the Truth which way soever it arrives with them whether it be upon publick fame or by the information of particular persons Seing therefore it plainly appears that what Turberville said in the Court was contradictory to what he had declared to divers persons elsewhere and that his Oath at the Bar was directly repugnant to what he had sworn before divers Gentlemen in other places we may very reasonably conclude that his whole Depositions against my Lord were either the invention of this perjur'd fellow or that they were dictated unto him by such who had hired and suborned him to come in as an Evidence in order to destroy this honourable Peer But this is not all that we have to offer against the credibility of this Witness for besides this we have the Testimonies of several honest and reputable persons of his acknowledging that he had been often tempted to go off from his Evidence against the Papists and to come in and depose against Protestants For not only Mr. Broadgate swears That Mr. Turberville told him that he had great proffers of preferment and See Colledg's Tryal p. 45. rewards from the Court if he would go off from what he had said and come upon the contrary but Dr. Oats affirms That the said Turberville declared unto him how Mr. Warcup had offered him any thing See No Protestant Plot part 1. p. 26. he would desire provided he would swear against the Earl of Shaftsbury my Lord Howard Mr. Rous and Mr. Whitaker Yea his being one of those that subscribed the Petition to my Lord Mayor the Aldermen and the Commons of London in Common-Council assembled wherein they declare That the Papists had not only so far wrought upon the necessities of some as that for a present supply they had Ship-wrack'd their consciences but that they were tampering with and labouring to corrupt others of the most considerable Witnesses I say his being one that subscribed that Petition is enough to assure all unbiassed persons how and upon what Motives and Terms he came to be an Evidence concerning a Protestant Plot. And whereas he had the Impudence to affirm in Court See the proceedings at the Old-Baily p. 39. That tho he signed that Petition yet he never read it nor knew what was in it I shall here subjoin an Information of Mr. Bellamy the Scrivener who drew it which being directly to the contrary may serve both to overthrow this shameless evasion and convince the world what a lying infamous Rascal this Turberville was Now the Information which Mr. Beliamy hath both given under his hand and declares himself ready to Depose upon Oath whensoever he shall be called thereunto is in the words following namely That Mr. Turberville Macknamarra Haynes and others came to his house being near Guild-hal the Night before the Common-Council sate to desire him to draw a Petition to the Lord Mayor Court of Aldermen and Common Council for their present support and maintenance And that when they had given him Instructions he drew a foul draught thereof which he read to them the next Morning as audibly and distinctly as he could and that they all seemed
man from doing himself right when he hath been publickly as well as eminently injured And truly it looks like an imposing that upon the implicite Faith of the World which they know themselves unable to prove or it argues a distrust either of the goodness of their Cause or that it hath not been managed with integrity and candor when they are unwilling to admit both sides the priviledg of being openly heard For tho it may become the Wisdom of men in Power and Government to preserve the Justice of Courts and Reputation of Juries from being openly arraigned when an Indictment after a full Enquiry hath been approved and allow'd by such as are the proper and only judges of it yet such a procedure as the restraining men from defending their own Innocency and vindicating the impartiality of those who acquitted them after a full and Legal hearing can never adjust it self to the sense or reason of mankind Nor doth such a course and method import any thing less than that for having miss'd the satiating their Malice in the Blood of one or two whom they mortally hated they will pursue their Revenge in endeavours to blast the Credit and diminish the value and esteem of all that have been instrumental in preventing and defeating their Intendment NOW this Plot for Deposing the King and altering the Government whereof Protestants were to be Accused and Impeached was not only so contrived as that it might reach most English Peers and Gentlemen who stood in the way of Popery and Arbitrariness but the Protestants in Ireland were to be brought under the charge and accusation of it For the Popish Conspiracy having been carried on with the same vigour against the Lives of Protestants and the established Religion in that Kingdom as it was in this and the Parliament here being so far satisfied and convinced of the reality of it there as well as in England as to declare and testifie the belief of it by the unanimous Votes of both Houses accordingly the Papists in both Kingdoms were equally and by the same Artifices to be relieved from the imputation which lay upon them and to be rescued from the punishments which the Laws Adjudged and Condemned them unto Therefore the Protestants in both Nations were to be accused of having forged the Popish Plot and that having thereby amused His Majesty and the people they have in the mean time been fomenting and promoting a real one of their own This was that which St. Laurence the Priest would See No Protestant Plot First part p 33 34 35. have Hired and Suborned Mr. William Smith to Swear and Depose and whereof the Evidence was so strong against St. Laurence at his Trial that tho' he was acquitted yet he is still believed by all impartial men that heard it to have been really guilty For it is not only reported from thence by persons who deserve to be credited that such especially were returned upon the Jury who were known before-hand to have reflected upon Mr. Smith but it is most certain that whereas the Prisoner was allowed five Councel to plead for him there was none of the King's Councel nor any one man of the Gown besides that appeared in behalf of the Evidence Whether they forbore from an opinion that the Evidence was so plain that it required no Plea to enforce or apply it or whether they did it out of deference to some great men whom they would not offend by being concerned in any thing that may prejudice the honour and integrity of the Papists or whether it was in obedience to the commands of such who would not have an Intrigue detected upon the discovery whereof the Protestants may come to be thought peaceable and loyal again as I cannot certainly tell so I shall not take upon me to conjecture and divine But besides that which was sworn against St. Laurence by Mr. Smith which to any who read it will appear either the copy transcript or counterpart of what they have been doing here we have other evidence of the Papists labouring in Ireland to sham off their own Plot by representing it as a Forgery falsely laid upon them by the Pratestants and their endeavouring to possess the Government with a belief that during the noise and buz which the Protestants had raised concerning a Popish Plot they were themselves embarkt in a Conspiracy against the King and the Monarchy Thus whereas one Captain Morley had appeared before the Committees of Lords and Commons here and swore two Consults which the Papists had in Ireland in reference to the extirpating the Protestant Religion in that Kingdom they have procured no fewer than six or seven Irish Witnesses not only to Depose against the said Morley That he was Suborned by the Earl of Essex the Earl of Shaftsbury Sir Robert Cleyton and others to Swear Treason against the Duke of Ormond the Lord Chancellor Boyle and Sir John Davies but that he himself had said the King was on enemy to all Protestants and deserved to have his Head cut off as his Father had Here we have an Epitome and Abridgment of what the whole Popish Party is laying out their Money improving their Wit and employing the Power and Interest of their Friends for and about But why the Papists should in all their Depositions introduce the Protestants affirming the King to be a Papist and an enemy to those of the same Religion which he not only professeth but which he hath sacredly and solemnly Vow'd for ever to protect and defend I think no wise man is able to tell unless it be that they have a mind to recriminate upon us what they have been proved guilty of themselves It is not yet seasonable to declare by whose means and by what Arts the foresaid Deposition was obtained nor how Handland and Murphey two fellows that came over hither to Swear the Popish Plot were since their return transformed into Witnesses to prove a Protestant Conspiracy but all these things must be foreborn till his Majesty in his Princely Wisdom and from that Justice which he hath hitherto governed his people by and in the discharge of his promise which his Loyal addressing Subjects as well as others do rely upon be pleased to call a Parliament and then both all these and many other things will be more fully disclosed and set in a brighter light In the mean time this must be acknowledged to the Honour of His Majesty and the Justice of the Council-Board that tho the foresaid Deposition was received by some in Ireland with great fondness and transmitted hither not only with all expedition and speed but accompanied with an earnest desire that the Gentleman might be sent thither yet the King and Council would neither do so illegal and arbitrary a thing as to send a person from hence to Ireland without his own consent both born and bred here and who actually possesseth an estate in England Nor could it be done without great Injustice
seeing the words wherein alone the Treason must lye were owned to have been spoken above two year ago And for his being suborned by the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Shaftsbury to Swear Treason against the Duke of Ormond my Lord Chancellor of Ireland and Sir John Davies it is remarkable that he never testified any thing of that nature against them and what he did declare in relation to them or any others he referred himself for the truth of it to the Council-Books of that Kingdom or to such Depositions which had been either taken by the Council there or had been transmitted to them by others And as no man that is Master of sense and hath any knowledg of those two Honourable Persons will ever submit his Faith to receive so incredible a thing as that they should Suborn any man to swear falsly so Mr. Morley whose credit infinitely surpasseth that of the Witnesses who swore against him absolutely denies that they ever did or that he ever spake any such thing concerning them But they that can first invent and then get so absurd and impossible a thing as Transubstantiation received and believed may be pardoned both in forging and in hoping to vvin credit to things ridiculously foolish as well as abominably false Nor could so dull a Fable proceed from any but people of an Irish understanding neither vvill it obtain with any men but such as have renounced Reason as vvell as Honesty But there is yet a third and that a more signal Instance of the Papists endeavouring to involve the Protestants in Ireland under the guilt of a Plot against his Majesty and this displays and unfolds it self in the Accusation sworn against Mr. Hawkins The person charged is known to be an ingenious Gentleman and one vvho hath always acquitted himself as became Honour Discretion and Loyalty only it is his fortune to be a Protestant and was his unhappiness to be made acquainted vvith some of the Popish Designs against the Government which instead of furthering or concealing he communicated to My Lord Lieutenant That vvherewith he was charged doth in all things so quadrate with vvhat we have heard Svvorn against Protestants in England that we may boldly say they vvere all coined in the same Mint For one Mac-Gennis svvears That Mr. Havvkins told him he went for England to establish a Correspondency with my Lord of Shaftsbury and that be received a Commission from the said Earl for a Troop of Horse and one Mackoghlin deposeth That he was to be a Trooper under Mr. Hawkins and that he had three pounds from him towards the buying a Horse The very counterpart and direct parallel of what Booth informed against Capt. Wilkinson and vvhich he and Bains would have suborned the Captain to swear against the Earl of Shaftsbury and were both hammered in the same Forge But as the Devil and the Priests inspire the Papists with falshood and malice so God to over-rule and defeat their Rage and Treachery deprives them of common Wit and Understanding and gives them up to all prodigious folly and madness For as Mackoghlin never spake with Mr. Hawkins but once and that in the presence of another person and then he only endeavoured to have insinuated himself into his Acquaintance which Mr. Hawkins refused to admit him into so it is most certain that Mr. Hawkins never conversed with the Earl of Shaftsbury nor so much as at any time saw him And whereas it was sworn by Mackgennis That he should say he came to London to establish a correspondence with that Nohle Peer and that he received a Commission from him for a Troop of Horse The whole matter deposed is not only false but the condition which my Lord was at that time in being a Prisoner in the Tower shows the impossibility that such an Affair should be transacted between them at that season Neverthelss that Ingenious and Loya Gentleman was committed to the Castle of Dublin upon that Forged and Ridiculous Information and had not the Protestant Plot been so far detected as to be hissed off the stage by several Juries it might not only have cost Mr. Hawkins his Life but laid a foundation for superinstructing a Conspiracy upon wherein most Protestants of quality and zeal in that Kingdom would have been included and first or last charged with the guilt of it For there were no fewer than between Twenty or Thirty mustered up of a sudden to testisie a Protestant Plot persons who as they believe implicitely in matters of Religion they would likewise swear so for the Interest and Advantage of St. Patrick and the Holy Church And besides what they may reasonably be supposed to receive out of the Catholick Treasury for so seasonable and useful a Service as the Swearing innocent Protestants out of their Lives and Estates they had lately the confidence to petition the Council in Ireland that a maintenance might be allowed them from the State And it seems but just and equal that they should be afforded the same encouragement which those listed and employed upon the like Service in England have and that they should have some consideration for the sale of their Souls tho they will be so reasonable as not to keep up that Commodity to the price which it goes at and is valued here And whereas fellows not only of a meer Irish understanding and breed but such as had conversed all their days in Bogs and whose most refined and improved knowledg is how with handsomeness to steal Horses and Cows might be found deficient in art and cunning to manage this Meritorious work of Swearing with some consistency to themselves and one another there are some lately arrived there from hence who having been trained and instructed here by the grand Masters of the Forgery and Affidavit-School may be able to edifie and discipline those raw blades in the necessary Virtues of Perjury and Impudence and acquaint them with the laudable method of rehearsing the Depositions which had been given them to con without administring any symptoms of their speaking by rote But their understandings not being so docile and flexible as their Consciences they make daily some unfortunate and fatal misadventure And their having publickly accosted the greatest persons with rude and insolent Menaces and their having threatned to accuse every one whom according to their knowledg of the measures of the World they do but apprehend to have offended them they have already so enfeebled their Credit with all sorts of men that they are altogether become useless and unserviceable It is far from my intention to bring all the natural Irish under this Character for tho most of them who continue Papists would esteem it not only venial but meritorious to cut a Protestants throat yet there are thousands of them who from some principles of Mankind and Bravery do detest the destroying Protestants in the base and creeping ways of Subornation and Perjury And we desire to be pardoned for this
they are then hector'd and menaced and in the Phrase of our English Cicero threatned with a new sort of advancement Their method is when they accost a person to insinuate into and perswade him that he must needs know something of the Earl of Shaftsbury's designs against His Majesty and that if he will be so ingenuous as to confess he hath an opportunity presented him both of enriching himself and obtaining the favour of the Government But then in case the party assaulted prove so just to himself and the person whom they would decoy and Wire-draw him to accuse as to tell them he is altogether ignorant of any ill design projected or promoted by that Noble Peer he is in the next place told that they have an Information of a dangerous Nature against him and that seeing by declining to inform against my Lord Shaftsbury he makes himself unworthy of the Favour and Pardon of his Prince he must therefore expect to feel the rigor and severity of the Law This was the course that was steered towards Captain Wilkinson and this was the way wherein Sir Richard Graham late High Sheriff of Yorkshire and Sir Jonathan Jennings a Justice of the Peace in Rippon used towards William Brownrigg And as all the Nation is sufficiently made acquainted with and is fully sensible of what Captain Wilkinson for declining to be a false Witnes became exposed unto so I shall here subjoin the Mittimus by which Brownrigg upon his refusing to come in as an Evidence against the Earl of Shaftsbury was sent Prisoner by Sir Jonathan to York Castle upon a pretence that there was an Information of Treason against him and that it was no more but a pretence or what is equivalent a false Information appears from their discharging him sometime after without any prosecution West Rid. Comit. Ebor. Whereas an Information upon Oath of a Treasonable nature hath been made against Mr. William Brownrigg of Knares brough Atturney at Law These are therefore in His Majesties Name streightly to charge and command you or some of you to take into your custody the said Will Brownrigg whom I herewith send you and him safely keep till he shall be delivered by due course of Law Given under my Hand and Seal the 30th day os August 1681. Jonath Jenning All men who have any knowledg of the Law of England will say this is a strange and unusual Warrant and for which Sir Jonathan deserves to be called to an account but the true reason why Brownrigg was Committed upon a general charge was because really there was nothing against him save that Baynes had given Information to some here who transmitted it to Yorkshire that Brownrigg had acquainted Mr. Stringer Servant to the Earl of Shaftsbury that there was a Design carrying on against the Life of his Lord. Upon the whole it plainly appears that this pretended Protestant Plot which the Nation hath been so alarm'd with and filled with the noise of is nothing but a mere Invention of the Papists and of some ill men who under the disguise of being for the Crown and the Church serve and promote their treacherous and wicked Designs and that the combination against our Religion Laws Lives and Liberties is as strongly and effectually carried on under a false Accusation of Treason as it was heretofore pursued upon the score and account of Heresie And besides several Informations which are to be met with elsewhere relating to the concernment of See no Protestant Plot part 1. p. 25. very great men in this Papal Intrigue there are many other Depositions come to our hands declarative of the same Conspiracy which to prevent the encreasing our Animosities and the making the Settlement of the Nation desperate shall be at this time withheld and remain concealed And therefore without any further displaying or prosecution of this we shall in the next place address our selves to the consideration of the Credit of those Witnesses upon whose Testimony the whole Fabrick and Structure of a Protestant Plot is founded and built And tho' we are told by the Reverend Judges That the Credibility of the Witnesses lies not before a Grand Jury but that they are to remain satisfied in having See the Proceedings against the Earl of Shaftsbury p. 33. matter that is treasonable sworn before them by Two Witnesses that are prima facie credibil where by the way albeit prima facie credibil be in the Print yet it is not in the Manuscripts which we have had the fortune and opportunity to consult I say notwithstanding that we are told thus by the Judges yet we apprehend our selves justified both by the Law of the Land and the common Reason os Mankind in taking upon us to affirm that no man is to have his Name Reputation and Honour upon a Presentment detracted from much less his Loyalty to his Prince Impeached upon an Indictment and thereby his Life and Estate brought into danger save upon the Evidence of persons of good Credit and moral Fame The very words of the Statute of the 13 Car. 2. upon which my Lord Chief-Justice Ibid. was pleased to say That the Indictment against the Earl of Shaftsbury was principally founded because it not only contains the Treasons declared in the Statutes of the 25th of Edw. 3. but enlargeth them in many particulars I say that very Statute requires that the Witnesses be lawful and credible Besides it is a plain contradiction that a person should be supposed credible who either never had or hath forfeited his credit No man is capable of proving a Crime Legally but he that is reputed Morally honest All Histories as well Sacred as Prophane tell us How men of depraved Principles being influenced by those in Power or bribed and hired by Rewards have conspired to Swear against the Innocent Thus was Naboth murdered at the instigation of the Court upon the Testimony of perjured and suborned Witnesses And as his Crime was his standing for his Legal Right and not surrendring his Property and Inheritance to the Despotical pleasure of the Prince so he was both Tried and Condemned in the way of a Legal Form Nor ought it to appear strange to find a guiltless person Accused by false Witnesses of Treason seing the Holy and Innocent Jesus was Indicted and Murdered for no less Crime and that by the mouths of two Witnesses of the very complexion and stamp with ours and procured in the same way Whoever hath read Tacitus or Suetonius will be supplied with Instances enough of the slaughter of the chiefest Patriots of the Roman Liberty who were destroyed by the Depositions of false Witnesses set on and authorised by the commands of Soveraigns and encouraged by Rewards from the State Yea so prevalent are Malice and Revenge in some Pride Envy and Emulation in others and the love of Profit and Gain in many that neither the most provident and severe Laws to the contrary nor the Wisdom and Circumspection of the
in and joyn with him and he would have the Earl of Shaftsbury ' s head cut off and sham the whole Popish Plot. By this Deposition we are plainly led into this whole deviliâ—h Intrigue of charging Protestants with a Conspiracy against the Person of the King and the established Monarchy For Fitz Gerald being corrupted by the Papists and sâ—ch as manage their designs to sham off the Popish Plot and swear one upon Protestants he accordinly applies himself to every person whom he conceived with any probality entertain thoughts of prevailing upon And by dealing with men of no Principles and of most profligate Lives to whom were proposed great Offices and ample Rewards they have by degrees been able to muster up Nine or Ten Rascals most of which were before notoriously infamous and having clothed them with the stile of the King's Evidence they grow angry that their Testimony is not admitted to the reproach of our Religion and the destruction of many innocent persons Yea this wretch Hayn's consessed to one Mrs. Hall That he had been dealt with to form a Presbyterian See Colledge's Trial p. 42. Plot and that he was desired to corrupt and suborn one Everard and others to come over and promote the same Design And upon the Overtures which had been made him he not only told one Mr. Titon That he could frame a Presbyterian Plot and that there was Money to be gotten by doing it but he acknowledged to one Mr. Richards That he was employed and Ibid. p. 43. had an hand in putting the Plot upon Dissenting Protestants and that he was offered a Pardon and 500 l if he would swear such and such base things That is if he would accuse the Earl of Shaftsbary and other Loyal Patriots of Religion and English Liberties of being guilty of a Conspiracy against his Majesty and the established Government And the Fellow being in great want and having long before shipwrack't his Conscience he was easily brought to comply with this wicked and abominable Proposal For as he told Mowbray His necessitous Condition made him take desperate Resolutions and that to make his Fortune he would swear a Plot against the Presbyterians in reference to whom any plausable thing would be believed And that the World may know of how long standing this forged Conspiracy has been I shall here add something of Sampson's Deposition upon Oath before an Alderman of London which may serve further to enlighten this Affair He swears That John Macknamarra told him that Edward Ivey and Bryan Hayns agreed together in April last to swear Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury and that the Treason which they resolved to swear was That the said Earl should say That this King deserved more to be dethroned than Richard the second and that he the said Earl vvould dethrone the King and make England a Common-Wealth and that if the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury were once found that then they with Smith Turbervil and others would swear Treason against many more And as we may be sure that the Villan's being a Papist disposed him the more readily to venture upon a Design which was judged so subservient to the Romish Interest so it were worth the while to inform the World with what Court-Ministers and little Officers he secretly corresponded all the time he pretended to abscond But as those persons must be left to suffer by Justice of a Parliament so all the Discoveries relating to a close Converse between those Gentlemen and Hayns must be deferred till this whole matter fall under the Inspection of the Two Houses But so zealous of a sudden did the Rascal become in ruining Protestants upon this forged Plot That he not only called the Parliament at Oxford a company of Rogues because they would give the King no Money but that by doing Shaftsbury and other Protestants business they Colledge's Trial p. 44. would help him to Money out of the Phanatiks estates for they would rather damn their Souls to the Devil than that the Catholick Cause should sink If men did not chuse the being imposed upon and were not obstinate against conviction they might have been satisfied long ago that there was no Truth nor Reality in all the talk and noise which we have had concerning a Protestant Plot but that it is only the invention of ill men instructed and acted by the Papists for the retrieving the sinking Cause and Interest of the Catholick Church in these Nations And they have pitched upon Tools who are either wholly fearless of Damnation or such who upon a promise of Happiness in this world are resolved to venture it So that upon what hath been here with all Truth as well as Brevity represented concerning this Fellow Haynes I hope that at least all the sober part of Mankind will see cause for justifying the late Jury in their not believing his Testimony Nor have I insisted upon half the Crimes and gross Immoralities of his Life such as his forging a Letter to one Mr. Harbottle of Lincoln in order to cozen a Gentleman of Goods to the value of 200 l. And his marrying one Mrs. Mansfield and then turning her away after he had lived divers years with her and spent 500 l. which she brought him pretending she was but his Whore because they were not married according to the Form of the Church of England but after the Romish Fashion tho' he that is guilty of such things ought not to be believed unless the matter he swears carry a probability in it or be rendred morally certain by Circumstances which are either notorious or otherwise confirmed No instead of recounting such Wickednesses and Immoralities I have rather chosen to make him appear an infamous Rascal and one to whose Affidavit concerning a Protestant Plot no credit is to be given by declaring his own acknowledgments of the whole Forgery and upon what Motives and through whose Instigation he listed himself for a Witness and what was the end which the Managers of this Design proposed ultimately unto themselves with respect to which they reckon'd the murdering of innocent men would be esteem'd a holy and meritorious service And I shall only add to what hath been said That the wretch plainly contradicted himself in the face of the Court. For being asked by the Jury Whether he had not given an Information to a Justice of Peace concerning some design against the Earl of Shaftsbury he twice denied his having given such an Information to any save Secretary Jenkins yet upon my Lord Chief Justice's telling him that he did not observe the question and proposing it again to him he See Proceedings at the Old Baily p. 44 45. at last accknowledged that he had given an Information to Sir George Treby how Mr. Fitz-Gerald had both told the King and given it under his hand That the Earl of Shaftsbury was resolved to set the Crown upon his own head or otherwise to turn the Kingdom
into a Common wealth I wonder how their Lordships and more especially how the Kings Council who seemed to lay great weight upon his Testimony could forbear blushing to hear a fellow say not only once That he had given such an Information to none save to Secretary Jenkins but to add a second time No no to none except Secretary Jenkins and yet upon the hint which my Lord Ibid. Chief Justice gave him to acknowledg in the next breath That he had given such an Information to Sir George Treby And tho' the Court might take no notice of this shameful contradiction yet we may be sure that the Jury as well as a great many Gentlemen besides did The next person whom His Majesties Learned Council at Law produced as a Witness of my Lord Shaftsbury's being guilty of Treason against the King and his Government and upon whose Testimony they not only stak'd the belief of a Protestant Plot but ventur'd both the Honour of the Government and their own Wisdom and Discretion was John Macknamarra a fellow of the same stamp with the rest and fashioned in the same mould for the present Design His early immoralities as well as the straitness and penury of his condition gave not only the managers of this Sham against English Protestants encouragement to assault him but rendred him disposed for and capable of their impressions For both John Row and Francis Foulk Gentlemen of good Quality and Justices of the Peace in the Kingdom of Ireland do testifie That he was not only an idle lying and pilfering boy but that being put upon his Oath concerning some goods which he was suspected to have stollen from one of his Masters Daughters he denied to have taken them when nevertheless upon search they were taken about him And his progress in Roguery encreased answerably to his growth in years For the same Gentlemen do not only declare That he and his brother Dennis used frequently to bring Horses to graze on Camphaire Bogg which afterwards upon enquiry were found to be stollen from some remote places but that his bouse was known to be the greatest receptacle in the County of Clare for Rogues and Thieves And now finding himself in a Kingdom where he could not subsist by Horse-stealing nor take sanctuary in Boggs when pursued as he did in Ireland he was glad to find such a Trade set up as a man might get both Money and Countenance meerly for forswearing himself to relieve and advance the Catholick Cause For that his condition was become extreamly necessitous appears not only from the Petition which he and others presented to the City for a maintenance but is attested by divers to whom in converse he every day complained of it And whereas he as well as the rest doth pretend That that Petition spake neither his Language nor Case but was framed for them by others particularly That Colledg was concerned in promoting that Petition by my Lord Shaftsbury ' s advice and that he neither read it nor knew what was in it Mr. Samson not only swears That he saw them dictate See Proceeding at the Old Baily p. 45. it to the Scrivener who drew it but that John Macknamarra told him how they intended to evade the stress laid upon it for weakening the credit of their Testimony by affirming that it was made for them by the City And forasmuch as this fellow being questioned by the Grand Jury at Rous's Tryal how he was maintained had the impudence to answer That he did then rent a hundred pound per annum in Ireland That thing is altogether false as is both attested by Mr. Samson upon Oath and confirmed by Letters and Informations from persons in that Kingdom who very well knew the Rascal and are themselves of unquestionable Honour and Reputation Such a stranger was John Macknamarra to the reality of a Protestant Plot or the time when he pretends the Treasonable words were spoken by that Noble Peer that there are several persons whom all sober men will give entire belief unto who not only depose That he used about that time to aver there was no such thing but that he also used to fasten very severe Characters upon such as took upon them to say there was For whereas he swears That he heard the Earl of Shaftsbury speak such and such Traiterous words in March and April last Mr. Ibid p. 44. Wilmer deposeth That being in discourse with Macknamarra about the time that the Indictment was exhibited against my Lord Howard the said Macknamarra did affirm that he knew nothing against any Protestant in England and that none would swear any Treasonable Design against them but David Fitzgerald and his crew of damn'd shamming Rascals who would swear any thing And Sampson informs upon Oath That about two days before Macnamarra went to Oxford to Colledge ' s Trial the said Macnamarra told him that he knew the Design against Protestants but swore God damn him if he knew of any Treason by any Protestants or knew of any Plot but the Popish Plot or if he would swear to any such thing And as we have all that is needful to convince every man who is not either a Fool and not capable of being instructed and undeceived or else a Knave who from corrupt Princiciples and Motives and in order to Villanous ends is willing to be imposed upon that as Macknamarra by his own manifold Confessions sealed with Execrations and Oaths knew of no Traiterous Design wherein either the Earl of Shaftsbury or any other Protestant was engaged or concerned so we are fully acquainted with the methods and ways and by what means he came to be seduced to appear as an Evidence against that Noble Peer or to charge a Plot upon His Majesty's Protestant Subjects For he not only acknowledged to Mr. Samuel Harris shortly after the said Macnamarra was bail'd out of Newgate and also at divers times afterwards to Mr. John Wilmer That Coll. Warcup had been with him and earnestly solicited him to come to Whitehal telling him that he might have great advantages by so doing and that the Justice spake this in such a manner and way as gave him reason to suspect a Design of frustrating his Evidence against the Papists and employing him in some very ill Design But he likewise confessed to Dr. Oates Mr. Thomas Pain Mr. Samuel Bull and several others That Warcup had offered him several hundred pounds if he would recant his Evidence against the Papists fall in with Fitzgerald and swear Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury and other Protestant Lords and Gentlemen And so gainful did the Justice and these Gentlemen whose Purses and Treasure this grand Broker for and principal director of the Witnesses hath the use and disposal of for the service of so good and necessary a service make the Trade of Perjury to this mercinary and suborn'd Rascal that he hath since not only lived at a high and extravagant rate spending commonly as
other great and worthy Protestants is nothing but a late Forgery of their own and that they take upon them to detect vvhat never really vvas upon the Subornation of others and for the accomplishing some base mercinary and villanous ends Nor can there be a clearer proof of the Folly of these Fellovvs and the Falshood of vvhat they svvear than that some of them represent themselves to have discoursed all the while with the greatest Loyalty when in the mean time they introduce My Lord speaking See Proceedings at the Old-Baily p. 24 25. Treason at every word We must suppose that man distracted who should continue speaking Treason for half an hour together when in the Interim all the Answers and Replies of the person with whom he is discoursing do manifest a firm and steddy Allegiance to the King Smith's pretending to have spoken with so much Caution and Circumspection while as he swears The Earl of Shaftsbury talk'd nothing but Treason betrays not only the folly of the wretch but plainly shews that whatsoever he swore against that Noble Peer was false and either forged by himself or dictated unto him by such as had hired and suborned him Yea all that they deposed appears plainly to be False and Romance in that the persons whom they pretend to have been present when the Earl of Shaftsbury spake such Traiterous vvords against His Majesty and the Government do positively aver that there vvas not so much as one syllable of all that said vvhich these Miscreants have svvorn For whereas Dennis affirms that Major Manley was in the Room when my Lord told the said Dennis That they did really intend to have England under a Common-wealth Proceedings at the Old Baily p. 31 32. and that his Lordship desired Dennis to advise those of his Name and such as were his Friends in Ireland to be in a readiness to assist the Common-wealth of England Major Manley indeed acknowledgeth his being present at that time when Dennis was with the Earl of Shaftsbury but withal he is ready to swear That my Lord spake not one word to him except the asking him with some seeming passion and heat what his business was And forasmuch as Booth deposeth upon Oath That Captain Wilkinson was several times by when my Lord Shaftsbury discoursed to the purpose that that Miscreant swore and particularly that the business about the Fifty men who were to be my Lord Shaftsbury ' s Guard was transacted before the Captain this Honest and Loyal Gentleman peremptorily affirms That he vvas never at the Earl of Shaftsbury's vvith Booth but once and that in the hearing and presence of Sir Peter Colliton and that the vvhole discourse vvas about their going to Carolina The falsehood of the vvhole matter vvhich the Witnesses have deposed against the Earl of Shaftsbury is evidently detected and discovered by this that vvhereas one of the Witnesses pretends to have communicated the Treasonable design vvhich my Lord had acquainted him vvith that very night vvhich he heard it to a Club or Society of Gentlemen at the Queens Arms in Newgate street all these Worthy and truly Loyal Gentlemen do positively and unanimously affirm that there vvas no such thing either mentioned at that time or at any other season discovered unto them For vvhereas Smith svvears That my Lord Shaftsbury having told him the King did walk in the same steps which his Father did and would never be quiet till he came to his Fathers end and that thereupon he the See Proceedings at the Old Baily p. 25. said Smith came immediately and acquainted these Gentlemen with it who were met at the Queens Arms they do all solemnly profess there was no such thing and that Smith is a forsworn and perjur'd Rascal in saying so However here was a Train laid for the Lives of all those Worthy and Loyal persons could the vvretch have obtained Credit with the Jury as to what he Deposed against My Lord. And whereas Smith furt her says the Earl of Shaftsbury told him that Evening which Major Manley brought him from the Club at the Queens-Arms to Thanet-house The King pamper'd Fitz-Gerald to stifle Ibid. the Plot in Ireland and that he was as well satisfied with the coming in of Popery as the Duke of York and that the Parliament was satisfied he was as much for it as his Brother for so the Wretch swore in Court tho' the last words be left out in the Print all this I say is feigned and invented seeing Major Manley who was present and by all that time albeit Smith concealed that upon the giving his Evidence is ready to Depose upon Oath that there was not one Syllable spoken by my Lord to the purpose which this Miscreant swears Let us add to this Hayns's Deposing That he had Ibid. a long discourse with the Earl of Shaftsbury at a Cooks in Ironmonger-lane in a little Room next the Kitchin where by the way that last expression is left out in the Print and we shall find this whole Forgery still more obvious and palpable For as My Lord was never there except when he dined with divers Noble and Worthy Persons So besides the improbability of his leaving the company and society of men of the best Quality in England to come and talk with such a Fellow as Hayns and besides the absurdness that is in supposing the Earl of Shaftsbury to have staid an hour in a little Room by a Cook 's Kitchin not only the Servants of the house do positively affirm the contrary of all that this Rascal swears but divers Noble Persons are ready to testifie that the Earl of Shaftsbury never came down stairs out of the great Room till he was going away and that he took Coach immediately without withdrawing into any Room below But that which is extravagant beyond all imagination and which proclaims to every wise man the falshood of all they have sworn is Hayns's deposing That the Earl of Shaftsbury should not only say There are Families in England which have as much pretence to the Crown as the King but that the Duke of Buckingham Ibid. p. 27. hath in Right of his Mother as good a Title to the Crown as ever any Steward had Is it not enough to introduce the Earl of Shaftsbury talking Treasonably but he must be likewise exposed as talking ridiculously Surely the Superintenders and Managers of this Plot in the guilt whereof they would involve Protestants must either be of very weak Understandings themselves or they must apprehend the generality of Mankind to be so otherwise they could never hope to impose upon the world by such nonsensical stuff as this is For besides that no man knows of any Title whereby the Duke of Buckingham can pretend to the Crown the Right of claiming by his Mother as sprung from the Plantagenets being altogether groundless so there is not so sublime a Friendship between my Lord Shaftsbury and the Duke of Buckingham as
people to the rage and fury of the enemies of his Name and Glory For it is to him alone that we owe the discovery of this Papal Conspiracy which as it hath filled all Europe as well as these Three Nations with wonder and horror so the truth and reality of it is supported and put beyond all doubt and question by the most convincing and uncontroulable Evidence that a Matter of Fact is capable of The King hath testified his belief of it by several Proclamations Four several Parliaments upon the most impartial enquiry which they could make have declared that they are fully assured there was such a Design the Conspirators own Letters and Papers confirm and justifie the Depositions of the Witnesses who detected it the flight of some and Condemnation of divers of the principal Criminals have reconciled it to the belief of all who were not either interested in it or did not at least wish that it might have succeeded Yea the preparations of Horse and Arms which the Papists had been known to make before hand proclaim aloud the Design upon which they were at so vast an expence and the murdering one Minister of Justice and doing all they thought needful to Assassinate another for discharging their Duty in the detection of it are so many undeniable Evidences of their being guilty of what they are accused of But notvvithstanding the Wickedness of vvhat was intended and the clearness of the Proof to convict them yet such is their Influence upon Publick Ministers and so great is their Povver in all our Councels that vve can neither obtain the having the principal Conspirators brought to Legal Trial nor procure any effectual provision tovvards the saving our selves and securing our Religion from their Cruelty and Rage Instead of seeing them prosecuted according to the demerit of their Crimes or finding any proportionate means used to discourage and check their Designs we have not only beheld such Justices turned out of the Commission of the Peace who vvere most zealous against Popery and Arbitrariness but we have seen four several Parliaments Dissolved before they could bring Offenders to Justice make a due and thorough inspection into the Plot or put the Kingdom into a posture of Safety from the dangers vvhich threaten it from Popish Counsels and the claim vvhich a Papist may pretend hereafter to the Throne And vvhatsoever His Majesties care and zeal have been either for the Discovery of the Conspirators or the bringing them unto condign Punishment yet his Royal Intentions have been so ill seconded that several Priests as well as others vvho stood accused have been first harboured near his Royal Palaces and then conveyed beyond Sea in Yachts belonging to some that are nearly related unto his Royal Person The dread of displeasing one Gentleman doth so prevail over the Obedience vvhich every man owes the King that vvhen His Majesty had commanded by his Proclamations that all the Papists should be disarmed scarce one of a thousand had so much as a Pistol or Sword taken from him Our Lieutenants and Justices have been under those impressions of fear lest they should offend great men that neither the regard which they ought to bear to their Native Country and the Religion which they seemingly profess nor the tenderness which they are bound by their Fealty and Allegiance to have for His Majesties Safety and Life have been powerful enough to cause them to keep that hand over the Papists which the Laws of the Land do at all times require and which the present circumstances we are in from those of that Religion render most indispensably necessary Some are enclined to believe that it is not the least of the Earl of Argyle's Crimes that he was the only man of Quality in Scotland who after the Discovery of the Plot took out a Commission for disarming the Papists And it is not improbable but that the Authority which he hath in the Highlands and overawe the Papists there by vertue of his being Lord Jushiciary in those parts and his being able upon any occasion to check and bridle the Marquess of Huntley from attempting any thing to the disturbance of the Kings Peace and the prejudice of the Protestants was one main reason and ground of his late Prosecution However this is not unworthy of our observation that My Lord Mac-Donals invading the Shire of Argyle with an armed Force merely for being required by the foresaid Earl to deliver up his Arms was never called to an account yea scarce ever received a Reprimand from those in Authority under His Majesty in Scotland tho' when he had a Herauld sent to him by the Council requiring him to disband his Forces he tore his Coat from his back and sent him home to Edenborough with all the marks of contempt to them and disgrace to the Officer But may be that Lord being a Papist his Religion is judged enough by some to attone for his Treason But as a further evidence that the Papists notwithstanding their late horrid Conspiracy have been both protected from the Justice of the Law and left still in a capacity to execute their Designs against the Hereticks it is remarkable that tho' a Proclamation was published in Ireland for searching the houses of all Roman Catholicks for Arms yet when the Sheriff of the County of Galloway went in pursuance thereof to search the Earl of Clanrickards house where as he was informed all the Papists in that County had lodged their Arms the said Earl produced a Warrant from my Lord Lieutenant the Duke of Ormond that his House should not be searched And do we not therefore upon the whole see that whereas the Papists were in a wonderful consternation upon the first Discovery of the Plot as apprehending from the knowledg which they had of their own Guilt what they deserved to have inflicted upon them how they are of late not only grown sceure and jolly but more rampant and insolent than ever Nay so great is their Interest and Power by means of the Duke of York and such whom he either overaweth or otherwise influenceth that they do not only escape the punishments which they are liable unto for their Treasons but they have obtained to have the Laws made against Protestant Dissenters to be executed with the utmost Rigour and Severity while in the mean time themselves are as good as connived at in the violation of all the Statutes Enacted against Popish Recusancy For this cannot be thought to proceed originally from the King being so inconsistent with that Princely Wisdom which he hath always manifested when not over-ruled by the importunity of Ill Men. How unlikely is it that a Prince who receiveth and indulgeth Foreign Protestants should at the same time encourage the distressing his own Subjects that do no otherwise differ from the Church of England than as those Foreigners do Nor can it be the advice of any sincere and true Protestant to have the Laws executed at this season
Shaftsbury p. 19. Country were well provided with Horse Arms and Men and that if the King offered any violence to them they might oppose him for the like had been done in former times And Haynes deposeth That Colledg should tell him Vnless the King should suffer the Parliament to continue to sit at Oxford they would seize him and bring him Colledg's Tryal p. 30. to the Block as they did the Logger-head his Father yea that my Lord Shaftsbury should declare Vnless the King granted the Pardon which was demanded Proceedings upon the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury p. 37. for the said Haynes they would raise the whole Kingdom against him Booth likewise swears how my Lord Shaftsbury told him That he and others had considered with themselves that it was fit for them to have Guards at Oxford and that to this purpose he had establisht a matter of Fifty men persons Ibid. p. 21. of quality and that he had entrusted Capt. Wilkinson with the Command of them and in case any violence should be offered by the King they would repel Force with greater Force Now tho' all this be nothing but a bundle of forged lies yet it plainly declares that no fewer than all the men of quality in England who are zealous for the Reformed Religion and Civil Rights yea the whole Body of sincere Protestants were to be drawn and hook't within the verge of this Plot and all their Lives and Fortunes brought to lye at the favour of the Government upon the pretended guilt of it For no man can think that the blood of the Earl of Shaftsbury and my Lord Howard would have attoned for so general and universal a Conspiracy could they but once have enjoyed the good fortune to have had credit given to these fellows Testimonies The designs which the Papists proposed unto themselves in their forging of this Conspiracy were greater than to be compassed and accomplished by the murder of Three or Four men in the way of legal proofs For as nothing less was aim'd at by means of this Sham Plot than the destroying all who withstand the Introduction of Popery and the establishment of a Popish Successor so many hundreds were to be taken out of the way besides those apprehended and accused ere ever the people of this Kingdom could be expected quietly to submit to be Papists slaves But because the foregoing Depositions do only speak in general of a Conspiracy wherein the Parliament and Nobles were engaged in conjunction with my Lord Shaftsbury to apprehend and cut off the King we shall therefore give an account from the Attestations of others of some few more who besides those publickly named were to have been charged with and perished under the pretended guilt of this forged Plot. And as we are assured from the mouth of a Gentleman of great Reputation and good Quality that John Smith said to him he could swear Treason against a hundred Protestants so Thomas Samson hath deposed upon Oath That John Macknamarra told him that Edward Ivie Bryan Haynes John Smith and Edward Turbervile did intend to swear Treason against Sir Patience Ward Sir Robert Clayton Sir Thomas Player Mr. Bethel who was then Sheriff of London Coll. Mildmay others Yea to that confidence were the mercinary perjured Rogues arrived of their being able to destroy men upon the suborn'd Testimonies that had been dictated unto them that one Mr. Shewin informs upon Oath his having heard John Macknamarra and Edward Turbervil offer on the 11th of August last to lay a wager That Mr. Sheriff Bethel Mr. Best and divers of the London Jury which had brought in an Ignoramus upon the Bill against Stephen Colledg would be hang'd before Christmas last And that the world may be fully convinced how the Papists and the Tools of one quality and another which they work by designed to extend the guilt of this pretended Protestant Plot we shall subjoyn the Deposition of one Ashlock who said That Edward Ivie immediately after Colledg ' s Tryal told him That as they had gotten the said Colledg to be cast and condemned so they were resolved to have the Duke of Monmouth and other Lords to drink of the same cup and to taste Colledg ' s fate So that no man who is a Protestant ought after the knowledg of this to believe himself safe or that he is exempted out of the number of those upon whom the Papists under the pretence of a Protestant Plot hoped to have wreck'd their Malice and Rage For they that dare entertain thoughts of destroying a Prince whom his greatest Enemies can charge with no fault save that he is a Protestant and zealous for the King's preservation and glory are not to be supposed to harbour any thoughts of Compassion and Mercy towards Protestants of an inferior rank Shall neither the Honour which the D. of M. hath brought to His Majesty and the Nation by his foreign Atchievements nor the peace and establishment which he restored to the King and Throne by his prudent and valorous subduing Insurrections at home be sufficient to protect him from the danger and infamy of a Scaffold no more than they were able to secure him from being excluded his Father and Prince's presence and deprived of those Offices which his Merit rendered him worthy of had he not any nearness by Nature and blood to His Majesty to plead for him Will nothing satisfie the Romish Crew unless they can bring the King to forget the Affections of Father as well as the Justice of a Monarch and make him abandon a person to their treachery and implacable wrath whom he is obliged by the Laws of nature to protect as his son whom he is bound by the Laws of England to defend him as his Subject And as all men discern whose Interest hath been served and whose revenge gratified in all the mortifications of this Loyal and Innocent Duke so we can easily guess in whose behalf and for the promoting of whose concernments this whole Protestant Conspiracy was invented and forged And having succeeded so well already as by their meer importunities to alienate his Majesty from a person whom he once seemed to value and love they are encouraged to hope the King will be prevailed with by suggestions of Treasonable Crimes to sacrifice him to their indignation and ire Having now traced and pursued this forged Plot so far as to see that it was calculated for no less than the whole Meridian of Great Brittain and that all the Patriots of Religion and Laws in both Nations were to be destroyed under a pretence of being combin'd in it we are in the next place to view it in the complexion and figure wherein it opened and unfolded it self against the Right Honorable the Earl of Shaftsbury and those other persons who have been either Indicted or only Committed for an alledged accession to it And as the Papists very well know that none had more opposed and
false and infamous person Nor is it to be wondered at that he should become subservient in all base ways to the Malice and Indignation of men upon the promise and hopes of a valuable Reward who that he might obtain preferment to places of Trust and Profit is said to have turn'd Pander to his own Daughter and have exposed her to mens Lust But it is long since this Justice was ambitious of being instrumental in the ruin of My Lord Shaftsbury seing it was he that introduced Marchiamont Needham to the Earl of Danby in order to assist in the great Designs which were then in agitation against this Lord's Honour and Life And as Needham in pursuance of this malicious contrivance wrote both the Advices to the men of Shaftsbury wherein according to his wonted method of treating all he wrote against he loads this Honourable Person with all the Aspersions his Wit influenced by the Malice and Revenge of others could invent and suggest so I have seen the Instructions that were given about the Arraigning this Peer upon pretence of his being Guilty of very Criminal matters But as it is argued that our Ministers then were at a wonderful loss for Men of Wit and Conduct to promote their Designs while they had so many admirably qualified in the want of Honesty seing they were forced by Money and Flattery as well as by Promises which were never perform'd to bribe over a fellow to defame this Noble Peer who had not only always scribbled on the other side but reviled the late King his present Majesty and Monarchical Government with the like freedom and equal bitterness And so ambitious was Warcup of being instrumental in the ruin of My Lord Shaftsbury at that time of day that not being trusted nor employ'd in the Design proportionably to his desires and inclinations he bespake Needham in a Letter to him which I have seen to recommend him to the Earl of Dunby as a person that would be zealous in agitating and promoting what they were upon And besides the Evidence that hath been given elsewhere of Justice Warcup's suborning Witnesses to Swear the forged Conspiracy whereof the Earl of See No Protestant Plot part 1. p. 22 23. Shaftsbury hath been lately accused I shall here subjoin one further Instance of his Villanous carriage in this affair For Mr. Sampson among many other things which he hath Deposed upon Oath before a Magistrate in London positively swears That Justice Warcup often solicited him with promises of Reward to be a Witness against the Earl of Shaftsbury and others of the City There are also other two whose Depositions I shall forbear at the present to reherse that directly restifie his endeavouring to have Suborn'd them upon the same Design So deplorable is the case of innocent Protestants that if persons accused do conceal the Witnesses who can discover the Accusations against them they abandon themselves and their own Innocency and if they publish them they do become thereby exposed to the Rage of the common Enemy and are brought into danger of being suborned against themselves And therefore the world ought to pardon us if we reveal no more than what is necessary for the vindication of the Innocency of those that have been accused and the justification of the Integrity of the Juries that had the cognizance of the Bills which were presented The late Proceedings at the Court of the Verge against Mr. Everard do declare in the face of all the world what kind of entertainment they are to expect who have refused to be Witnesses against innocent men or who have the courage to detect the subornations of such as traffick and barter for Evidence against guiltless Protestants But it is no ways strange that the Justice who can muster a Troop of Mercinary Rascals to perjure themselves for the service of the Papists should procure some of them to venture their Souls upon so necessary a duty as the preserving themselves and him from the Gibbet or at the least the Pillory Yet even most of these whom he then produced are so publickly infamous that their Testimony will never support an Indictment against any man before a good and impartial Jury nor yet impeach the Credit of the person against whom they swear I know when and where one of them wrote a Letter to the Justice desiring him to draw up what he pleased assuring him that upon easie considerations he would be ready to make Oath of it Yet after all the pains he hath been at to protect himself from the punishment of one Crime by perpretrating another he will not only find that Mr. Everard is able to prove that whereof he hath accused him by undeniable Circumstances but he will also find there are several others whose Reputation he can no ways detract from that will be forth coming in due time and place to lay open and prove the Villany whereof he hath been guilty in suborning Witnesses against the Earl of Shaftsbury However it is no ways fair nor equal that when Indictments could not be received neither at the Old Baily nor Hicks's-Hall against the Justice and his Complices for conspiring to take away the Lives of innocent persons yet a Bill can be immediately admitted in another Court if the matter and design of it be to stiflle the detection or asperse the Discoverers of this Conspiracy Nor is Warcup the only person that hath been employ'd and intrusted in hiring and suborning Witnesses to swear a Protestant Plot but there are many others and even some of the Gown who to gratifie the Papists and either to make way for their own preferment in case of a Popish Successor or to testifie their gratitude to such as recommended them to the Places which they do now possess have shamefully and to the dishonour of their Profession co-operated with the Justice in the same villanous design For besides their secret correspondence and mysterious traffick with Haynes before his being apprehended which alone is enough to demonstrate their concernment in the whole forgery and intrigue of this Protestant Plot There is a person who will appear upon occasion that will testifie how much a certain Gentleman retaining to the Law did endeavour by flattery and promises to obtain him to become a Witness against the Earl of Shaftsbury It will not at length be found to have been much to any mans Reputation to have the glossing managing or setting of the Depositions which were brought them by the Masters of the Forgery Mint but it will for ever subject those to a character of Infamy who contrary to the Justice Equity and Honour of the Law wherein they are eminent practicers have prostituted themselves to be Factors for Perjury And if men will not be brib'd and wheedled to forswear themselves upon so useful and sacred a design as the destroying loyal and harmless Protestants who are guilty of no other Crime but their withstanding the establishment of Popery and Arbitrary Power
featured fellow is and the rather to expiate the Crimes against the Papists and the D. of Y. which he contracted by pretending to be the Author of a Narrative which save the Deposition was none of his own But to make a nearer approach to the Credibility and that I may usurp a modern Phrase the Veracity of this Gentleman there are no fewer than an hundred Witnesses who can testifie how he usually reproached the Irish Evidence alledging that their Credit was so mean that it would not sustain the Depositions which they had given concerning a Popish Plot and that all of them were such Mercinary Rascals as would be induced and were in a fair way of being prevailed upon to swear that there was a Conspiracy wherein Protestants were engag'd against the Government And See Colledg ' s Trial p. 91. the morning when Haynes was apprehended and was said to have made a great discovery to this purpose Smith protested to Mr. Blake a Linnen-Draper in Cornhill that it was all but Sham and an acting over the Meal-Tub design Nay the very day that Everard and he were called as Witnesses upon the Bill against my Lord Howard he told Mr. Wilmore calling God to witness to the truth of what he said That he knew no harm by my Lord Howard nor by any Protestant in England and that he knew no Reason why he and Mr. Everard should be subpoena'd unless it were to gloss the business and make Mrs. Fitz Harris ' s and her Maid's Testimony go down the better with the Jury The same he told that very day to Dr. Oats with this addition That he should be a great Rogue if he swore against any Protestant whether Lord or other And the Evening after Mr. Fitz-Harris was Executed Smith being in company with Mr. Blake Mr. Kelsey and Mr. Hamlin Three persons of unspotted Integrity and good Credit and being discoursing concerning the Plot which Haynes was reported to have sworn he ridicul'd it as meer Sham and perfect forgery And not only so but some days after Colledg's Tryal he affirmed to Mr. Gardiner a Common Council-man and to one Mr. Smith an Apothecary That he knew of no Protestant Plot neither did he know of any Protestant See Colledg's Tryal concerned in a Plot only that Colledg had spoken such and such words which for his part he did not believe to be true Nay the Monday before the Earl of Shaftsbury was Committed he sent for a Gentleman who when there is a just occasion will be ready to testifie it upon Oath and the Gentleman having met him according to his desire he not only told him there was Treason sworn against that Noble Peer and by whom but that a certain Lord in the other end of the Town had been dealing with him to swear likewise against him Withal he further added that he replied to that Lord and said He thought he knew the Earl of Shaftsbuoy as well and had as much Credit with him as those whom his Lordship had named for Witnesses against him and yet he had never heard him say any thing that was Treasonable nor what had a tendency that way And this he desired to have communicated to my Lord Shaftsbury that night saying it was his interest to know it as soon as might be seeing there was a great design against his Life And yet after all these Declarations made at several times and to different persons this impudent and frontless fellow hath not been ashamed to appear on the publick Stage and accuse this Honourable Peer of most horrid Treasons Nor is it difficult to conceive how this came about for being a man of no Conscience and ambitious of Preferment he was easily perswaded by Justice Warcup upon the promise of a Deanry to undertake the accusing Protestants of a Conspiracy against his Majesties Person and the established Government He had been often complaining that he was neither so much regarded at Court nor rewarded by the Parliament and Kingdom as he thought he deserved and had impatiently expected for the discovery which he gave of the Popish Plot. And therefore being accosted by Warcup with promises of preferment beyond what he could hope for by adhering to his Evidence against the Papists he readily complied with the Justice's importunity and comenceth a Witness on the gainful side This plainly appears by the information which Dr. Oats hath given namely That the Dr. having askt Smith what he had been at Windsor about Smith by way of reply told him he had been there about a design which he supposed the Dr. would be glad to come into and that he might not only learn it of Warcup but be happy if he followed his advice therein Accordingly the Dr. being curious to know what this great project which would render a man happy should be he addressed himself to the Justice who told him That there was a design to take off my Lord of Shaftsbury and that he had brought over Smith and several others to accuse him and swear a Protestant Plot. And if the design against the Lives of Protestants were to be carried by positive Swearing there is not a Knight of the Post in England that can parallel Smith in a bold and daring Affidavit For he that hath so far abandoned all Modesty and renounced all Fear as not to forbear to say That if he pleased he could See no Protestant Plot part 2. p. 8. and Colledge's Trial p. 49. prove God Almighty a fool will never be startled at Swearing an Innocent and Loyal person a Rebel and Traitor And he that that is so dreadless of the Tribunal of Christ as to bid God damn the Gospel will easily dispense with murdering the guiltless It is not improbable but that the fellow being originally an Irish papist was nursed with the Blood of Protestants and that therefore he still thirsts after it as his natural and genial drink He knows how to compensate the want of truth in the matter he is to swear about by impudence in the manner of declaring what he swears unto And could he have been but once believed by a Jury there would no man have been safe whom he either hated or whom his supreme Directors were desirous to have taken out of the way For there is one Mr. Shewin Deposeth that he heard him say That had he but the knowledg of Mr. Jenks and several others who had traduced him he would make examples of them and not fail to Swear that against them that should take them off And there is a Gentleman of unquestionable reputation who affirms he heard Smith say He could swear Treason against an hundred Protestants had he but other Witnesses to join with him Nor did Smith think it enough to engage to perjure himself in order to destroy Protestants but he hath turned Suborner of others to do the same And I suppose I may lawfully and fairly mention Balron's Deposition to that purpose For tho' he be a
King And Mr. John Jenks deposeth That Mr. Ivey confessed to him how he had great offers made him provided he would swear against Protestants And Mr. Ashlock says that Ivy one day told him He had been with the said Lord and that my Lord Hyde had order'd him to send at any time to him and he should have money And the said Ashlock further adds That he saw a Letter directed to my Lord Hyde from Ivey which Ivey said was for money Now that Ivey was necessitous and the more likely to be suborned for money to swear any thing that was false appears not only by the Petition presented to my Lord Major the Court of Aldermen and the Common Council which he among others subscribed but more especially from his own Testimony in Court at the time when Mr. Rowse was indicted seeing he then owned That he had falsly sworn such things meerly because he could not otherwise get mony And that this Protestant Plot was hatched by this hired suborned Rascal and others who in order to promote the Interest and designs of the Papists had combined to asperse Loyal Persons with the imputation of Treason and to make the chief Protectors under his Majesty of our Religion and Liberties perish in the form and course of Justice does appears by what Mr. Sampson hath deposed upon Oath namely That John Macknamarra told him how he and Ivey having been with the Earl of Shaftsbury his Lordship had refused to discourse with them alone saying He never discoursed with any but in the presence of his Servants and that I being thereupon very greatly disgusted contrived by way of Revenge to swear High Treason against him Not but that the Design of accusing my Lord Shaftsbury of Treason was laid by others but Ivey being suborned to be a Witness against him he therefore sought an opportunity of speaking with his Lordship alone the better to obtain what he should afterwards say against him to be believed However having upon some instigation or other entertain'd a Resolution of swearing Treason against this Loyal and Noble Lord his next business was to procure others to fortifie his Testimony and second him in whatsoever he should say Accordingly he applies to Haynes assuring him in the names of several Lords That he should not only have his pardon but five hundred pounds provided as Mrs. Wingfield Haynes's Mother-in-Law told Mrs. Hall and Mary Richards he would fasten a Plot upon Protestants and swear against several Lords Nay Mr. Zell one of Justice Warcups present Darlings and whose Testimony he ought not to decline against Ivey having so lately made use of it in the Court of Verge to vindicate himself I say this Zell hath deposed upon Oath That Ivey would have perswaded him to swear High Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury and by way of Argument to influence him to a compliance told him That the E. of H. my L. H. my L. C. and Mr. S. were a Commitee to give assurances of Pardons and to allow Gratuites to all that would swear against that Lord and that there is a Presbyterian Plot. And tho' I am not willing to believe those great Ministers guilty of this which Zell says Ivey reported of them yet it is something strange that knowing it from Prints as well as otherwise they have not endeavoured to get that Rogue punished for defaming of them And I do verily think it would be as much for the Honour of the Government and for the Reputation of these States-men to have this fellow and the rest who have used the like Language concerning them either prosecuted by way of Action or Information as it will prove in the issue that the Attorney General is prosecuting one Baldwin for having published a Book called No Protestant Plot wherein so far as very good and wise men can see there is not any thing criminal unless it be a Crime to detect the Designs of the Papists against Protestants and to vindicate the innocency of those who as it hath appeared by the verdicts of Juries were falsly and unrighteously accused But to return I suppose from what hath been here declared and laid open concerning Ivey there will not many be found who are credible persons themselves that will look upon him hereafter as a credible Witness in reference to a Protestant Plot. Nor is the bringing the Lives of Innocents into hazard upon the Testimony of a wretch branded with so many capital Offences and who besides hath been so evidently tamper'd with to be any other way expiated or attoned for but by bringing both him and his Abettors to condign punishment The last Witness made use towards the proving the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury was Bernard Dennis a fellow as lewd in his Morals as any of the rest and drawn and procured to be an Evidence against Protestants by the same means and arts that they were Nor is he only an Irish man but of one of the most sottish bigotted bloody Clans's of all that Kingdom See proceedings upon the Bill against the Earl of Shaft p. 48. And upon the best enquiry I can make there is not one Irish man of his Name in that whole Nation who is known to be a Protestant I should not have mentioned this if the fellow upon being ask'd whether all his Kindred were not Papists had not answered he could not say so And yet were he put to it he will not be able to name one Person neither in the County where he was born where Ibid. p. 32. he says there are so many of them nor in the whole Country besides that is not a Papist if withal they be not of the most violent and bloodily disposed sort And whereas he once told Mr. Wilmore they two being discoursing together about the principles of the Papists that the Papists valued no more the life of a Heretick than they did that of a Dog it is most probable that he therein spake the Sense of his Kindred and published what they had of old infused into him I will not enquire what Religion he is of at present seeing no form nor kind of Religion can give him a Reputation but he reflects dishonour upon whatsoever Religion he doth profess Only I wish that the Papists have not Sham'd him upon the Church of England that he may the better and under the fairer name Sham a Plot upon Protestants And who knows but finding a respect paid to his Testimony at the Tryal of my Lord Stafford because he there professed himself a Papist he might thereupon hope it would advantage him in being believed against a Protestant by listing himself in the Communion of the Protestant Church The forgery of this Plot would have been too obvious should Romish Priests have come forth as the principal Witnesses to prove the best Protestants in England concerned in a Conspiracy against His Majesty and the Government but the producing none for Evidence but Members of our own Church
does help to hide and conceal the Villany And I beg the rather pardon for my jealousie in this matter because tho' he told the Jury that he had been a Protestant since February last yet he never sought to be received into the bosom of the English Church till about the month of June which was near the time that the Mine which had been long before laid against Protestants was just ready to spring Nor were things so much better for the Protestant Interest and worse for the Popish Ibid p. 47. in February than they had been in November before that a fellow who makes Religion always subservient to his safety and gain and who had been a Papist in November should think of abandoning the Communion of the Church of Rome for to be taken into the bosom and embraces of the Church of England in February following But be he of what Religion soever he pleaseth I still say he is a wicked and flagitious fellow For whereas he acknowledgeth that in the course of his Travels he had been in Maryland as well as in divers other Countries he must give us leave to remember himself of and acquaint the world with a good token of it For besides several Debaucheries and lesser enormities he was guilty of there he was apprehended not only for felony in stealing a Watch but for Sacriledg in breaking into a Church and carrying away the Communion Plate But being I grow weary in raking so long in Sinks and Kennels I shall therefore wave the insisting upon these things or the deducing them to any further length Since he came hither he hath been always extreamly necessitous but never in greater penury than immediately before he started up a Witness in this new Plot. For as he wanted bread otherwise than as he was from day to day relieved by the Charity of such compassionate persons to whom he bewailed the miserableness of his condition so I have heard from a good hand that being arrested for Fifteen or Seventeen shillings he was so poor that he must have gone to the Counter if a Gentleman that passed by had not out of meer pity sent him a Guinee to discharge the Debt and the Serjeants Fees And how easie was it to corrupt and suborn such a fellow who as he had no Principles of Vertue or Honour to preserve him against the temptations wherewith he was assaulted so the pinching wants under which he laboured rendred him a prey to any that would hire him with ready money or give him any assurance of a plentiful subsistence Now it not only appears from the Testimony of Dr. Oats Mr. Boulter Mrs. Mary Cox Mrs. Norton and divers others that by his own acknowledgment and confession to them both Warcup and Fitz-Gerald had tempted him with great offers of Gold and Silver if he would depart from his Evidence against the Papists and swear Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury my Lord Howard and several other Protestants but it is likewise deposed by Mr. Samuel Oats that Dennis should say If the Protestants did not help him to money it would cause him to do that which he never intended But what need I insist upon the Depositions of others in proof that he had frequently confessed his being tempted with tenders of great matters to retract what he had sworn against the Papists and swear that the Protestants were embarkt in a Conspiracy against the King seeing he himself hath deposed all this upon Oath before Sir Patience Ward when he was Lord Mayor And as this may fully convince all that are not in the Plot themselves for the destroying such as are the chief Bulwarks under His Majesty of our Religion and Liberties that whatsoever this fellow hath sworn against the Earl of Shaftsbury or any Protestant else is all meer Fiction Romance and abominable Forgery so we have besides all this the Testimony both of Dr. Oats and Captain Yarrington That this wretch did protest unto them at the very time when he told them of his being tempted that before God he knew nothing whereof to accuse any Protestant in the world and that if he should do any such thing he should be the greatest Rogue under Heaven And as their way of living since and their boasting of having their Pockets full of money does plainly proclaim to all Mankind upon what motives they have perjured themselves and how well they have been rewarded for their false swearing so there is one George Dennis a Gardiner who deposeth That to his knowledg the Witnesses who swore against the Earl of Shaftsbury had an Hundred or an Hundred and Fifty Pound a man for so doing and that he might have had as much if he would have Sworn against the said Earl Having thus truely and briefly drawn and represented the Witnesses according to their just and true Features and having fully discovered the Combination which they and others are engaged in against our Lives and Religion and having particularly detected how these mercinary Wretches have been hired and suborned to swear a Plot upon Protestants which themselves and their Abettors have out of hatred to the Protestant Religion and English Liberties invented and forged against innocent persons I shall now leave them thus shown and exposed to undergo the punishments which these unparallel'd Villainies subject them unto and in the mean time till the Administrators of publick Justice shall esteem it their Duty and for the honour of the Government to make their Punishment as exemplar as their Crimes have been I do here set them up as proper objects of the abhorrency and detestation of mankind and persons not worthy to be believed by any honest rational Jury or Inquest And I shall only add that the late Grand Jury instead of deserving to be censured for returning an Ignoramus upon the Bills which these Miscreants swore unto they are rather to be blam'd for not immediately Indicting them of a Conspiracy against the Lives and Honour of Noble and Guiltless Persons Nor is it enough for a Grand Jury merely to reject a Bill which they find promoted from Malice and upon a Combination but they are bound both by the Laws of God and the Laws of the Land to Indict the Conspirators and all such as shall appear to have abetted them And whereas we have not only heard of several other Witnesses who either had or were ready to Swear Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury but have been told that several of their Names had been endorsed on the back of the Bill which was preferred against his Lordship who yet upon second thoughts were blotted out and expunged We shall only say that we think it needless to attempt the exposing of those whom the Managers themselves judged so infamous that they were ashamed to make use of them But as we may be sure that they produced all these whose Credit they could in any degree rely upon so had they brought an hundred more whom we might neither
that for advancing the Duke to the Throne my Lord should not only venture his own life fortune but disoblige the best Friends he hath in the Nation and entangle his native Country in Civil War This misadventure in the Testimony of one of the most considerable Witnesses betrays not only their Folly but that the whole Plot whereof the Earl of Shaftsbury hath been accused is a malicious Forgery in order to take away the Life of that innocent Peer Nor can any who are not willing to sacrifice the Protestant Religion the Liberties of their Country and the Lives of Guiltless Persons to the Hatred and Rage of the Papists give any Credit to Fellows who Swear at so Wilde and Nonsensical a rate Had the Mercinary vvretches designed to publish themselves for Liars and Impostors to all the vvorld they could not have taken a more effectual vvay to do it than by affirming that the Earl of Shaftsbury should be desirous to enter into a Combination and Conspiracy vvith Irish Papists in order to prevent a Popish Successor and for preserving the Protestant Religion For at the same time that Dennis chargeth this Noble Person vvith saying That he would extirpate the King and all his Family he swears That he desired him to write to his Ubi supra p. 32. Irish Popish Friends to be ready to assist And tho' I do not much vvonder to find a Caitiff of the size of Dennis's Wit and Understanding swear a business vvhich disproveth it self before all Wise and Rational persons yet I cannot forbear marvelling that they vvho vievv'd the Depositions and vvere to gloss and enforce the Evidence vvould suffer such a Deposition to appear upon the publick Stage vvhich vvould not only make the Forgery notorious but infallibly expose themselves as well as the perjur'd Rogues to the laughter scorn and detestation of mankind Nor is it unworthy of remark that in the expressions which they swear my Lord Shaftsbury used they make him not only forget the Loyalty of a Subject but the Civility and Breeding of a Gentleman For the Terms wherein they represent him speaking of the King are besides their being Treasonable too rude to proceed from any that knows the measures of Civility or hath been occasioned to speak with any kind of Decorum For not only Macknamarra introduceth him calling the King a Faithless Person and one that was no way to be believed But Haynes will have him both to say That the King had no more Religion than a Horse and that he was degenerated into a perfect Ibid. p. 28. p. 43. p. 27. Beast and that he durst as soon be hang'd as to meddle with the said Haynes if he stuck to his Information about Sir Edmond-bury Godfrey ' s Murder This is a Dialect proper for such Rascals as the Witnesses to use but it is not a Stile that men of Quality are accustomed unto or can allow themselves to speak in For how much soever they may be offended with the ways and methods of Princes yet they constantly speak of their Persons with Respect and Deference Whether are we to esteem it a Subject fit for our mirth and laughter or for our disgust and indignation to see a Fellow appear at a Bar against a Great and Wise Peer and among other Treasonable Expressions whereof he accuseth him to swear That the said Lord put a greater Respect and Valuation upon him than he did upon the King himself Haynes having sent to the Earl of Shaftsbury and several other Noble Persons That he would make considerable Discoveries if they would procure him a Pardon the Rascal swears That being in Discourse with my Lord Shaftsbury about that matter my Lord should say If the King would not grant the Pardon for him that was desired they would raise the whole Kingdom against him and Ibid. p. 27. that he must not expect to live peaceably in his Throne if he did not grant it For not to insist on this That the Earl of Shaftsbury never spake with Haynes nor would not so much as see him both which will be proved as far as Negatives are capable can any man that hath not renounced Sense as well as Conscience believe that the Earl of Shaftsbury would put the Life of the King and the Peace of the Kingdom in competition with Haynes's being pardoned or not pardoned For suppose that the Fellow undertook to make very useful and important Discoveries provided he might have a Pardon yet we must be Bruits before we can be perswaded that a person of Prudence and Conduct should in case a pitiful wretch were not secured against the danger of the Gallows to which he stood obnoxious threaten not only to dethrone a Monarch to whom he lies under many Obligations besides those of Fealty but to hurl a quiet and peaceable Nation into War and Blood And as if it were not enough for these silly as well as malicious wretches to make my Lord Shaftsbury say a Thousand things which are equally Ridiculous and absurd as they are Treasonable they will have him to have talk'd of matters ready to be done which being duly weighed will be found to have been morally impossible For so is all that is sworn against him concerning a Design to seize the King at Oxford where he was not only surrounded with his Guards but as our Enemies must acknowledg environed with many Loyal Peers and Gentlemen Nor are we told of any preparations that were suitable to an undertaking which was so difficult in it self and which would be extreamly fatal to the Authors if it miscarried For whereas they depose That my Lord told them the Members came well Smith p. 26. Horsed and well Armed the whole Kingdom knows the contrary Some of the Members went so ill attended as that they were not in a condition to secure themselves from being Rob'd by the way And divers of the most Martial persons in the Oxford House of Commons went thither in Hackney Coaches with scarce a Servant a peice to wait upon them Yea this very Earl who is said not only to have projected the seizing the King at Oxford but to have corresponded with others in order to their coming provided thither with strength and force for the accomplishing of it had neither Coach nor Horse there himself So ignorant was this Noble Person of any such design and so unprepared for the execution of an attempt of that nature that he went down in an hired Coach and was forc'd to stay there after the Dissolution of the Parliament till he sent to London for Horses to convey and accommodate him home Was not the Concourse at Oxford much smaller than was reckoned upon considering the Greatness and Solemnity of the Occasion It cannot be thought that the Peers of England and the principal Gentry of the Kingdom should go to to so August and Solemn an Assembly without some Menial Servants to attend them And if the having supernumeraries in a
pretensions to any such thing It is also remarkable and serves to discover their Falshood in what they swore against the Earl of Shaftsbury that they endeavoured to make themselves valuable and worthy to be trusted by great and wise men by pretending a knowledg of the Transactions of the world and affairs of Kingdoms which as they were never capable of attaining so they had but betrayed their Folly and Vanity in offering to discourse concerning such things to that knowing and sagacious Peer For to hear Hayn's depose That he gave my Lord Shaftsbury See Proceedings at the Old-Bayly p. 27. an account of all Transactions from King Charles the First 's Reign to this very day and that my Lord was mightily satisfied pleased and free with him finding that he was a Traveller Is as if he should have told all the world that what he Deposed against that great man was all Forgery and that he was only seeking to beget a credulity in the Court by a vain ostentation of his knowledg in Civil Affairs and his being qualified to be admitted into the secret and hazardous Counsels of the greatest Statesmen Alas an acquaintance with the Occurrences of Princes Reigns and a being able to declare the affairs of two Regencies in their dependence and order with the Causes and Reasons of a War which few can penetrate into the grounds of â—re not things agreeable to the way of Hayns's Education nor to be expected from one that is not wonderfully conversant in the Memoire and Registers of Civil matters and who hath enjoyed an intimate acquaintance with those that were interested in the management both of Civil and Military Concernments Their Malice and Perjury in this whole Affair are open and palpable by their indirect and evasive answers to plain and easie questions Such was Booth's reply to Mr. Papilion who having ask'd him whether he knew any of Proceed p. 36. the Fifty men which he had deposed were listed under Captain Wilkinson said He never directly knew or conversed with any of them And such also was Haynes's reply to the question which was put to him concerning his having given an Information to a Justice of Peace of a design against Ibid. p. 42 43. the Earl of Shaftsbury for as he wrigled to and fro a great while before he could be brought to acknowledg it the answer was neither full nor ingenuous Again Their not remembring times and seasons when such things which they swore should be spoken or when they gave in their Informations about them does proclaim the Witnesses to be Impostors and whatsoever they deposed to be nothing but Forgery For several of the things which they declared they could not remember were such as it is morally impossible they should forget them Thus Haynes could not tell the time when the Earl of Shaftsbury spake Ibid. 44. the Treasonable words about making the Duke of Buckingham King Nor could either Smith or Turberville tell when they gave in their Informations against my Lord nor whether it was before or p. 40. after his Commitment Nay Smith could not tell in what month he did it In a word the Demeanor of the Witnesses carrying things so as if they would hector people into a belief of what they swore and their answering the questions proposed unto them either with great difficulty or with great artifice and cunning proclaim to all impartial men that the Design upon which they appeared was very ill and that they were suborned perjured fellows There was not that modesty to be seen in their Behaviour nor that simplicity in their Evidence nor that plainness easiness and directness in their Answers which was agreeable to Truth but their whole carriage and the manner of their delivering themselves was starch't huffing artificial and full of trick But whereas there is a Paper stiled An Association pretended to be found among other Writings in the Earl of Shaftsbury's Closet that morning he was apprehended upon which great stress is laid towards the proving a Conspiracy of this Lord and other Protestants against His Majesty and the Government I shall therefore with all that modesty which becomes me in reference to persons in Authority and yet with all that freedom which the Innocency of Peers and Gentlemen unjustly accused doth require take this Paper a little into consideration and make some just and modest Reflections in reference unto it An Association for the preservation of the King and the Protestant Religion if it be duly drawn and contain nothing in it contrary to the Rights and Prerogatives of His Majesty the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties and Property of the People will neither be found so new nor so surprising a thing as that the Grand Juries of the several Counties should be influenced and perswaded to abhor it For our Ancestors in Queen Elizabeths time being apprehensive that the Queens Life the Peace of the Kingdom and the Protestant Religion were in danger from the Papists upon the hope they had of a Popish Successor in case of the Queens Death they thereupon entred into an Association for the preservation of her Majesties Life and the revenging her Death if she should have perished by violent hands which instead of being ridicul'd and declared against was not only unanimously subscribed by the most considerable persons in the Kingdom but both approved and ratified by an Act of the Parliament that next followed But whether it was that our Forefathers loved the Queen and were more zealous for their Religion than we love his present Majesty and are zealous for ours or whether they thought there was more danger to be feared from Mary Queen of Scots who was then the apparent Popish Successor than we think there is from a Gentleman of the same Principles with her that hath the same and more palpable pretences to the Crown I shall not take upon me to determine However it is not unknown that Two several late Parliaments being convinced of the dangers which His Majesties Life is in from the Papists that they may accelerate the ascent of one of their own Communion to the Throne did after mature Debate and as a Testimony of the greatest Loyalty they could pay His Majesty come to this Resolve Resolved That in defence of the Kings Person and Government and Protestant Religion the House doth declare That they will stand by His Majesty with their Lives and Fortunes and that if His Majesty should come to any violent Death which God forbid they will revenge it to the utmost on the Papists Yea the last Westminster Parliament being deeply sensible what Plots the Papists were embark'd in for the Destruction of the King the extirpation of the reformed Religion in these Kingdoms and the placing the Crown upon the head of a Popish Prince they ordered a Bill for an Association to be brought into the House And whereas Secretary Jenkins deposeth upon Oath That tho he heard of such a thing as
an Association Proceed p. 34. spoken of about the Town yet he was not present at the debate to the best of his remembrance I shall only say that either his memory is very slippery or there are a great many Gentlemen who have remembred more than is true For it is not only said that he was present at the Debate but that he opposed the Bill as well as he could and we may be sure no man could do it better seeing as he said upon another occasion he had been all his days employ'd not only in the study of the Laws of his Country but in the Laws of Nations There is a story which I do not in the least intend to apply to Sir L. for it may be applicable to others for misrepresenting him But the story is That a Priest being accused after the Assassination of Henry the fourth of France for having heard in Confession from Ravilliack that he intended to murder that great and generous Prince replied that among other mercies which God had bestowed upon him He had given him the gift of forgetfulness But to return as there was such a Bill brought into the House of Commons so it is not only very likely that there were several Copies of it but we may rationally imagine that there might be several Draughts of Bills prepared before one could be pitched upon that would be agreeable to the fundamental Laws of the Land effectual for the preservation of his Majesty and the Protestant Religion becoming the Wisdom of that House And as Mr. Attorney General hath been pleased to acknowledg to some Gentlemen That among other papers seized in the Earl of Shaftsbury's Closet which were brought to him there were two or three Bills of Association different from that read and committed in the House of Commons all which we may suppose to have contained nothing but what was safe seeing there have been no endeavours to make my Lord guilty of High Treason upon them so who knows but that if this Paper which was read in Court was found in his Lordships Closet but that it might be a Draught of a Bill for an Association which this Noble Peer as much abhorred as any Country-Jury could Nor is this so wild a Phansie as some men out of weakness of understanding or prejudice of mind may believe for seeing there was nothing in the Indictment against this Noble Peer that either related unto or was grounded upon this Paper we may very rationally conceive that the omitting it was built upon some such Reason as we have now suggested For if one of the ends of the Association aim'd at be as my Lord Chief Justice North was pleased to inform the Jury not only to destroy the Mercinary Forces in and about the City of London and Westminster but to settle the Authority in the Major part of the Members of Parliament during the sitting of it exclusive of the King I can see no reason unless the Managers knew that they could make nothing of that Paper before wise and honest men as truly knowing of my Lord Shaftsbury's unconcernment in it why the Indictment should not rather have been superstructed upon it than upon the Testimony of any of the Oral Witnesses But besides all this the bare having a Treasonable Paper in a mans house which as possibly he knew not whence it came so he never communicated it to any to the prejudice of his Majesty and the Government is not so criminal a matter as men sway'd meerly by Passion and Hatred do believe it to be And were the having seen an ill Paper or its being found in a mans Closet to be expiated with no less than his life may be very few even of those that are so clamourous against the Earl of Shaftsbury would prove innocent or find themselves to be safe But what if after all the obloquy which this Noble Lord hath undergone in reference to that Paper it should appear that he never saw it nor hath any cause to think it was there where it was pretended to be found And I shall the rather enquire into this and endeavour to unfold it because my L. C. J. North declared There was a great matter to be presumed upon it it having been found under lock and key in my Lords Study For as Mr. Gwyn who seized the Paper would not say that it is the Earl of Shaftsbury's Ibid. p. 34. hand tho' if he had pleased he could have said positively that it was not his hand so I am apt to think that upon a thorough enquiry into the conduct of this affair we shall not find reason to be confident that it was found in my Lords Study Nay Mr. Gwyn cannot positively swear as to that Paper in particular That it was taken in the Earl of Ibid. Shaftsbury's Closet only swears in general that the Papers which were put up in a velvet Bag were seized there And it is remarkable that whereas Mr. Gwyn deposeth That as soon as he came p. 14. to Thanet-House my Lord gave him the keys of his Closets and told him where they were this could no ways be seeing the key of one of them namely that below stairs was always kept by some or other of his Lordships Servants so that Mr. Gwyn could at most but receive it by my Lords order And as one or other of the Earl of Shaftsbury's Servants had constantly the keeping of the key of the lower Closet so there were always many Papers of their own in it it being the Room where they manage most of their Business But that which is most surprizing of all is That Mr. Gwyn swears There were none present when he put up the Papers besides himself but my Lords own Servants whereas it can be proved by unquestionable Witnesses that there were no fewer than five or six such as he brought along with him in the Closet when he was there and as busie in putting up Papers as himself And that which still encreaseth our Suspition that things are not so fair in this matter as they are represented is That my Lord having offered to put his Seal on the Trunk provided he might first schedule and inventory the Papers Mr. Gwyn positively refused to allow him that Favour I will not say Right and Justice And this is a Consideration of that Importance that if duly ponder'd my Lord will not be found according to Law and Equity accountable for any Paper that was pretended to be taken there For no man ought to be called to answer for Writings said to be seized in his house to whom the scheduling of them was refused When Monsieur Fouket was committed by the French King and all endeavours used to put him to death for Crimes against his Master which they alledged his own Papers were sufficient to convict him of yet because they had been taken from him without allowing him to endorse and inventory them the evidence against him from his Writings
was pleased graciously to add that he should find him very just and kind in rewarding what he had done and suffered for him But what this Earl acted and underwent for the King when his Lordship's Father and almost all the Scotch Nation had either fallen in with or submitted to the Usurpers will better appear by a Paper under Middleton's hand which I shall here annex John Middleton Lieutenant-General next and immediate under His Majesty and Commandev in Chief of all the Forces raised and to be raised within the Kingdom of Scotland Seeing the Lord Lorn hath given so singular proofs of his clear and perfect Loyalty to the King's Majesty and of pure and constant Affection to the good of His Majesty's Affairs as never hitherto to have any ways complied with the Enemy and to have been principally Instrumental in the enlivening of this late War and one of the chief and first Movers in it and hath readily chearfully and gallantly engaged and resolutely and constantly continued active in it notwithstanding the many powerful Disswasions Discouragements and Oppositions he hath met with from divers hands and hath in the carrying on of the Service shewn such signal Fidelity Integrity Generosity Prudence Courage and Conduct and such high Vertue Industry and Ability as are suitable to the Dignity of his Noble Family and the Trust His Majesty reposed in him and hath not only stood out against all Inducements Temptations and Enticements but hath most nobly crossed and repressed Designs and Attempts of deserting the Service and persisted Loyally and firmly in it to the very last through excessive Trials and many great Difficulties and misregarding all personal Inconveniencies and chusing the loss of Friends fortune and private concernments and to endure the utmost Extremities rather than to swerve in the least from his Duty or taint his Reputation with the meanest shadow of Disloyalty or Dishonour I do therefore hereby testifie and declare that I am perfectly satisfied with his whole deportments in relation to the Enemy and their late War and do highly approve them as being not only above all I can express of their worth but almost beyond all parallel c. John Middleton What his after-Sufferings for His Majesty were and how he continued six years a Prisoner under the Usurpers for his Loyalty to the King I shall content my self to have only barely suggested them And as no man in all Scotland was more capable of serving his Prince both by reason of the greatness of his Parts the height of his Quality and the largeness of his Interest than this Noble Lord so no person of one degree or another hath at all times and in various Employments and Trusts more approved his Zeal and Loyalty to the King's Person and Government than he hath constantly done since His Majesties Restoration And if he have offended in any thing it is by an excess of compliance with his Majesties Will having as himself declared in his Speech at his Arraignment served him all along after his own way and manner Nor can any wise man believe that what he was accused of High-Treason for was either a Crime in it self or would have been charged upon this Earl as an Offence if His Majesties present Commissioner in Scotland had not upon some hidden and more important motive and inducement conceived an implacable hatred against him For the declining to swallow the Test abruptly and without such limitations as might give it both a determinate and a legal sense cannot be imagined to be more criminal than altogether to refuse it which not only many of the Conformable Clergy but divers Peers and Gentlemen without being accused of High Treason have done And surely it was more becoming a man of Honour and a Christian to declare plainly and openly in what sense he could and was ready to take it than to take it with a pious and devout ignorance as another Lord of His Majesties Privy-Council did And as the Council's publishing an Explanation of it is an unanswerable Argument that it required some Explication towards the reconciling it to its self and the Laws of the Land so wise men are apt to think that it is as lawful for a person to explain it for himself as for them to take upon them to explain it for others But it seems very strange that it should be Treason in the Earl of Argile to declare in what Sense he would take it when at the same time others have been allowed to put Senses and Constructions of their own upon it which were more remote from the meaning of the words than his were But that the World may be both able to judg of that Affair and of the hard and unpresidented usage which this Noble person hath met with I shall first subjoin the Explanation of the Test for which he was Accused and Condemned of High Treason Secondly I shall annex an Explication which he had prepared of that Explanation and which he threw into such a Texture with the words of the latter that being read interwoven together his purpose meaning and design will not only more clearly appear but justifie themselves to the minds of all rational men And I shall add in the last place the Opinion of several of the best Lawyers in Scotland concerning the Case of this Great and Loyal Peer The Earl of Argile's Explanation of the Test I Have consider'd the Test and I am very desirous to give obedience as far as I can I 'm confident the Parliament never intended to impose Contradictory Oaths Therefore I think no body can explain the Test but for himself I take it as far as it is consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion And I do declare That I mean not to bind up my self in my Station and in a lawful way to wish and endeavour any alteration I think to the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion and to my Loyalty And this I understand as a part of my Oath The Earl of Argile's Explication of his Explanation of the Test I Have consider'd the Test and have seen several objections moved by others against it and I am very desirous notwithstanding of all that I have seen or heard to give obedience in this and every thing as far as I can I am confident whatever scruples any man doth raise The Parliament never intended to impose Contradictory Oaths And because their sense and genuine meaning is the true sense and seeing the Test that is enjoined is of no private Interpretation nor are the Kings Statutes to be interpreted otherwise than as they bear to the intent they are made Therefore I think no body that is to say no private person can explain the Test for-another But every man for himself as he understands it to agree with and suit the Parliaments sense which is the true sense I take it notwithstanding all these scruples made by any As far as it is consistent with it self and which is indeed wholly in the Parliaments sense and true meaning which was the securing the Protestant Religion founded on the word of God and contained in the Confession of Faith recorded Parl. 1. Ja. 6. And I declare that by that part of the Test viz. that there lyes no obligation on me c. That I mean not to bind up my self in my station and in a lawful way still disclaiming all unlawful endeavours To wish and endeavour any Alteration I think according to my Conscience and Allegiance To the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion nor my Loyalty which I understand no otherwise but the duty and allegiance of loyal and faithful subjects And this Explanation I understand as a part not of the Test nor Act of Parliament but of my Oath that I am to swear and with it I am willing to take the Test if your R. H. and Lo. allow me it or otherways in submison to the Act of Parliament and your R. H. and the Councils pleasure am content to be held a Refuser at present The Opinion of the Lawyers about the Earl of Argyle's Case WE have considered the Criminal Letters raised at the instance of His Majesties Advocate against the Earl of Argyle with the Acts of Parliament contained and warranted in the same Criminal Letters and have compared the same with a Paper or Explication which is Libelled to have been given in by the Earl of Argyle to the Lords of His Majesties Privy Council and owned by him as the sense and explication in which he did take the Oath imposed by the late Act of Parliament and which Paper is of this Tenor I have considered the Test and am very desirous c. And likewise having consider'd that the Earl after he had taken the Oath with the explication and sense then put upon it it was acquiesced to by the Lords of the Privy Council and the Earl allowed to take his place and sit and vote And that before the Earl's taking of the Oath there were several Papers spread abroad containing Objections and alledged Inconsistencies and Contradictions in the Oath And that some thereof by Synods and Presbyteries of the Orthodox Clergy to some of the Bishops of the Church It is our humble Opinion that seeing the Earl's design and meanin in offering the said Explication was allenarly for clearing of his own Conscience and is of no contravention of the Laws and Acts of Parliament and doth not at all import the Crimes Libelled against him viz. Treason Leising-making Depraving of His Majesties Laws or the Crime of Perjury But that the Glosses and Inferences put by the Libel on the said Paper are altogether strained and unwarrantable and inconsistent with the Earl's true Design and the Sincerity of his meaning and intention in making of the said Explication FINIS