erthrown. The easy good
humour and affable manners of the exiled King were enlarged upon, and
perhaps honoured with too much celebrity. Offenders in general
anticipated forgiveness; and those who were adroit and dexterous
anticipated rewards. To assist in restoring the regal power was deemed
not merely a rasure of past crimes, but a qualification for trust and
employment; and those who now sought the shelter of royalty as a
protection from their late co-partners in rebellion, seemed, by the high
value which they put on their present services, to overlook, with equal
contempt and injustice, the claims and the wrongs of the Loyalists, who
having never changed their principles, had much to be repaid, and
nothing to be forgiven.

In the struggles which immediately preceded the Restoration, while
Monk's designs were wrapped in mystery, the cruelty of the regicides
increased with their ambition, and the jails were successively crowded
with every party, as the unsettled government alternately vibrated from
the rump to the fanatical faction. Within the walls of the same prison,
suffering the same restraint, and, like himself, the victim of a
conscience which would not temporize, Dr. Beaumont met his worthy friend
Barton. They congratulated each other on having thus far weathered the
political tempest without deserting their principles, or impugning their
honour. The Doctor learned from Barton the particulars of Lady
Bellingham's death, and the claims of Monthault on her fortune, which,
by the turbulence of the times, were still kept in abeyance. Lord
Bellingham was yet alive, poor and wretched, courting every faction,
trusted by none, and so universally despised as to endure the odium of
more crimes than he had even dared to commit. He was allowed a small
stipend out of his vast possessions, the income of the remainder being
still paid into the public treasury; while Morgan, now become a man of
consequence, and a commissioner for compounding forfeited property, was
enabled amply to glut his rapacity, and resided at Bellingham-Castle in
a style of the grossest sensual indulgence. Monthault had joined the
army of Lambert, against whom General Monk was now marching from
Scotland; and as the King had given reiterated commands to all his
friends to remain passive, and wait the event, it seemed as if he had
some private intelligence with Monk's party, to whom, therefore, each
honest Englishman wished success.

Barton believed this