f Newgate under the eyes of his
jailers, in the easy disguise of a morning suit and a brown tie-wig.
Once some Jacobite prisoners, who were being sent to the West Indian
plantations, rose against the crew, seized the ship, steered it to
France, and quietly settled down {143} there. Later still some prisoners
got out even more easily. Brigadier Mackintosh's brother was discharged
from Newgate on his own prayer, and on showing that "he was very old, and
altogether friendless."

Immediately after the execution of the rebel noblemen the ministry set to
work to take some steps which might render political intrigue and
conspiracy less dangerous in the future. One idea which especially
commended itself to the statesmen of that time was to make the laws more
rigorous against Roman Catholics. Law and popular feeling were already
strongly set against the Catholics. On the death of Queen Anne, officers
in the army, when informing their companies of the accession of the
Elector of Hanover, carried their loyal and religious enthusiasm so far
as to call upon any of their hearers who might be Catholics to fall
forthwith out of the ranks. The writers who supported the Hanoverian
succession, and were in the service of the Whig ministry, were not
ashamed to declare that the ceremony of the Paternoster would infallibly
cure a stranger of the spleen, and that any man in his senses would find
excellent comedy in the recital of an Ave Mary. "How common it is," says
the writer of the _Patriot_, "to find a wretch of this persuasion to be
deluded to such a degree that he shall imagine himself engaged in the
solemnity of devotion, while in reality he is exceeding the fopperies of
a Jack-pudding!" So great was the distrust of Catholics that it was
often the practice to seize upon the horses of Catholic gentlemen in
order to impede them in the risings which they were always supposed to be
meditating. But the condition of the Catholics in England was not bad
enough to content the ministry. An Act was passed, in fact what would
now be called "rushed," through Parliament, to "strengthen the Protestant
interest in Great Britain," by making more severe "the laws now in being
against Papists," and by providing a more effective and exemplary
punishment for persons who, being Papists, should venture to enlist in
the service of his Majesty.

{144}

The spirit of political freedom, as we now understand it, had not yet
even begun to glimmer upon