n and dispersed
before he uses the least vehemence in his sermon; but when he thinks he
has your head he very soon wins your heart, and never pretends to show
the beauty of holiness until he hath convinced you of the truth of it."

Atterbury had, however, among his many gifts a dangerous gift of
political intrigue. Like Swift and Dubois and Alberoni, he was at least
as much statesman as churchman. {215} He had mixed himself up in various
intrigues--some of them could hardly be called conspiracies--for the
restoration of the Stuarts, and when at last something like a new
conspiracy was planned, it was not likely that he would be left out of
it. He had courage enough for any such scheme. There was no great
difficulty in finding out the new plot which King George mentioned in his
speech to Parliament; for James Stuart had revealed it himself by a
proclamation which he caused to be circulated among his supposed
adherents in England, renewing in the boldest terms his claim to the
crown of England. A sort of junto of Jacobites appears to have been
established in England to make arrangements for a new attempt on the part
of James; the noblemen whom King George had arrested were understood to
be among its leading members. Atterbury was charged with having taken a
prominent if not, indeed, a foremost part in the conspiracy. The Duke of
Norfolk, Lord North and Grey, and Lord Orrery were afterwards discharged
for want of evidence to convict them. The arrest of a number of humbler
conspirators led to the discovery of a correspondence asserted to have
been carried on between Atterbury and the adherents of James Stuart in
France and Italy.

Both Houses of Parliament began by voting addresses of loyalty and
gratitude to the King, and by resolving that the proclamation entitled
"Declaration of James the Third, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland,
to all his loving subjects of the three nations," and signed "James Rex,"
was "a false, insolent, and traitorous libel," and should be burned by
the hands of the common hangman, under the direction of the sheriffs of
London. This important ceremonial was duly carried out at the Royal
Exchange. Then the House of Commons voted, "that towards raising the
supply, and reimbursing to the public the great expenses occasioned by
the late rebellions and disorders, the sum of one hundred thousand pounds
be raised and levied upon the real and personal estates of {216} all
Papists, Popish re