ef Justice, most strongly against him. Whatever makes for him is kept
out of sight. To have been born a Roman Catholic is a crime; to have
deliberately adopted that faith, is a damnable sin; one for which there is
no expiation. The absurd fictions of Oates and Bedlow are commended to the
jury as worthy of implicit credence. The whole weight of judicial
authority and influence is thrown into the scale of condemnation.

On the seventeenth of the same December, Whitebread, Fenwick, Ireland,
Pickering and Grove, were brought to trial. The chief witnesses against
them were Oates and Bedlow. The counsel for the crown thus opened the
case: 'May it please your lordships, and you gentlemen of the jury, the
persons here before you stand indicted of high treason; they are five in
number; three of them are Jesuits, one is a priest, the fifth is a layman;
persons fitly prepared for the work in hand.' After a few other
observations, he proceeds to institute a comparison between this Plot and
the famous Gunpowder Plot. The second and third points of resemblance in
the two, he thus states: 'Secondly, the great actors in the design were
priests and Jesuits, that came from Valladolid in Spain, and other places
beyond the seas. And the great actors in this Plot are priests and Jesuits
that are come from St. Omers and other places beyond the seas, nearer home
than Spain.

'Thirdly, that Plot was chiefly guided and managed by Henry Garnet,
superior and provincial of the Jesuits then in England; and the great
actor in this design is Mr. Whitebread, superior and provincial of the
Jesuits now in England.'

The evidence of Oates was the same in substance that he gave at Coleman's
trial, but with such additional particulars as he judged necessary to keep
the popular excitement alive. Thus, in answering the question, what he
knew of any attempts to kill the king at St. James' park, he said: 'I saw
Pickering and Grove several times walking in the park together, with their
secured pistols, which were longer than ordinary pistols, and shorter than
some carbines. They had silver bullets to shoot with, and Grove would have
had the bullets to be champt for fear that if he should shoot, if the
bullets were round, the wound that might be given might be cured.'

ATT. GEN. 'Do you know any thing of Pickering's doing penance, and for
what?'

'Yes, my lord. In the month of March last, (for these persons have
followed the king several years;) but he at th