Tower, and, finally, poisoned his brother, unsupported by
evidence to substantiate such dreadful charges, was calumny of the most
atrocious kind; but the guilt is still heightened, when we observe, that
from no conversation of Monmouth, nor, indeed, from any other
circumstance whatever, do we collect that he himself believed the horrid
accusations to be true. With regard to Essex's death in particular, the
only one of the three charges which was believed by any man of common
sense, the late king was as much implicated in the suspicion as James.
That the latter should have dared to be concerned in such an act, without
the privacy of his brother, was too absurd an imputation to be attempted,
even in the days of the popish plot. On the other hand, it was certainly
not the intention of the son to brand his father as an assassin. It is
too plain that, in the instance of this declaration, Monmouth, with a
facility highly criminal, consented to set his name to whatever Ferguson
recommended as advantageous to the cause. Among the many dreadful
circumstances attending civil wars, perhaps there are few more revolting
to a good mind than the wicked calumnies with which, in the heat of
contention, men, otherwise men of honour, have in all ages and countries
permitted themselves to load their adversaries. It is remarkable that
there is no trace of the divines who attended this unfortunate man having
exhorted him to a particular repentance of his manifesto, or having
called for a retraction or disavowal of the accusations contained in it.
They were so intent upon points more immediately connected with orthodoxy
of faith, that they omitted pressing their penitent to the only
declaration by which he could make any satisfactory atonement to those
whom he had injured.

FRAGMENTS.

_The following detached paragraphs were probably intended for the fourth
chapter_. _They are here printed in the incomplete and unfinished state
in which they were found_.

While the Whigs considered all religious opinions with a view to
politics, the Tories, on the other hand, referred all political maxims to
religion. Thus the former, even in their hatred to popery, did not so
much regard the superstition, or imputed idolatry of that unpopular sect,
as its tendency to establish arbitrary power in the State, while the
latter revered absolute monarchy as a divine institution, and cherished
the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance