pplied to a plot,
the object of which was to render that very king absolute, and to
introduce the religion which he most favoured. But it is to be observed,
that though in considering the bill of exclusion, the militia bill, and
other legislative proceedings, the plot, as he defines it--that is to
say, the design of introducing popery and arbitrary power--was the
important point to be looked to; yet in courts of justice, and for juries
and judges, that which he calls the appendage was, generally speaking,
the sole consideration.

Although, therefore, upon a review of this truly shocking transaction, we
may be fairly justified in adopting the milder alternative, and in
imputing to the greater part of those concerned in it rather an
extraordinary degree of blind credulity than the deliberate wickedness of
planning and assisting in the perpetration of legal murders, yet the
proceedings on the popish plot must always be considered as an indelible
disgrace upon the English nation, in which king, parliament, judges,
juries, witnesses, prosecutors, have all their respective, though
certainly not equal, shares. Witnesses, of such a character as not to
deserve credit in the most trifling cause, upon the most immaterial
facts, gave evidence so incredible, or, to speak more properly, so
impossible to be true, that it ought not to have been believed if it had
come from the mouth of Cato; and upon such evidence, from such witnesses,
were innocent men condemned to death and executed. Prosecutors, whether
attorneys and solicitors-general, or managers of impeachment, acted with
the fury which in such circumstances might be expected; juries partook
naturally enough of the national ferment; and judges, whose duty it was
to guard them against such impressions, were scandalously active in
confirming them in their prejudices and inflaming their passions. The
king, who is supposed to have disbelieved the whole of the plot, never
once exercised his glorious prerogative of mercy. It is said he dared
not. His throne, perhaps his life, was at stake; and history does not
furnish us with the example of any monarch with whom the lives of
innocent or even meritorious subjects ever appeared to be of much weight,
when put in balance against such considerations.

The measures of the prevailing party in the House of Commons, in these
times, appear (with the exception of their dreadful proceedings in the
business of the pretended plot, and of thei