a loss to know the author: I shall consider you
as the assassin: I shall treat you as such; and wherever I meet you, I
shall pistol you, though you stood behind the king's chair; and I tell
it you in his majesty's presence, that you may be sure I shall not
fail of performance."[*] If there was here any indecorum, it was easily
excused in a generous youth, when his father's life was exposed to
danger.

* Carte's Ormond, vol. ii. p. 225.

A little after, Blood formed a design of carrying off the crown and
regalia from the Tower; a design to which he was prompted, as well by
the surprising boldness of the enterprise, as by the views of profit. He
was near succeeding. He had bound and wounded Edwards, the keeper of
the jewel-office, and had gotten out of the Tower with his prey; but was
overtaken and seized, with some of his associates. One of them was
known to have been concerned in the attempt upon Ormond; and Blood was
immediately concluded to be the ring-leader. When questioned, he frankly
avowed the enterprise; but refused to tell his accomplices. "The fear
of death," he said, "should never engage him either to deny a guilt or
betray a friend." All these extraordinary circumstances made him the
general subject of conversation; and the king was moved by an idle
curiosity to see and speak with a person so noted for his courage and
his crimes. Blood might now esteem himself secure of pardon; and he
wanted not address to improve the opportunity. He told Charles, that he
had been engaged, with others, in a design to kill him with a carabine
above Battersea, where his majesty often went to bathe: that the cause
of this resolution was the severity exercised over the consciences of
the godly, in restraining the liberty of their religious assemblies:
that when he had taken his stand among the reeds, full of these bloody
resolutions, he found his heart checked with an awe of majesty; and
he not only relented himself, but diverted his associates from their
purpose: that he had long ago brought himself to an entire indifference
about life, which he now gave for lost; yet could he not forbear warning
the king of the danger which might attend his execution: that his
associates had bound themselves by the strictest oaths to revenge the
death of any of the confederacy; and that no precaution or power could
secure any one from the effects of their desperate resolutions.

Whether these considerations excited fear or admiration i