xclusionists had
found out Fitzharris, a spy of the ministers, and had set him upon this
undertaking, from an intention of loading the court with the imputation
of such a design upon the exclusionists. Rather than acquit their
antagonists, both sides were willing to adopt an account the most
intricate and incredible. It was a strange situation in which the people
at this time were placed; to be every day tortured with these
perplexed stories, and inflamed with such dark suspicions against their
fellow-citizens. This was no less than the fifteenth false plot, or sham
plot, as they were then called, with which the court, it was imagined,
had endeavored to load their adversaries.[*]

* College's trial.

The country party had intended to make use of Fitzharris's evidence
against the duke and the Catholics; and his execution was therefore
a great mortification to them. But the king and his ministers were
resolved not to be contented with so slender an advantage. They
were determined to pursue the victory, and to employ against the
exclusionists those very offensive arms, however unfair, which that
party had laid up in store against their antagonists. The whole gang of
spies, witnesses, informers, suborners, who had so long been supported
and encouraged by the leading patriots, finding now that the king was
entirely master, turned short upon their old patrons and offered their
service to the ministers. To the disgrace of the court and of the age,
they were received with hearty welcome, and their testimony, or rather
perjury, made use of in order to commit legal murder upon the opposite
party. With an air of triumph and derision, it was asked, "Are not these
men good witnesses, who have established the Popish plot, upon whose
testimony Stafford and so many Catholics have been executed, and whom
you yourselves have so long celebrated as men of credit and veracity?
You have admitted them into your bosom: they are best acquainted with
your treasons: they are determined in another shape to serve their king
and country: and you cannot complain, that the same measure which
you meted to others, should now, by a righteous doom or vengeance, be
measured out to you."

It is certain that the principle of retaliation may serve in some cases
as a full apology, in others as an alleviation, for a conduct which
would otherwise be exposed to great blame. But these infamous arts,
which poison justice in its very source, and break all th