, named CORNISH, was hanged within sight of his own house, after
an abominably conducted trial, for having had a share in the Rye House
Plot, on evidence given by Rumsey, which that villain was obliged to
confess was directly opposed to the evidence he had given on the trial of
Lord Russell. And on the very same day, a worthy widow, named ELIZABETH
GAUNT, was burned alive at Tyburn, for having sheltered a wretch who
himself gave evidence against her. She settled the fuel about herself
with her own hands, so that the flames should reach her quickly: and
nobly said, with her last breath, that she had obeyed the sacred command
of God, to give refuge to the outcast, and not to betray the wanderer.

After all this hanging, beheading, burning, boiling, mutilating,
exposing, robbing, transporting, and selling into slavery, of his unhappy
subjects, the King not unnaturally thought that he could do whatever he
would. So, he went to work to change the religion of the country with
all possible speed; and what he did was this.

He first of all tried to get rid of what was called the Test Act--which
prevented the Catholics from holding public employments--by his own power
of dispensing with the penalties. He tried it in one case, and, eleven
of the twelve judges deciding in his favour, he exercised it in three
others, being those of three dignitaries of University College, Oxford,
who had become Papists, and whom he kept in their places and sanctioned.
He revived the hated Ecclesiastical Commission, to get rid of COMPTON,
Bishop of London, who manfully opposed him. He solicited the Pope to
favour England with an ambassador, which the Pope (who was a sensible man
then) rather unwillingly did. He flourished Father Petre before the eyes
of the people on all possible occasions. He favoured the establishment
of convents in several parts of London. He was delighted to have the
streets, and even the court itself, filled with Monks and Friars in the
habits of their orders. He constantly endeavoured to make Catholics of
the Protestants about him. He held private interviews, which he called
'closetings,' with those Members of Parliament who held offices, to
persuade them to consent to the design he had in view. When they did not
consent, they were removed, or resigned of themselves, and their places
were given to Catholics. He displaced Protestant officers from the army,
by every means in his power, and got Catholics into their pla