to the pillory and to imprisonment. From his dungeon he wrote
to implore the Primate's mercy. The letter may still be read with all
the original bad grammar and bad spelling. [279] The writer acknowledged
his guilt, wished that his eyes were a fountain of water, declared that
he should never know peace till he had received episcopal absolution,
and professed a mortal hatred of Dissenters. As all this contrition
and all this orthodoxy produced no effect, the penitent, after swearing
bitterly to be revenged on Sancroft, betook himself to another device.
The Western Insurrection had just broken out. The magistrates all over
the country were but too ready to listen to any accusation that might be
brought against Whigs and Nonconformists. Young declared on oath that,
to his knowledge, a design had been formed in Suffolk against the life
of King James, and named a peer, several gentlemen, and ten Presbyterian
ministers, as parties to the plot. Some of the accused were brought to
trial; and Young appeared in the witness box; but the story which he
told was proved by overwhelming evidence to be false. Soon after the
Revolution he was again convicted of forgery, pilloried for the fourth
or fifth time, and sent to Newgate. While he lay there, he determined to
try whether he should be more fortunate as an accuser of Jacobites than
he had been as an accuser of Puritans. He first addressed himself to
Tillotson. There was a horrible plot against their Majesties, a plot as
deep as hell; and some of the first men in England were concerned in it.
Tillotson, though he placed little confidence in information coming
from such a source, thought that the oath which he had taken as a Privy
Councillor made it his duty to mention the subject to William. William,
after his fashion, treated the matter very lightly. "I am confident," he
said, "that this is a villany; and I will have nobody disturbed on such
grounds." After this rebuff, Young remained some time quiet. But when
William was on the Continent, and when the nation was agitated by the
apprehension of a French invasion and of a Jacobite insurrection, a
false accuser might hope to obtain a favourable audience. The mere oath
of a man who was well known to the turnkeys of twenty gaols was not
likely to injure any body. But Young was master of a weapon which is, of
all weapons, the most formidable to innocence. He had lived during
some years by counterfeiting hands, and had at length attained s