at
he could tell them something of the highest importance to the welfare of
the State, and earnestly begged to be heard. His request reached them
on perhaps the most anxious day of an anxious month. Tourville had just
stood out to sea. The army of James was embarking. London was agitated
by reports about the disaffection of the naval officers. The Queen was
deliberating whether she should cashier those who were suspected, or try
the effect of an appeal to their honour and patriotism. At such a moment
the ministers could not refuse to listen to any person who professed
himself able to give them valuable information. Young and his accomplice
were brought before the Privy Council. They there accused Marlborough,
Cornbury, Salisbury, Sancroft and Sprat of high treason. These great
men, Young said, had invited James to invade England, and had promised
to join him. The eloquent and ingenious Bishop of Rochester had
undertaken to draw up a Declaration which would inflame the nation
against the government of King William. The conspirators were bound
together by a written instrument. That instrument, signed by their
own hands, would be found at Bromley if careful search was made. Young
particularly requested that the messengers might be ordered to examine
the Bishop's flowerpots.

The ministers were seriously alarmed. The story was circumstantial; and
part of it was probable. Marlborough's dealings with Saint Germains were
well known to Caermarthen, to Nottingham, and to Sidney. Cornbury was
a tool of Marlborough, and was the son of a nonjuror and of a notorious
plotter. Salisbury was a Papist. Sancroft had, not many months before,
been, with too much show of reason, suspected of inviting the French to
invade England. Of all the accused persons Sprat was the most unlikely
to be concerned in any hazardous design. He had neither enthusiasm
nor constancy. Both his ambition and his party spirit had always been
effectually kept in order by his love of ease and his anxiety for his
own safety. He had been guilty of some criminal compliances in the hope
of gaining the favour of James, had sate in the High Commission, had
concurred in several iniquitous decrees pronounced by that court, and
had, with trembling hands and faltering voice, read the Declaration of
Indulgence in the choir of the Abbey. But there he had stopped. As soon
as it began to be whispered that the civil and religious constitution
of England would speedily be vindicate