more was heard of it.

The Duke of York, during these proceedings, saved himself very well.
When the Bill for the disabling of Papists from the holding of office or
of sitting in either House of Parliament, had passed through the
Commons, he made a speech upon it in the House of Lords, speaking so
well that others as well as he were moved to tears by it. He said that
his religion should be a matter between his soul and God only; and
should never affect his public conduct; and this with so much weight
that the decision was given in his favour, since he was the King's
brother. I should never have thought that he could have done so well.

Mr. Coleman was the first to be brought to trial, at the beginning of
December, for he came back and gave himself up the day after he had at
first fled. He was already pre-judged; for so violent was the feeling
against the Papists that my Lord Lucas said in the House of Lords that
if he could have his way, he "would not have even a Popish cat to mew
and purr about the King." Coleman, I say, was the first of those who had
before been accused; but a Mr. Stayley, a Catholic banker (who had his
house not far from me in Covent Garden), was even before him judged and
executed, on account of some words that a lying Scotsman had said he had
heard him use in the tavern in the same place.

I did not go to the trial of Mr. Coleman; for that I had nothing to say
for him; and indeed Mr. Coleman's own letters--written three or four
years ago--were the severest witnesses against him, in which he had
written to Father La Chaise--(whom Oates at first called Father Le
Shee)--the French King's confessor, and others, that if he could lay
hands on a good sum of money, he could accomplish a great project he
had for the restoration of the Catholic religion in England. (These
letters were found in a drawer he had forgotten, when he had burned all
the rest; and proved very unfortunate for him.) He meant by this, I have
no doubt, the bribing of many Parliament-men to win toleration, and to
get His Royal Highness restored as Lord High Admiral. He said this was
his meaning; and I see no reason to doubt it, for he was a pragmatical
kind of man, full of great affairs; but Chief Justice Scroggs waved it
all away; and it was made to appear exactly consonant with all that
Oates and Bedloe had said as to the project of killing the King. So
great was the excitement, not of the common people only, but of those
who should