means employed by the ministry to betray and ensnare them.
Counterfeited letters, it seems, were often addressed to gentlemen of
this persuasion, purporting to come either from the queen of Scots or
from certain English exiles, and soliciting concurrence in some scheme
for her deliverance, or some design against the government. If the
unwary receivers either answered the letters, or simply forbore to
deliver them up to the secretary of state, their houses were entered;
search was made for these papers by the emissaries of government, who
were themselves the fabricators of them; the unfortunate owners were
dragged to prison as suspected persons; and interrogated, and perhaps
tortured, till they discovered all that they knew of the secrets of the
party. Spies were planted upon them, every unguarded word was caught up
and interpreted in the worst sense, and false or frivolous accusations
were greedily entertained.

Walsingham, next to Leicester, bore the chief odium of these
proceedings; but to him no corrupt motives or private ends ever appear
to have been imputed in particular cases, though an anxiety to preserve
his place, and to recommend himself to the queen his mistress by an
extraordinary manifestation of care for her safety and zeal in her
service, may not unfairly be supposed to have influenced the general
character of his policy.

The loud complaints of the catholics had excited so strong and so widely
diffused a sentiment of compassion for them and indignation against
their oppressors, that it was judged expedient to publish an apology for
the measures of government, written either by lord Burleigh himself or
under his direction, which bore the title of "A declaration of the
favorable dealing of her majesty's commissioners appointed for the
examination of certain traitors, and of tortures unjustly reported to be
done upon them for matters of religion."

It thus begins: "Good reader, although her majesty's most mild and
gracious government be sufficient to defend itself against those most
slanderous reports of heathenish and unnatural tyranny and cruel
tortures pretended to have been exercised upon certain traitors who
lately suffered for their treason, and others; as well as spread abroad
by rungates, Jesuits, and seminary men in their seditious books, letters
and libels, in foreign countries and princes courts, as also intimated
into the hearts of some of our own countrymen and her majesty's
subjects.... I