man from doing himself right when he hath been publickly as well as eminently injured And truly it looks like an imposing that upon the implicite Faith of the World which they know themselves unable to prove or it argues a distrust either of the goodness of their Cause or that it hath not been managed with integrity and candor when they are unwilling to admit both sides the priviledg of being openly heard For tho it may become the Wisdom of men in Power and Government to preserve the Justice of Courts and Reputation of Juries from being openly arraigned when an Indictment after a full Enquiry hath been approved and allow'd by such as are the proper and only judges of it yet such a procedure as the restraining men from defending their own Innocency and vindicating the impartiality of those who acquitted them after a full and Legal hearing can never adjust it self to the sense or reason of mankind Nor doth such a course and method import any thing less than that for having miss'd the satiating their Malice in the Blood of one or two whom they mortally hated they will pursue their Revenge in endeavours to blast the Credit and diminish the value and esteem of all that have been instrumental in preventing and defeating their Intendment NOW this Plot for Deposing the King and altering the Government whereof Protestants were to be Accused and Impeached was not only so contrived as that it might reach most English Peers and Gentlemen who stood in the way of Popery and Arbitrariness but the Protestants in Ireland were to be brought under the charge and accusation of it For the Popish Conspiracy having been carried on with the same vigour against the Lives of Protestants and the established Religion in that Kingdom as it was in this and the Parliament here being so far satisfied and convinced of the reality of it there as well as in England as to declare and testifie the belief of it by the unanimous Votes of both Houses accordingly the Papists in both Kingdoms were equally and by the same Artifices to be relieved from the imputation which lay upon them and to be rescued from the punishments which the Laws Adjudged and Condemned them unto Therefore the Protestants in both Nations were to be accused of having forged the Popish Plot and that having thereby amused His Majesty and the people they have in the mean time been fomenting and promoting a real one of their own This was that which St. Laurence the Priest would See No Protestant Plot First part p 33 34 35. have Hired and Suborned Mr. William Smith to Swear and Depose and whereof the Evidence was so strong against St. Laurence at his Trial that tho' he was acquitted yet he is still believed by all impartial men that heard it to have been really guilty For it is not only reported from thence by persons who deserve to be credited that such especially were returned upon the Jury who were known before-hand to have reflected upon Mr. Smith but it is most certain that whereas the Prisoner was allowed five Councel to plead for him there was none of the King's Councel nor any one man of the Gown besides that appeared in behalf of the Evidence Whether they forbore from an opinion that the Evidence was so plain that it required no Plea to enforce or apply it or whether they did it out of deference to some great men whom they would not offend by being concerned in any thing that may prejudice the honour and integrity of the Papists or whether it was in obedience to the commands of such who would not have an Intrigue detected upon the discovery whereof the Protestants may come to be thought peaceable and loyal again as I cannot certainly tell so I shall not take upon me to conjecture and divine But besides that which was sworn against St. Laurence by Mr. Smith which to any who read it will appear either the copy transcript or counterpart of what they have been doing here we have other evidence of the Papists labouring in Ireland to sham off their own Plot by representing it as a Forgery falsely laid upon them by the Pratestants and their endeavouring to possess the Government with a belief that during the noise and buz which the Protestants had raised concerning a Popish Plot they were themselves embarkt in a Conspiracy against the King and the Monarchy Thus whereas one Captain Morley had appeared before the Committees of Lords and Commons here and swore two Consults which the Papists had in Ireland in reference to the extirpating the Protestant Religion in that Kingdom they have procured no fewer than six or seven Irish Witnesses not only to Depose against the said Morley That he was Suborned by the Earl of Essex the Earl of Shaftsbury Sir Robert Cleyton and others to Swear Treason against the Duke of Ormond the Lord Chancellor Boyle and Sir John Davies but that he himself had said the King was on enemy to all Protestants and deserved to have his Head cut off as his Father had Here we have an Epitome and Abridgment of what the whole Popish Party is laying out their Money improving their Wit and employing the Power and Interest of their Friends for and about But why the Papists should in all their Depositions introduce the Protestants affirming the King to be a Papist and an enemy to those of the same Religion which he not only professeth but which he hath sacredly and solemnly Vow'd for ever to protect and defend I think no wise man is able to tell unless it be that they have a mind to recriminate upon us what they have been proved guilty of themselves It is not yet seasonable to declare by whose means and by what Arts the foresaid Deposition was obtained nor how Handland and Murphey two fellows that came over hither to Swear the Popish Plot were since their return transformed into Witnesses to prove a Protestant Conspiracy but all these things must be foreborn till his Majesty in his Princely Wisdom and from that Justice which he hath hitherto governed his people by and in the discharge of his promise which his Loyal addressing Subjects as well as others do rely upon be pleased to call a Parliament and then both all these and many other things will be more fully disclosed and set in a brighter light In the mean time this must be acknowledged to the Honour of His Majesty and the Justice of the Council-Board that tho the foresaid Deposition was received by some in Ireland with great fondness and transmitted hither not only with all expedition and speed but accompanied with an earnest desire that the Gentleman might be sent thither yet the King and Council would neither do so illegal and arbitrary a thing as to send a person from hence to Ireland without his own consent both born and bred here and who actually possesseth an estate in England Nor could it be done without great Injustice
THE THIRD PART OF No Protestant Plot WITH Observations on the PROCEEDINGS UPON THE BILL of INDICTMENT AGAINST THE E. of Shaftsbury AND A Brief ACCOUNT of the CASE OF THE EARL of ARGYLE LONDON Printed for Richard Baldwin 1682. To the READER 'T IS not more out of Respect to our own Innocency and the Honour of our Religion that these Papers come abroad into the world than it is from that Love and Respect which we bear to the King whose Interest in the hearts of his People is greatly supplanted and undermined by the courses which have heen lately taken to destroy his Innocent and Loyal Subjects upon a forged and groundless pretence That they are engaged in a Conspiracy against his Person and the established Government For some men whose crimes have made them obnoxious to the justice of Parliaments and the severity of the Laws could bethink themselves of no other way to escape the punishments which they have deserved but by possessing the King That the Peers and Gentlemen of England who are most likely to call them to an account while they are complaining of their Misdemeanours and Offences are themselves combined to destroy both the Regnant Prince and the Monarchy The hazards which our Names Fortunes and Lives are brought into do not so much afflict us as to see the King lose the Love and Confidence of his People at home be forced to abandon his Allies abroad and leave his Crown and Dignity as well as these Nations exposed to the Power and Ambition of a neighbouring Monarch Nor can we express greater Fealty to the King than by plainly informing him that he hath no Enemies save the Papists unless it be in the imaginations of ill men who to render themselves innocent would make others guilty And were they capable of being instructed to forbear the prosecution of their forged Plots upon the Baffles which they have received upon prosecutions supported meerly by perjury and falsehood we would have had that compassion for the honour of the Government and the safety of the Nation as to have suppressed these sheets But seeing they obstinately persevere in their malicious designs and are as industrious as ever to bribe and hire mercinary Rascals to swear Treason against the best and most loyal Subjects which His Majesty hath as well as against the chiefest Patriots of our Religion and Liberties We hope the world will pardon us in defending our own integrity and exposing their rage and wrath And let me assure them that while they fondly imagine they work under ground we are able to trace them in the steps which they take 'T is not above a week or two ago that by offers of five hundred pound a man they attempted to suborn several persons to swear Treason against the Earl of Essex the Earl of Shaftsbury and others Nay we could tell them of a Consult which they had to examine and digest the forged Evidence which by greatexpence and mighty labour they had procured how they went away wonderfully disturbed that it would not answer their desires nor support the design which they were upon As the people of England are not of a temper to suffer their throats to be cut in a way of massacre without a manly and generous resistance so they are not of a complexion to lose their Lives unjustly by a legal process without speaking in their own defence What we have here written is with a freedom that becomes innocent persons tho' we must acknowledg that we have fallen short in the air and stile that are proportionate to so just a cause The righteeousness and innocency of our case needs no pickquancy and it were but to obscure and darken our Loyalty to make it resplendent by colours But if our Enemies persevere in their ways of impudence we hope all mankind will acquit us if from henceforth we lay aside bashfulness and modesty ERRATA PAge 8. l. 20. r. ministred p. 18. l. 23. r. another p. 25. l. 17. r. procss p 26. l. 28. r. over all p. 27. l. 27. r. secure p. 32. l. 7. r. fill p. 44 l. 28. r. both p. 45. l. 14. r. superstructing p. 51. l. 18. r. process p. 58 l. ult del as p. 59. after bitterness put for p. 64. l. 23 and l. 24. r. crâ—dible p. 69. l. 6. r. Truth p. 71. l. 3. after with r. it p. 73. l. 7. dele â— p. 85. l. 23. after Rascal put p. 86. l. 17. after of put p. 87. l. 24 r. Mrâ— p. 89 l. 1. for conceived r. could Ibid. l. 21. for an r. a. p. 93. l. 28. for 〈◊〉 man r. that a man p. 103. l. 24. for both r. not only p. 104. l. 27. for ◠〈…〉 y. p. 131. l. 2. r. Memoir's p. 133 l. 26. for the r. this p. 139. l. â— before in add is p. 142. l. 20. r. time HOW much the Papists are not only justified in destroying those who differ from them in Faith and Worship but obliged by the Principles of their Religion to extirpate all Christians who have withdrawn from the Communion of their Church we may be easily informed if we would but give our selves the trouble of consulting the Canons of their Councils the Decrees of their Popes and the publick Writings of their most approved Authors Nor is there any crime or villany so tyrannous and barbarous but it becomes sanctified and is declared meritorious provided it be found subservient to so useful and pious Design as the rooting out those whom the Papal Church hath judged and pronounced Hereticks For besides millions of Men and Women professing and obeying the Gospel that have been destroyed in other Nations for no other offence but because they dissented from the Church of Rome there have several hundred thousands been murther'd kill'd and massacre'd in these three Kingdoms meerly because they could not believe as the pretended Church Catholick doth And as neither Obedience or Loyalty towards Magistrates nor Righteousness towards fellow-Subjects have contributed any thing towards the security of the Lives of Protestants when the Papists have apprehended themselves able and found that they were countenanced by Authority to destroy them so no Obligations by Oaths or Promises have been sufficient to restrain those of the Papal Communion from washing their hands in the Blood of Innocents but in defiance of all that ought to be preserved sacred they have first murder'd them and then not only gloried in their bloody and 〈◊〉 Exploits but in the falshoods and perjuries by which â—hey wheedled honest and credulous people within the Circle of their power and rage And while those of that Religion retain the same Principles which influenced men of the Romish Belief to such inhuman and barbarous Actions heretofore the Protestants of this Age have no reason to expect more mercy or fairer dealing from them than our Forefathers and Predecessors received at their hands And sure the Papists must esteem the Protestants of these Nations an Unthinking
severe Censure which we have fastned upon the Rascality of the Irish Nation seeing besides the impressions we retain of them by the remembrance of the Irish Massacre and the fresher intelligence we have received of their regardlesness of Truth and Justice from the manage of themselves before the Court of Claims we have been lately enabled to form an opinion of the Herd and Hive of that people by the observations we have made of those few that have flown over hither and especially by the little Colony which Justice Warcup is Governour and Overseer of However as I rejoyce at the present stemming that Deluge of Sin and Misery which was there so nearly threatning innocent and loyal Protestants had not some baffle befallen those suborned Affidavit folk and did not a notorious infamy attend their testimony so I beseech Almighty God to prevent the consequences and effects which the countenancing such a course should it again revive and prosper would in all probability be followed and attended with For as the English Protestants in that Kingdom do throughly know the humour principles and inclinations of the Popish Irish and how absolutely they are under the conduct and at the disposal of their Priests so by being less numerous than the Papists they are both more apprehensive of and watchful against ruine and danger and cannot but construe this method of destroying them as much more pernicious than a new War or Rebellion in that Barbarous and Bloody people would be But tho the late Sham pretended Protestant Plot was so laid and contrived by the Papists as to comprehend under the infamy and guilt of it the chiefest persons in Ireland who profess the Protestant Religion or have any regard for the Liberties and Rights of Mankind yet the primary and main end of this horrid Papal design was to ruin and destroy the Principal Patriots of the Reformation and civil Liberties in England For upon the Fate of the Protestants here depends the safety or extirpation of all in these Kingdoms who profess separation from the Communion of the Church of Rome For the Protestants are not only most numerous here and best able to defend themselves in case a Massacre should be attempted upon them by the Papists but it was a Parliament in England that Voted and Published the reality of a present Popish Conspiracy that did proclaim to all the world the dangers which his Majesty and Loyal Subjects are in from men of Papal Principles that caused some of the principal Conspirators to be arraigned and condemned and which hath been endeavouring to hinder a Popish Successor from coming hereafter to ascend the Throne And therefore tho' few elsewhere that are either of any note for zeal to their Religion or worth saving for their ardour and courage for civil Right were to escape being entangled in the dangers and loaded with the reproach which they hop'd to bring upon all the Protestants of these Dominions by a forged pretence and charge of our being embark'd in a Conspiracy to depose the King and alter the Government yet it was mainly the Peers Gentlemen and others in England who are resolved not only to live and die in the Protestant Faith themselves but to do all they can to transmit it as an inheritance to their posterity that this Sham was calculated to retch and overthrow And albeit there have been but few hitherto named and accused yet could the Witnesses have been but once believed they would have soon sworn all into the same guilt whom either out of malice or for the facilitating the Introduction of Popery and arbitrary power they had a mind to get destroyed For whatsoever hath been either published in allowed Writings or affirmed in Courts of Judiâ—ature concerning the narrowness of this pretended Conspiracy and that they know of no Protestant Plot but that only a few discontented or desperate persons had been designing Treason against His Majesty yet the matter is in reality quite otherwise and this is only alledged to lessen the horror of people at first and to prevent the effects of their indignation should they understand the unlimitedness of Papal Rage Nor have the Contrivers and Managers of this Sham been Masters of so much Wit as to conceal the boundlesness of their Wrath and how extensive they purposed to render this Protestant Plot. For by making Oxford the Scene where the King was to be apprehended and that at a time when he was surrounded with all his Guards they do plainly tell all the world that had they obtained the Evidence to be credited and allowed in relation to any one person of quality they would have soon brought the Lives and Fortunes of thousands to lye at their discretion and mercy Admit but once that His Majesty was to be seised when encompassed with so great and well disciplined a force and it will necessarily follow that there must have been a very great number of Protestants engaged for the accomplishing of it Nay the very Depositions of the Witnesses themselves as they are communicated to the world in Print in the Tryal of Mr Stephen Colledg and in the Proceedings upon the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury do sufficiently proclaim that there were not only many Protestants of an inferior Rank but many of the principal Peers and Gentlemen in England that were designed to be brought within the circle and compass of this Protestant Plot. Nor is it likely that having designed to bring so many under the guilt of the Sham Meal-Tub Conspiracy they would now abate in the number which they purposed to destroy For besides the advantages which they enjoy through having Counsellers more to their gust they have either wheedl'd or brib'd many of our high-flown Church-men if not with a satisfaction to glory yet with an abject silence to connive at our ruin But the bounds which the Papists intended to set to their own malice in forging shamming upon the world that the Protestants had combined to depose the King may be best and most easily collected from the Testimonies of the Witnesses in the fore-mentioned Treatises Accordingly we are told by Dugdale That Colledg not only advised him to go with Horse and Arms to Oxford because he expected there would be See the Tryal of Stephen Colledg p. 19. something done there but he further says That he heard several Parliament-men talking before that Session of a disturbance that was likely to happen at Oxford and that it would be therefore best to leave some Parliament-men at home in every County who might manage the people And Smith not only affirms that Colledg told him how the Parliament was agreed to seize the King and that in order thereunto all the Parliament-men were Ibid. p. 28. to come to Oxford well armed and accompanied with Arms and Men but that the Earl of Shaftsbury should declare unto him how the Parliament-men who came out of the See the Proceedings upon the Bill against the Earl of
Shaftsbury p. 19. Country were well provided with Horse Arms and Men and that if the King offered any violence to them they might oppose him for the like had been done in former times And Haynes deposeth That Colledg should tell him Vnless the King should suffer the Parliament to continue to sit at Oxford they would seize him and bring him Colledg's Tryal p. 30. to the Block as they did the Logger-head his Father yea that my Lord Shaftsbury should declare Vnless the King granted the Pardon which was demanded Proceedings upon the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury p. 37. for the said Haynes they would raise the whole Kingdom against him Booth likewise swears how my Lord Shaftsbury told him That he and others had considered with themselves that it was fit for them to have Guards at Oxford and that to this purpose he had establisht a matter of Fifty men persons Ibid. p. 21. of quality and that he had entrusted Capt. Wilkinson with the Command of them and in case any violence should be offered by the King they would repel Force with greater Force Now tho' all this be nothing but a bundle of forged lies yet it plainly declares that no fewer than all the men of quality in England who are zealous for the Reformed Religion and Civil Rights yea the whole Body of sincere Protestants were to be drawn and hook't within the verge of this Plot and all their Lives and Fortunes brought to lye at the favour of the Government upon the pretended guilt of it For no man can think that the blood of the Earl of Shaftsbury and my Lord Howard would have attoned for so general and universal a Conspiracy could they but once have enjoyed the good fortune to have had credit given to these fellows Testimonies The designs which the Papists proposed unto themselves in their forging of this Conspiracy were greater than to be compassed and accomplished by the murder of Three or Four men in the way of legal proofs For as nothing less was aim'd at by means of this Sham Plot than the destroying all who withstand the Introduction of Popery and the establishment of a Popish Successor so many hundreds were to be taken out of the way besides those apprehended and accused ere ever the people of this Kingdom could be expected quietly to submit to be Papists slaves But because the foregoing Depositions do only speak in general of a Conspiracy wherein the Parliament and Nobles were engaged in conjunction with my Lord Shaftsbury to apprehend and cut off the King we shall therefore give an account from the Attestations of others of some few more who besides those publickly named were to have been charged with and perished under the pretended guilt of this forged Plot. And as we are assured from the mouth of a Gentleman of great Reputation and good Quality that John Smith said to him he could swear Treason against a hundred Protestants so Thomas Samson hath deposed upon Oath That John Macknamarra told him that Edward Ivie Bryan Haynes John Smith and Edward Turbervile did intend to swear Treason against Sir Patience Ward Sir Robert Clayton Sir Thomas Player Mr. Bethel who was then Sheriff of London Coll. Mildmay others Yea to that confidence were the mercinary perjured Rogues arrived of their being able to destroy men upon the suborn'd Testimonies that had been dictated unto them that one Mr. Shewin informs upon Oath his having heard John Macknamarra and Edward Turbervil offer on the 11th of August last to lay a wager That Mr. Sheriff Bethel Mr. Best and divers of the London Jury which had brought in an Ignoramus upon the Bill against Stephen Colledg would be hang'd before Christmas last And that the world may be fully convinced how the Papists and the Tools of one quality and another which they work by designed to extend the guilt of this pretended Protestant Plot we shall subjoyn the Deposition of one Ashlock who said That Edward Ivie immediately after Colledg ' s Tryal told him That as they had gotten the said Colledg to be cast and condemned so they were resolved to have the Duke of Monmouth and other Lords to drink of the same cup and to taste Colledg ' s fate So that no man who is a Protestant ought after the knowledg of this to believe himself safe or that he is exempted out of the number of those upon whom the Papists under the pretence of a Protestant Plot hoped to have wreck'd their Malice and Rage For they that dare entertain thoughts of destroying a Prince whom his greatest Enemies can charge with no fault save that he is a Protestant and zealous for the King's preservation and glory are not to be supposed to harbour any thoughts of Compassion and Mercy towards Protestants of an inferior rank Shall neither the Honour which the D. of M. hath brought to His Majesty and the Nation by his foreign Atchievements nor the peace and establishment which he restored to the King and Throne by his prudent and valorous subduing Insurrections at home be sufficient to protect him from the danger and infamy of a Scaffold no more than they were able to secure him from being excluded his Father and Prince's presence and deprived of those Offices which his Merit rendered him worthy of had he not any nearness by Nature and blood to His Majesty to plead for him Will nothing satisfie the Romish Crew unless they can bring the King to forget the Affections of Father as well as the Justice of a Monarch and make him abandon a person to their treachery and implacable wrath whom he is obliged by the Laws of nature to protect as his son whom he is bound by the Laws of England to defend him as his Subject And as all men discern whose Interest hath been served and whose revenge gratified in all the mortifications of this Loyal and Innocent Duke so we can easily guess in whose behalf and for the promoting of whose concernments this whole Protestant Conspiracy was invented and forged And having succeeded so well already as by their meer importunities to alienate his Majesty from a person whom he once seemed to value and love they are encouraged to hope the King will be prevailed with by suggestions of Treasonable Crimes to sacrifice him to their indignation and ire Having now traced and pursued this forged Plot so far as to see that it was calculated for no less than the whole Meridian of Great Brittain and that all the Patriots of Religion and Laws in both Nations were to be destroyed under a pretence of being combin'd in it we are in the next place to view it in the complexion and figure wherein it opened and unfolded it self against the Right Honorable the Earl of Shaftsbury and those other persons who have been either Indicted or only Committed for an alledged accession to it And as the Papists very well know that none had more opposed and
they are then hector'd and menaced and in the Phrase of our English Cicero threatned with a new sort of advancement Their method is when they accost a person to insinuate into and perswade him that he must needs know something of the Earl of Shaftsbury's designs against His Majesty and that if he will be so ingenuous as to confess he hath an opportunity presented him both of enriching himself and obtaining the favour of the Government But then in case the party assaulted prove so just to himself and the person whom they would decoy and Wire-draw him to accuse as to tell them he is altogether ignorant of any ill design projected or promoted by that Noble Peer he is in the next place told that they have an Information of a dangerous Nature against him and that seeing by declining to inform against my Lord Shaftsbury he makes himself unworthy of the Favour and Pardon of his Prince he must therefore expect to feel the rigor and severity of the Law This was the course that was steered towards Captain Wilkinson and this was the way wherein Sir Richard Graham late High Sheriff of Yorkshire and Sir Jonathan Jennings a Justice of the Peace in Rippon used towards William Brownrigg And as all the Nation is sufficiently made acquainted with and is fully sensible of what Captain Wilkinson for declining to be a false Witnes became exposed unto so I shall here subjoin the Mittimus by which Brownrigg upon his refusing to come in as an Evidence against the Earl of Shaftsbury was sent Prisoner by Sir Jonathan to York Castle upon a pretence that there was an Information of Treason against him and that it was no more but a pretence or what is equivalent a false Information appears from their discharging him sometime after without any prosecution West Rid. Comit. Ebor. Whereas an Information upon Oath of a Treasonable nature hath been made against Mr. William Brownrigg of Knares brough Atturney at Law These are therefore in His Majesties Name streightly to charge and command you or some of you to take into your custody the said Will Brownrigg whom I herewith send you and him safely keep till he shall be delivered by due course of Law Given under my Hand and Seal the 30th day os August 1681. Jonath Jenning All men who have any knowledg of the Law of England will say this is a strange and unusual Warrant and for which Sir Jonathan deserves to be called to an account but the true reason why Brownrigg was Committed upon a general charge was because really there was nothing against him save that Baynes had given Information to some here who transmitted it to Yorkshire that Brownrigg had acquainted Mr. Stringer Servant to the Earl of Shaftsbury that there was a Design carrying on against the Life of his Lord. Upon the whole it plainly appears that this pretended Protestant Plot which the Nation hath been so alarm'd with and filled with the noise of is nothing but a mere Invention of the Papists and of some ill men who under the disguise of being for the Crown and the Church serve and promote their treacherous and wicked Designs and that the combination against our Religion Laws Lives and Liberties is as strongly and effectually carried on under a false Accusation of Treason as it was heretofore pursued upon the score and account of Heresie And besides several Informations which are to be met with elsewhere relating to the concernment of See no Protestant Plot part 1. p. 25. very great men in this Papal Intrigue there are many other Depositions come to our hands declarative of the same Conspiracy which to prevent the encreasing our Animosities and the making the Settlement of the Nation desperate shall be at this time withheld and remain concealed And therefore without any further displaying or prosecution of this we shall in the next place address our selves to the consideration of the Credit of those Witnesses upon whose Testimony the whole Fabrick and Structure of a Protestant Plot is founded and built And tho' we are told by the Reverend Judges That the Credibility of the Witnesses lies not before a Grand Jury but that they are to remain satisfied in having See the Proceedings against the Earl of Shaftsbury p. 33. matter that is treasonable sworn before them by Two Witnesses that are prima facie credibil where by the way albeit prima facie credibil be in the Print yet it is not in the Manuscripts which we have had the fortune and opportunity to consult I say notwithstanding that we are told thus by the Judges yet we apprehend our selves justified both by the Law of the Land and the common Reason os Mankind in taking upon us to affirm that no man is to have his Name Reputation and Honour upon a Presentment detracted from much less his Loyalty to his Prince Impeached upon an Indictment and thereby his Life and Estate brought into danger save upon the Evidence of persons of good Credit and moral Fame The very words of the Statute of the 13 Car. 2. upon which my Lord Chief-Justice Ibid. was pleased to say That the Indictment against the Earl of Shaftsbury was principally founded because it not only contains the Treasons declared in the Statutes of the 25th of Edw. 3. but enlargeth them in many particulars I say that very Statute requires that the Witnesses be lawful and credible Besides it is a plain contradiction that a person should be supposed credible who either never had or hath forfeited his credit No man is capable of proving a Crime Legally but he that is reputed Morally honest All Histories as well Sacred as Prophane tell us How men of depraved Principles being influenced by those in Power or bribed and hired by Rewards have conspired to Swear against the Innocent Thus was Naboth murdered at the instigation of the Court upon the Testimony of perjured and suborned Witnesses And as his Crime was his standing for his Legal Right and not surrendring his Property and Inheritance to the Despotical pleasure of the Prince so he was both Tried and Condemned in the way of a Legal Form Nor ought it to appear strange to find a guiltless person Accused by false Witnesses of Treason seing the Holy and Innocent Jesus was Indicted and Murdered for no less Crime and that by the mouths of two Witnesses of the very complexion and stamp with ours and procured in the same way Whoever hath read Tacitus or Suetonius will be supplied with Instances enough of the slaughter of the chiefest Patriots of the Roman Liberty who were destroyed by the Depositions of false Witnesses set on and authorised by the commands of Soveraigns and encouraged by Rewards from the State Yea so prevalent are Malice and Revenge in some Pride Envy and Emulation in others and the love of Profit and Gain in many that neither the most provident and severe Laws to the contrary nor the Wisdom and Circumspection of the
to be Traytors but they must proclaim us arrant Fools Instead of endeavouring to hang us as Conspirators against the King they ought to beg us as Naturals and instead of sending us to the Tower and Newgate they should send us to Bedlam as the most proper place If we be so silly as they represent us we ought not to be indicted but to have Physick prescribed unto us And this Affair is not so fit for the Council Table and a Bench of Judges as for a Colledge of Physicians and a Company of Apothecaries Whosoever considers these fellows either with respect to their Morals or their Politicks or takes a view either of their Natural or their Civil Capacity will easily conclude that none but men wholly bereft of their Wits would entrust them with the knowledge of a Design which they were in no Condition to further and which rationally they must be conceived inclinable to betray And if we should believe that persons who are neither acquainted with the Histories of former times nor have themselves been conversant in any weighty Counsels crimportant Affairs should be guilty of such a folly and madness yet no man can believe such a thing of the Earl of Shaftsbury whom whatsoever his Enemies think or say otherwise of him yet they do all acknowledge him to be a person of great Wisdom Circumspection and Conduct When persons of a low Condition and of such proffigate Lives as the witnesses are known to be will pretend not only familiar access at all times to a person of high quality but their being upon the most weighty and hazareous Secrets of one of the wisest of men it is an Argument that all they say is Romance and Fiction Surely if there had been any Protestant Plot for the apprehending and deposing of the King either those of the Church of England or the Fanaticks would have known of it but as the latter do absolutely deny that ever they either had the least access to such a design or were any ways made acquainted with so even those of the Church of England who seem most forward out of hatred to Dissenters to believe a Protestant Conspiracy yet they are not able after all See No Protestant Plot part 1. p. 10. their enquiries concerning it and the great noise and clamour they have made about it to arrive at any prints or foot-steps of it There is this to evidence the truth and reality of a Popish Plot That it was detected both by Laicks and Priests of their own Communion whereas the first and principal Discoverers of this pretended Protestant Combination against His Majesty and the Monarchy lately were and may still be suspected to be Members of the Papal Church But what we have said against the Credibility of the Witnesses in general is nothing in comparison of what we have to alledg against every one of them in particular And we shall take them in the same order in our exposing of them as they were rank'd and brought forth by the Heranlds who best knew their Quality at the Old Baily And forasmuch as Mr. Booth was produced first we shall accordingly begin with him Tho' indeed to produce him at all and especially in the first place was no less than to discredit the Testimony of all the rest had they been persons of much better Reputation than they were And after the many Reflections which I have often made upon the Proceedings of that day and the manage of them I cannot but think that either the Council for opening disposing and applying of the Evidence were strangely infatuated or that they never intended the Jury should believe one word that was deposed and sworn before them otherwise they would never have begun with the Testimony of so infamous a fellow This Booth hath been guilty of and publickly branded vvith all sort of Crimes and Villanies Having of a Serving man or Steward commenced Parson he vvas justly suspended from the exercise of the Ministry and vvithal turned out of his living not only for Symony but for Debauchery He hath been also Indicted and Convicted for Clipping and Coining and had not His Majesty upon the importunity of some persons about him vouchsafed him a Pardon the Papists vvould have been prevented of this Witness against Protestants for the Rogue had been hang'd long ago Can any man think that he is a credible Witness to prove the best Protestants and chiefest men of Quality of England guilty of Treason who had been condemned himself as a Traitor for a crime of the basest and most ignominious kind I knovv that a Pardon may restore a person to be a Witness in Lavv but after one hath been Convicted for Crimes so prejudicial to States and Societies as Coining and Clipping are and vvhich none are found guilty of or liable unto but Villains of the basest Principles and most degenerate Natures it cannot be supposed that a Pardon vvill ever give them a fair Reputation in the World or restore them to any considerable Credit amongst men but that notwithstanding their being pardon'd they will be always lookt upon as fellows inclinable to be easily corrupted and ready to embark in any ill design Yea besides his being Convicted and Condemned for Treason he hath been also Indicted for Murder and tho' he came off yet all who were present at the Tryal say The presumption was great and accordingly preserve in their minds a suspicion of his guilt For the matter as it appeared against him lay thus namely That a certain boy having had occasion to know divers of his wicked and criminal practices Booth thereupon became apprehensive that the lad by discovering them might bring him to the punishments which he knew he deserved and therefore having set the youth upon a Horse he drove him into a River and pursu'd him to and fro till he was overthrown and drowned The positive swearing of a Varlet upon whom the presumption of so horrid a guilt does lye cannot in the judgment of all impartial men so much as fasten a Reproach much less support an Accusation of Treason against any person Nor will it in the issue turn to the honour of any that they have endeavoured to destroy the Life of a great Peer upon the Testimony of this profligate wretch I might add to those Crimes whereof he hath been Charged and Arraigned at Bars his having passed under a suspicion and undergone Accusations of poysoning not only a Gentleman's Horse whose Company upon the Road the designs which he had then in hand made him desirous to escape and avoid but of poysoning a young Maid or Girl from whose death he expected an advantage But there needs no more to blast the Credit of this wretch with all that are either wise or honest save his endeavouring first to suborn Capt. Wilkinson to swear falsely against the Earl of Shaftsbury and then deposing Treason against the Captain for not complying in so wicked a design And for a Jury to believe
in and joyn with him and he would have the Earl of Shaftsbury ' s head cut off and sham the whole Popish Plot. By this Deposition we are plainly led into this whole deviliâ—h Intrigue of charging Protestants with a Conspiracy against the Person of the King and the established Monarchy For Fitz Gerald being corrupted by the Papists and sâ—ch as manage their designs to sham off the Popish Plot and swear one upon Protestants he accordinly applies himself to every person whom he conceived with any probality entertain thoughts of prevailing upon And by dealing with men of no Principles and of most profligate Lives to whom were proposed great Offices and ample Rewards they have by degrees been able to muster up Nine or Ten Rascals most of which were before notoriously infamous and having clothed them with the stile of the King's Evidence they grow angry that their Testimony is not admitted to the reproach of our Religion and the destruction of many innocent persons Yea this wretch Hayn's consessed to one Mrs. Hall That he had been dealt with to form a Presbyterian See Colledge's Trial p. 42. Plot and that he was desired to corrupt and suborn one Everard and others to come over and promote the same Design And upon the Overtures which had been made him he not only told one Mr. Titon That he could frame a Presbyterian Plot and that there was Money to be gotten by doing it but he acknowledged to one Mr. Richards That he was employed and Ibid. p. 43. had an hand in putting the Plot upon Dissenting Protestants and that he was offered a Pardon and 500 l if he would swear such and such base things That is if he would accuse the Earl of Shaftsbary and other Loyal Patriots of Religion and English Liberties of being guilty of a Conspiracy against his Majesty and the established Government And the Fellow being in great want and having long before shipwrack't his Conscience he was easily brought to comply with this wicked and abominable Proposal For as he told Mowbray His necessitous Condition made him take desperate Resolutions and that to make his Fortune he would swear a Plot against the Presbyterians in reference to whom any plausable thing would be believed And that the World may know of how long standing this forged Conspiracy has been I shall here add something of Sampson's Deposition upon Oath before an Alderman of London which may serve further to enlighten this Affair He swears That John Macknamarra told him that Edward Ivey and Bryan Hayns agreed together in April last to swear Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury and that the Treason which they resolved to swear was That the said Earl should say That this King deserved more to be dethroned than Richard the second and that he the said Earl vvould dethrone the King and make England a Common-Wealth and that if the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury were once found that then they with Smith Turbervil and others would swear Treason against many more And as we may be sure that the Villan's being a Papist disposed him the more readily to venture upon a Design which was judged so subservient to the Romish Interest so it were worth the while to inform the World with what Court-Ministers and little Officers he secretly corresponded all the time he pretended to abscond But as those persons must be left to suffer by Justice of a Parliament so all the Discoveries relating to a close Converse between those Gentlemen and Hayns must be deferred till this whole matter fall under the Inspection of the Two Houses But so zealous of a sudden did the Rascal become in ruining Protestants upon this forged Plot That he not only called the Parliament at Oxford a company of Rogues because they would give the King no Money but that by doing Shaftsbury and other Protestants business they Colledge's Trial p. 44. would help him to Money out of the Phanatiks estates for they would rather damn their Souls to the Devil than that the Catholick Cause should sink If men did not chuse the being imposed upon and were not obstinate against conviction they might have been satisfied long ago that there was no Truth nor Reality in all the talk and noise which we have had concerning a Protestant Plot but that it is only the invention of ill men instructed and acted by the Papists for the retrieving the sinking Cause and Interest of the Catholick Church in these Nations And they have pitched upon Tools who are either wholly fearless of Damnation or such who upon a promise of Happiness in this world are resolved to venture it So that upon what hath been here with all Truth as well as Brevity represented concerning this Fellow Haynes I hope that at least all the sober part of Mankind will see cause for justifying the late Jury in their not believing his Testimony Nor have I insisted upon half the Crimes and gross Immoralities of his Life such as his forging a Letter to one Mr. Harbottle of Lincoln in order to cozen a Gentleman of Goods to the value of 200 l. And his marrying one Mrs. Mansfield and then turning her away after he had lived divers years with her and spent 500 l. which she brought him pretending she was but his Whore because they were not married according to the Form of the Church of England but after the Romish Fashion tho' he that is guilty of such things ought not to be believed unless the matter he swears carry a probability in it or be rendred morally certain by Circumstances which are either notorious or otherwise confirmed No instead of recounting such Wickednesses and Immoralities I have rather chosen to make him appear an infamous Rascal and one to whose Affidavit concerning a Protestant Plot no credit is to be given by declaring his own acknowledgments of the whole Forgery and upon what Motives and through whose Instigation he listed himself for a Witness and what was the end which the Managers of this Design proposed ultimately unto themselves with respect to which they reckon'd the murdering of innocent men would be esteem'd a holy and meritorious service And I shall only add to what hath been said That the wretch plainly contradicted himself in the face of the Court. For being asked by the Jury Whether he had not given an Information to a Justice of Peace concerning some design against the Earl of Shaftsbury he twice denied his having given such an Information to any save Secretary Jenkins yet upon my Lord Chief Justice's telling him that he did not observe the question and proposing it again to him he See Proceedings at the Old Baily p. 44 45. at last accknowledged that he had given an Information to Sir George Treby how Mr. Fitz-Gerald had both told the King and given it under his hand That the Earl of Shaftsbury was resolved to set the Crown upon his own head or otherwise to turn the Kingdom
seeing the words wherein alone the Treason must lye were owned to have been spoken above two year ago And for his being suborned by the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Shaftsbury to Swear Treason against the Duke of Ormond my Lord Chancellor of Ireland and Sir John Davies it is remarkable that he never testified any thing of that nature against them and what he did declare in relation to them or any others he referred himself for the truth of it to the Council-Books of that Kingdom or to such Depositions which had been either taken by the Council there or had been transmitted to them by others And as no man that is Master of sense and hath any knowledg of those two Honourable Persons will ever submit his Faith to receive so incredible a thing as that they should Suborn any man to swear falsly so Mr. Morley whose credit infinitely surpasseth that of the Witnesses who swore against him absolutely denies that they ever did or that he ever spake any such thing concerning them But they that can first invent and then get so absurd and impossible a thing as Transubstantiation received and believed may be pardoned both in forging and in hoping to vvin credit to things ridiculously foolish as well as abominably false Nor could so dull a Fable proceed from any but people of an Irish understanding neither vvill it obtain with any men but such as have renounced Reason as vvell as Honesty But there is yet a third and that a more signal Instance of the Papists endeavouring to involve the Protestants in Ireland under the guilt of a Plot against his Majesty and this displays and unfolds it self in the Accusation sworn against Mr. Hawkins The person charged is known to be an ingenious Gentleman and one vvho hath always acquitted himself as became Honour Discretion and Loyalty only it is his fortune to be a Protestant and was his unhappiness to be made acquainted vvith some of the Popish Designs against the Government which instead of furthering or concealing he communicated to My Lord Lieutenant That vvherewith he was charged doth in all things so quadrate with vvhat we have heard Svvorn against Protestants in England that we may boldly say they vvere all coined in the same Mint For one Mac-Gennis svvears That Mr. Havvkins told him he went for England to establish a Correspondency with my Lord of Shaftsbury and that be received a Commission from the said Earl for a Troop of Horse and one Mackoghlin deposeth That he was to be a Trooper under Mr. Hawkins and that he had three pounds from him towards the buying a Horse The very counterpart and direct parallel of what Booth informed against Capt. Wilkinson and vvhich he and Bains would have suborned the Captain to swear against the Earl of Shaftsbury and were both hammered in the same Forge But as the Devil and the Priests inspire the Papists with falshood and malice so God to over-rule and defeat their Rage and Treachery deprives them of common Wit and Understanding and gives them up to all prodigious folly and madness For as Mackoghlin never spake with Mr. Hawkins but once and that in the presence of another person and then he only endeavoured to have insinuated himself into his Acquaintance which Mr. Hawkins refused to admit him into so it is most certain that Mr. Hawkins never conversed with the Earl of Shaftsbury nor so much as at any time saw him And whereas it was sworn by Mackgennis That he should say he came to London to establish a correspondence with that Nohle Peer and that he received a Commission from him for a Troop of Horse The whole matter deposed is not only false but the condition which my Lord was at that time in being a Prisoner in the Tower shows the impossibility that such an Affair should be transacted between them at that season Neverthelss that Ingenious and Loya Gentleman was committed to the Castle of Dublin upon that Forged and Ridiculous Information and had not the Protestant Plot been so far detected as to be hissed off the stage by several Juries it might not only have cost Mr. Hawkins his Life but laid a foundation for superinstructing a Conspiracy upon wherein most Protestants of quality and zeal in that Kingdom would have been included and first or last charged with the guilt of it For there were no fewer than between Twenty or Thirty mustered up of a sudden to testisie a Protestant Plot persons who as they believe implicitely in matters of Religion they would likewise swear so for the Interest and Advantage of St. Patrick and the Holy Church And besides what they may reasonably be supposed to receive out of the Catholick Treasury for so seasonable and useful a Service as the Swearing innocent Protestants out of their Lives and Estates they had lately the confidence to petition the Council in Ireland that a maintenance might be allowed them from the State And it seems but just and equal that they should be afforded the same encouragement which those listed and employed upon the like Service in England have and that they should have some consideration for the sale of their Souls tho they will be so reasonable as not to keep up that Commodity to the price which it goes at and is valued here And whereas fellows not only of a meer Irish understanding and breed but such as had conversed all their days in Bogs and whose most refined and improved knowledg is how with handsomeness to steal Horses and Cows might be found deficient in art and cunning to manage this Meritorious work of Swearing with some consistency to themselves and one another there are some lately arrived there from hence who having been trained and instructed here by the grand Masters of the Forgery and Affidavit-School may be able to edifie and discipline those raw blades in the necessary Virtues of Perjury and Impudence and acquaint them with the laudable method of rehearsing the Depositions which had been given them to con without administring any symptoms of their speaking by rote But their understandings not being so docile and flexible as their Consciences they make daily some unfortunate and fatal misadventure And their having publickly accosted the greatest persons with rude and insolent Menaces and their having threatned to accuse every one whom according to their knowledg of the measures of the World they do but apprehend to have offended them they have already so enfeebled their Credit with all sorts of men that they are altogether become useless and unserviceable It is far from my intention to bring all the natural Irish under this Character for tho most of them who continue Papists would esteem it not only venial but meritorious to cut a Protestants throat yet there are thousands of them who from some principles of Mankind and Bravery do detest the destroying Protestants in the base and creeping ways of Subornation and Perjury And we desire to be pardoned for this