garden-wall near the Thames, from whence he leaped into the water, but as he could not swim was drowned. An attempt to escape was also made by Layer; but being brought back, he was examined at great length, and with some success. Much information was also gained from the papers, none from the answers, of Plunkett. As for Carte, the same whose historical writings have since gained him a high and deserved reputation, he fled betimes to France.

At the news of the arrest of Layer, Lord North, who had been principally in communication with that person, fearing the consequences, passed over under a feigned name to the Isle of Wight, intending from thence to make his way to the Continent; but he was discovered, seized, and brought back to London. Some time afterwards Lord Orrery was sent to the Tower; at a later period still, the Duke of Norfolk. But the evidence against these noblemen being insufficient, or the Government less eager to press it, they were, after some confinement, released. The Bishop of Rochester was less fortunate. The proofs against him might also have been thought too scanty, had it not been for a very trifling and ridiculous but most convincing incident. The case was as follows: There was no doubt that the letters to and from Jones and Illington were of a treasonable nature; the point was to prove that these names were designed for the Bishop. Now it so happened that Mrs. Atterbury, who died early this year, had a little before received a present from Lord Mar in France of a small spotted dog called Harlequin; and this animal having broken its leg, and being left with one Mrs. Barnes to be cured, was more than once mentioned in the correspondence of Jones and Illington. Mrs. Barnes and some other persons were examined before the Council on this subject, and they, supposing that at all events there could be no treason in a lap-dog, readily owned that Harlequin was intended for the Bishop of Rochester. There were many other collateral proofs; but it was the throwing up of this little straw which decisively showed from what quarter blew the wind.

Had the proofs against Atterbury been less strong, or his abilities less dangerous, the Ministers would probably have shrunk from the unpopularity of touching him. As it was, they hesitated during three months; but at length, on the 24th of August, a warrant being issued, the Bishop was arrested at the Deanery, and brought before the Council. Though taken by surprise, his answers to their questions showed his usual coolness and self-possession; and he is said to have concluded with the words of the Saviour: "I tell you, ye will not believe; and if I also ask you, ye "will not answer me, nor let me go.' 11 After three quarters of an hour's examination he was sent to the Tower privately in his own coach, without any public notice or disturbance.

"If

The arrest of a Bishop, for the first time since the illomened precedent of James the Second, was, however, no sooner known than it produced a general clamour. The High Churchmen had always inveighed against the Government as neglecting the Establishment and favouring the Dissenters, and this new incident was of course urged in confirmation of the charge. They called it an outrage upon the Church and the Episcopal Order; and they boldly affirmed that the plot had no real existence, and was a mere Ministerial device for the ruin of a political opponent. Atterbury had also great influence among the parochial clergy, not only from the weight of his abilities, but from his having so long stood at the head of their party in Convocation. Under the pretence of his being afflicted with the gout, he was publicly prayed for in most of the churches of London and Westminster; and there was spread among the people a pathetic print of the Bishop looking through the bars of a prison, and holding in his hand a portrait of Archbishop Laud. The public ferment was still further increased by rumours (I fear too truly founded) of the great harshness with which Atterbury was treated in the Tower. "Such "usage, such hardships, such insults as I have undergone,"

* St. Luke, xxii. 67, 68.

66

said the Bishop himself on his trial, "might have broke a "more resolute spirit, and a much stronger constitution "than fall to my share. I have been treated with such "severity, and so great indignity, as I believe no prisoner "in the Tower of my age, infirmities, function, and rank ever underwent." ."* He was encouraged, or permitted, to write private letters which were afterwards pried into, and made use of to support the accusation against him. He was restricted in his only consolation - the visits of his beloved daughter **; nor was he at first allowed to prepare freely for his defence with his son-in-law, Mr. Morice.*** Every thing sent to him was narrowly searched; even some pigeon-pies were opened: "it is the first time," says Pope, "dead "pigeons have been suspected of carrying intelligence!"+

It was amidst great and general excitement that the new Parliament met on the 9th of October. The King's Speech gave a short account of the conspiracy:-"I should less "wonder at it," he said, "had I, in any one instance since "my accession to the throne, invaded the liberty or pro"perty of my subjects." With equal justice he observed on the infatuation of some Jacobites and the malice of others, "By forming plots they depreciate all property that is "vested in the Public Funds, and then complain of the low "state of credit; they make an increase of the national ex"penses necessary, and then clamour at the burthen of "taxes, and endeavour to impute to my government, as "grievances, the mischiefs and calamities which they alone "create and occasion." The first business of the Commons, after again placing Mr. Compton in the Chair, was to hurry through a Bill suspending the Habeas Corpus Act for one

Speech, May 11. 1723.

** He writes to Lord Townshend, April 10. 1723, "I am thankful for "the favour of seeing my daughter any way; but was in hopes the restraint "of an officer's presence in respect to her might have been judged need"less."

*** Preface to his Correspondence, p. vi. Mr. Morice used to stand in an open area, and the Bishop to look out of a two-pair of stairs window, and thus only were they allowed to converse!

Pope to Gay, Sept. 11. 1722.

year. Mr. Spencer Cowper, and Sir Joseph Jekyll, observed that the Act had never yet been suspended for so long a period, and proposed six months, declaring, that at the end of that period they would, if necessary, readily agree to a further suspension. Yet notwithstanding the popularity and plausibility of this amendment, it was rejected by 246 votes against 193.

The next subject with both Houses was the Pretender's Declaration. It appears that James had been so far deluded by the sanguine hopes of his agents, or by his own, as to believe that the British people were groaning under a state of bondage and oppression, and that the King himself was ready to cast off an uneasy and precarious Crown. Under these impressions, he issued from Lucca, on the 22d of September, a strange manifesto, proposing, that if George will quietly deliver to him the throne of his fathers, he will, in return, bestow upon George the title of King in his native dominions, and invite all other States to confirm it; with a promise to leave his succession to the British dominions secure, if ever, in due course, his natural right should take place. This declaration was printed and distributed in England. Both Houses expressed their astonishment at its "surprising insolence:" it was ordered to be burnt by the common hangman; and a joint Address was presented to His Majesty, assuring him that the designs of the public enemy shall be found "impracticable against a Prince rely"ing on and supported by the vigour and duty of a British "Parliament, and the affections of his people."

Walpole, availing himself of the general resentment, next proposed to raise 100,000 7. by a tax upon the estates of Roman Catholics. The project of Stanhope to relieve them from the Penal Laws, which was still on foot at the beginning of the South Sea Scheme*, had been arrested, first by the crash, and then by his death. Moderation to the Roman Catholics had always been one of his leading principles of

* Mr. Brodrick to Lord Midleton, January 24. 1720. Refer to my first vol. p. 326.

government. Other maxims now prevailed; a system of general and indiscriminate punishment, which was, at least, nearly allied to persecution, and which, if it did not find every Roman Catholic a Jacobite, was quite sure to make him so. Many, said Walpole, had been guilty - an excellent reason for punishing all! With a better feeling did Onslow (afterwards Speaker) declare his abhorrence of persecuting any others on account of their opinions in religion. Sir Joseph Jekyll, after praising the moderation and wisdom of the King, wished he could say the same of those who had the honour to serve him. But the proposal of Walpole was quite in accordance with the temper of the times; it was not only carried by 217 against 168, but, on a subsequent motion, was even extended to all nonjurors.* The House, however, favourably entertained a singular petition from the family of the Pendrills, praying to be exempted from the tax on account of the services of their ancestors in preserving Charles the Second after the battle of Worcester. **

Amongst the foremost evils (and they were many) of this persecuting spirit, was the frightful degree of perjury which it produced. For as the estates of nonjurors were to be taxed, it became necessary to determine precisely who were nonjurors or not; in other words, almost the whole nation was to be summoned to swear allegiance to the Government. Nor was it explicitly stated what would be the consequence of this refusal, but a sort of vague threat was hung over them; and it seemed a trap in which, when once caught, men might hereafter be subjected not only to the largest fines, but even to forfeiture and confiscation. "I saw a "great deal of it," says Speaker Onslow, "and it was a "strange, as well as ridiculous, sight to see people crowd

I am sorry to find Coxe assert, in a blind panegyrical spirit, that "though scarcely conformable to justice, the policy of this measure was 66 unquestionable." How far more correct and enlightened were the views (published by himself) of Speaker Onslow! See Coxe's Walpole, vol. i. p. 175., and vol. ii. p. 555.

** Commons' Journals, vol. xx. p. 210.