other source or circumstance whatever, I do declare it to be my solemn conviction that the entire was planned and conducted, from beginning to end, by Cecil, Secretary of State to James the first. I do not intend here to enter into the particulars which led me to this conclusion, nor, indeed, is this the place for so doing. One only document, therefore, I shall notice, and that is the official report drawn up by Levinus Moncke, and throughout corrected by his master the Secretary, in his own hand-writing.[1] When perusing this elaborate statement, it appeared to me, that certain passages could not have been expunged, or particular interlined amendments made by Cecil, if he had not been well acquainted with the plot before the delivery of the letter to Lord Monteagle. If Doctor Lingard, perhaps the ablest of England's Historians, had personally inspected these papers, he probably would have been more decided in his account of this horrid Anti-Catholic conspiracy.
In concluding the few desultory observations, which have been considered necessary to explain some passages in the present part of this collection, I may be permitted to add, that they were undertaken with reluctance, and are ended without regret. Ungrateful, indeed, must have been the task, to turn over the crimsoned annals of a people, whose calamities have classed them mongst the most persecuted of mankind. One great consolation, however, was afforded, by the reflection that the day of persecution has passed away; that the children of the tyrant and the slave, the oppressor and the oppressed, now mingle, without distinction, in the great mass of society; and
- ↑ Another paper, in the hand-writing of the King, (directing certain queries to be put to John Johnson, alias Guy Fawkes,) deserves attention, as a curious record of the cruelty and pedantry of that weak and worthless Monarch. It thus concludes, " If he will not otherwise confesse, the gentler tortures are to be first applied unto him, et sic, per gradus, ad ima tenditur, and so God speed your good work.!"—From the orig. MS.
