"Garnet, however, had received other commu"nications. We have seen how great his apprehen"sions were, that some among the Catholics, would, "in opposition both to their religion and their 66 true interest, have recourse to violent measures, "and how anxiously and earnestly he strove "to prevent them. Here the question arises,— "whether it was his duty to communicate to "Government these apprehensions and their

causes? Upon this, Garnet would naturally pause it is repugnant to the feelings of every "honourable man to turn informer. Perhaps "Garnet did not know any thing specific, or any "thing that he could demonstrate by regular proof; "but he knew the hostile spirit of the ministers to "the Catholics: this, he must fear, would lead "them to proceedings of extravagant and undistinguishing cruelty; and he believed also, or at "least strongly hoped, that his paternal and salutary councils had withdrawn these turbulent (( spirits from the precipice to which they were (6 rushing. Add to this, that the communications

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of which we are now speaking, had informed "Garnet rather of the existence of a general angry mind among some of the Catholics, in consequence of the very unexpected treatment "which they received from James, immediately "after his accession to the throne, than of a "settled or organized plan of aggression. Now, "this spirit of general and indistinct turbulence

"produces nothing serious. Viewing the situation "of Garnet in this light, every candid person " will make great allowances for the line of con"duct which he pursued, and hestitate before he "condemns him he might be justly found guilty by a court of law, while a court of honour "would think gently of his case. He appears to "the writer, to have pronounced a just sentence " on himself, when, after intimating his own doubt, "whether his conduct had been quite blameless, "in not revealing the communications of which "we are now speaking, he asked pardon of his "sovereign for concealing whatever it had been "his duty to reveal."

You now have the whole passage before You: How different is the import of the whole from that of the solitary sentence which You have transcribed? what sentiments does it contain, that a gentleman might not honourably express? I must add, that both editions of my " Book of the Roman Catholic "Church," were published before the appearance of the last volume of Doctor Lingard's history; and that the Doctor mentions in it, from manuscripts in his possession, some circumstances unfavourable to Garnet, which, until his publication of them, were unknown:-a strong proof of Doctor Lingard's historical candour and truth.

6. Speaking of Garnet's equivocations, You tell me in page 277," that no expression of indig"nation, no phrase of contempt for Garnet's doc"trine of equivocation, escapes me."

Do I not in my Historical Memoirs, call the doctrine of equivocation, "odious and pernicious?" Do I not say, that "it saps the foundations of "honourable intercourse in society, and fair deal"ing between man and man?" Do I not cite Mr. Alban Butler, and Bossuet's condemnation of it?

After all,- what does Garnet's guilt, in respect to all his equivocations amount to? It is, that being interrogated in the view of the rack and the gibbet, upon questions to which he could not give direct answers without criminating himself, and which could not therefore be justly or even honourably required, he had recourse to equivocation! Does he upon this account deserve the most opprobrious expressions in the English language? Is he not rather an object of compassion? If You compare his conduct with that of Cranmer, in the last six days of his life; with the letters of the supreme head of your church to secretary Davison, Sir Amyas Paulet, or King James, respecting the unfortunate Mary, or with the answers of the Bishops to Charles I. when he consulted them on Lord Strafford's case,-will Garnet suffer by the comparison?-but I repeat once more, I do not acquit,-I do not justify Garnet; I only commiserate him.

7. In page 248, -You say to me," That, "after I had perused in the original papers, the full "confirmatiou of the most atrocious circumstances

• Vol. II. p. 169.

" of the conspiracy, I should still affirm that the "result of my researches had been favourable to "the Catholic cause, has excited in many the most painful impressions."

Why my expression should excite pain in any person, I am utterly at a loss to conceive. Surely, when so respectable a portion of the nation, as his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, is criminated, it must give pleasure to every honourable mind, to see them wholly, or even partially vindicated.

You deny that the recent searches at the State Paper office have been favourable to them.-1. Is it not favourable to them, that these searches have produced the declaration of the Earl of Northumberland, that James had commissioned him to make promises to the Catholics, if they would not oppose his succession ?*

2. Is it not favourable to them, that these searches have led to the discovery of nothing which justifies the oft told, oft refuted, and now revived tale, that the general body of the Catholics were implicated in the conspiracy? or which shows, that a single Catholic, except those whose guilt is upon record, was concerned in it?

3.-Is it not favourable to them, that the charge

* Interrogatories, of the 23d of November.-See the Earl's letter in Miss Aikin's Memoirs of the Court of James I. (Vol. I. p. 51.) James's own denials of his promises to the Catholics are of no value. "There are too many instances," as Dr. Lingard justly observes, (Hist. Vol. VI. p. 33, note 41), "in "which he has denied his own words."

of the Jesuits having administered an oath of secrecy to the conspirators, and also administered to them the sacrament to add solemnity to their oaths, is now proved, by the testimony of Winter and Fawkes, to be absolutely false?

Winter says, that" the five," -Catesby, Piercy, Winter, Fawkes, and one of the Wrights,—" admi"nistered the oath to each other in a chamber, in "which no other body was, and then went to ano"ther room to receive the sacrament."* Fawkes says, that "the five did meet at an house in the

fields beyond St. Clements Inn, where they did "confer and agree with the plot, and there they "took a solemn oath and vow, by all their force "and power to execute the same, and of secrecy "not to reveal any of their fellows, but to such as "should be thought fit persons to enter into that "action; and in the same hour, they did receive "the sacrament in the house of Gerard the Jesuit, "to perform their vow of secrecy aforesaid. But "that Gerard was not acquainted of their pur

pose." The whole of this deposition was read at the trial, with the exclusion of the passage exculpating Gerard. In the original, a line is drawn before the exculpatory sentence, with the words huc husque in the hand-writing of Sir Edward Coke: "who," as Doctor Lingard justly observes,

*Winter's Confession, p. 50.

+ Fifth declaration of Fawkes, taken November 9; confirmed by him, November 10.