But
the utter impossibility of accounting, by any other hypothesis, for
those strange measures embraced by the court, as well as for
the numerous circumstances which accompanied them, obliges us to
acknowledge, (though there remains no direct evidence of it,[*]) that
a formal plan was laid for changing the religion, and subverting the
constitution of England; and that the king and the ministry were in
reality conspirators against the people. What is most probable in human
affairs, is not always true and a very minute circumstance overlooked in
our speculations, serves often to explain events which may seem the most
surprising and unaccountable.
* Since the publication of this History, the author has had
occasion to see the most direct and positive evidence of
this conspiracy. From the urbanity and candor of the
principal of the Scotch college at Paris, he was admitted to
peruse James II.'s Memoirs, kept there. They amount to
several volumes of small folio, all writ with that prince's
own hand, and comprehending the remarkable incidents of his
life, from his early youth till near the time of his death.
His account of the French alliance is as follows: The
intention of the king and duke was chiefly to change the
religion of England, which they deemed an easy undertaking,
because of the great propensity, as they imagined, of the
cavaliers and church party to Popery: the treaty with Lewis
was concluded at Versailles in the end of 1669, or beginning
of 1670, by Lord Arundel of Wardour, whom no historian
mentions as having had any hand in these transactions.
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