Ireland affirmed,
that he was in Staffordshire all the month of August last, a time when
Oates's evidence made him in London. He proved his assertion by good
evidence; and would have proved it by undoubted, had he not most
iniquitously been debarred, while in prison, from all use of pen, ink,
and paper, and denied the liberty of sending for witnesses. All these
men, before their arraignment, were condemned in the opinion of the
judges, jury, and spectators; and to be a Jesuit, or even a Catholic,
was of itself a sufficient proof of guilt. The chief justice,[**] in
particular, gave sanction to all the narrow prejudices and bigoted fury
of the populace. Instead of being counsel for the prisoners, as his
office required, he pleaded the cause against them, browbeat their
witnesses, and on every occasion represented their guilt as certain
and uncontroverted. He even went so far as publicly to affirm, that
the Papists had not the same principles which Protestants have,
and therefore were not entitled to that common credence, which the
principles and practices of the latter call for. And when the jury
brought in their verdict against the prisoners, he said, "You have done,
gentlemen, like very good subjects, and very good Christians, that is
to say, like very good Protestants, and now much good may their thirty
thousand masses do them;" alluding to the masses by which Pickering was
to be rewarded for murdering the king.
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