[*]
* College's trial.
The country party had intended to make use of Fitzharris's evidence
against the duke and the Catholics; and his execution was therefore
a great mortification to them. But the king and his ministers were
resolved not to be contented with so slender an advantage. They
were determined to pursue the victory, and to employ against the
exclusionists those very offensive arms, however unfair, which that
party had laid up in store against their antagonists. The whole gang of
spies, witnesses, informers, suborners, who had so long been supported
and encouraged by the leading patriots, finding now that the king was
entirely master, turned short upon their old patrons and offered their
service to the ministers. To the disgrace of the court and of the age,
they were received with hearty welcome, and their testimony, or rather
perjury, made use of in order to commit legal murder upon the opposite
party. With an air of triumph and derision, it was asked, "Are not these
men good witnesses, who have established the Popish plot, upon whose
testimony Stafford and so many Catholics have been executed, and whom
you yourselves have so long celebrated as men of credit and veracity?
You have admitted them into your bosom: they are best acquainted with
your treasons: they are determined in another shape to serve their king
and country: and you cannot complain, that the same measure which
you meted to others, should now, by a righteous doom or vengeance, be
measured out to you.
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