one conscience for yourself, and another for the council, I pray God forgive you; I do.' And turning to the Justice-General, he said, 'My Lord, I trouble your Lordships no further.'"*

It will be remembered, that Colonel Rumbold, who, by marrying a maltster's widow, had become the proprietor of the Rye-House, was accused of having lent his house for the assassination. Yet, as far as I remember, this accusation depends on the authority of none but Rumsey and West. His answer to it I shall relate in the words of Mr. Fox, who has added such valuable remarks to the narrative, that I could not wish for a better conclusion to this part of my enquiry. When relating the fate of those who came over with Argyle, he says:

"Rumbold, covered with wounds, and defending himself with uncommon exertions of strength and courage, was at last taken. However desirable it might have been thought, to execute in England a man so deeply implicated in the Rye-House plot, the state of Rumbold's health made such a project impracticable. Had it been attempted, he would, probably, by a natural death, have disappointed the views of a government, who were eager to see brought to the block, a man whom they thought, or pre

tended to think, guilty of having projected the assassination of the late and present King. Weakened as he was in body, his mind was firm, his constancy unshaken; and notwithstanding some endeavours that were made by drums and other instruments, to drown his voice when he was addressing the people from the scaffold, enough has been preserved of what he then uttered, to satisfy us, that his personal courage, the praise of which has not been denied him, was not of the vulgar or constitutional kind, but was accompanied with a proportionable vigour of mind. Upon hearing his sentence, whether in imitation of Montrose, or from that congeniality of character, which causes men, in similar circumstances, to conceive similar sentiments, he expressed the same wish which that gallant nobleman had done; he wished he had a limb for every town in Christendom. With respect to the intended assassination imputed to him, he protested his innocence, and desired to be believed upon the faith of a dying man; adding, in terms as natural as they are forcibly descriptive of a conscious dignity of character, that he was too well known, for any to have had the imprudence to make such a proposition to him. He concluded with plain, and apparently sincere, declarations of his undiminished attachment to the principles of

liberty, civil and religious; denied that he was an enemy to monarchy, affirming, on the contrary, that he considered it, when properly limited, as the most eligible form of government; but that he never could believe that any man was born marked by God above another, for none comes into the world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him.'•

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Except by Ralph, who, with a warmth that does honour to his feelings, expatiates at some length upon the subject, the circumstances attending the death of this extraordinary man have been little noticed. Rapin, Echard, Kennett, Hume, make no mention of them whatever; and yet, exclusively of the interest always excited by any great display of spirit and magnanimity, his solemn denial of the project of assassination imputed to him in the affair of the Rye-House plot, is in itself a fact of great importance, and one which might have been expected to attract, in no small degree, the attention of the historian. That Hume, who has taken some pains in canvassing the degree of credit due to the different parts of the RyeHouse plot, should pass it over in silence, is the more extraordinary, because, in the case of the

* Ralph, i. 872.

popish plot, he lays, and justly lays, the greatest stress upon the dying declarations of the suf ferers. Burnet adverts, as well to the peculiar language used by Rumbold, as to his denial of the assassination; but having before given us to understand, that he believed that no such crime had been projected, it is the less to be wondered at, that he does not much dwell upon this further evidence in favour of his former opinion. Sir John Dalrymple, upon the authority of a paper which he does not produce, but from which he quotes enough to show, that if produced it would not answer his purpose, takes Rumbold's guilt for a decided fact, and then states his dying protestations of his innocence, as an instance of aggravated wickedness. It is to be remarked too, that although Sir John is pleased roundly to assert, that Rumbold denied the share he had had in the Rye-House plot, yet the particular words which he cites neither contain, nor express, nor imply, any such denial. He has not even selected those, by which the design of assassination was denied, (the only denial that was uttered,) but refers to a general declaration made by Rumbold, that he had done injustice to no man; a declaration which was by no means inconsistent with his having been a

* Dalrymple's Memoirs, i. 141.

party to a plot, which he, no doubt, considered as justifiable, and even meritorious. This is not all the paper referred to is addressed to Walcot, by whom Rumbold states himself to have been led on; and Walcot with his last breath denied his own participation in any design to murder either Charles or James. Thus, therefore, whether the declaration of the sufferer be interpreted in a general, or in a particular sense, there is no contradiction whatever between it and the paper adduced; but thus it is, that the character of a brave, and, as far as appears, a virtuous man, is most unjustly and cruelly traduced. An incredible confusion of head, and an uncommon want of reasoning powers, which distinguish the author to whom I refer, are, I should charitably hope, the true sources of his misrepresentation; while others may probably impute it to his desire of blackening, upon any pretence, a person whose name is more or less connected with those of Sydney and Russell. It ought not, perhaps, to pass without observation, that this attack upon Rumbold is introduced only in an oblique manner: the rigour of government destroyed, says the historian, the morals it intended to correct, and made the unhappy sufferer add to his former crimes, the atrocity of declaring a falsehood in his last moments. Now, what particular instances of rigour are here alluded to, it is difficult to