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 guess; for surely the execution of a man whom he sets down as guilty of a design to murder the two royal brothers, could not, even in the judgment of persons much less accustomed than Sir John to palliate the crimes of princes, be looked upon as an act of blameable severity; but it was thought, perhaps, that for the purpose of conveying a calumny upon the persons concerned, or accused of being concerned, in the Rye-Houseplot, an affected censure upon the government would be the fittest vehicle. "The fact itself, that Rumbold did, in his last hours, solemnly deny the having been concerned in any project for assassinating the King or Duke, has not, I believe, been questioned.* It is not invalidated by the silence of some historians: it is confirmed by the misrepresentation of others. The first question that naturally presents itself, must be, was this declaration true? The asseverations of dying men have always had, and will always have, great influence upon the minds of those who do not push their ill opinion of mankind to the most outrageous and unwarrantable length; but though the weight of such asseverations be in all cases great, it will not be in all equal. It is material therefore to consider, first, what are the circumstances * It is confirmed, beyond contradiction, by Lord Fountainhall's account of his trial and execution. which may tend, in particular cases, to diminish their credit; and next, how far such circumstances appear to have existed in the case before us. The case where this species of evidence would be the least convincing, would be where hope of pardon is entertained; for then the man is not a dying man in the sense of the proposition, for he has not that certainty that his falsehood will not avail him, which is the principal foundation of the credit due to his assertions. For the same reason, though in a less degree, he who hopes for favour to his children, or to other surviving connections, is to be listened to with some caution; for the existence of one virtue, does not necessarily prove that of another, and he who loves his children and friends may yet be profligate and unprincipled, or, deceiving himself, may think, that while his ends are laudable, he ought not to hesitate concerning the means. Besides these more obvious temptations to prevarication, there is another, which, though it may lie somewhat deeper, yet experience teaches us to be rooted in human nature. I mean that sort of obstinacy, or false shame, which makes men so unwilling to retract what they have once advanced, whether in matter of opinion, or of fact. The general character of the man is also in this, as in all other human testimony, a circumstance of the greatest 2 མ་་་་ moment. Where none of the above mentioned objections occur, and where, therefore, the weight of evidence in question is confessedly considerable, yet is it still liable to be balanced or outweighed by evidence in the opposite scale. "Let Rumbold's declaration, then, be examined upon these principles, and we shall find, that it has every character of truth, without a single circumstance to discredit it. He was so far from entertaining any hope of pardon, that he did not seem even to wish it; and indeed, if he had had any such chimerical object in view, he must have known, that to have supplied the government with a proof of the Rye-House assassination plot, would be a more likely road at least, than a steady denial, to obtain it. He left none behind him, for whom to entreat favour, or whose welfare or honour were at all affected by any confession or declaration he might make. If, in a prospective view, he was without temptation, so neither if he looked back, was he fettered by any former declaration; so that he could not be influenced by that erroneous notion of consistency, to which, it may be feared, that truth, even in the most awful moments, has in some cases been sacrificed. His timely escape in 1683, had saved him from the necessity of making any protestation upon the subject of his innocence at that time; and the words of the 5 |