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time, nor so little care as to leave such papers to be seized, after so fair a warning, Your Majesty knowing very well there was no order for seizing his papers till the night before your departure. The clerks of the council are busy in decyphering more of his letters: as any thing of consequence arriveth, I shall not fail to give Your Majesty an account, as being, &c.

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Burnet was correct in saying "Coleman had a whole day to make his escape, if he thought he was in any danger. And he had conveyed all his papers out of the way; only he forgot a drawer under the table, in which the papers relating to 74, 75, and a part of 76, were left." But he is not equally accurate when he says, speaking of the King's going to Newmarket, "This was censured as very indecent levity in him, to go and see horse-races, when all people were possessed with this extraordinary discovery, to which Coleman's letters had given an universal credit." One would suppose he meant that Coleman's letters had come out before he went to Newmarket; but he probably means only that this discovery made people censure his levity in having gone.

A Council.

To the King.

March 1680.

Mr. Hyde speaks to an order for allowance of money to witnesses to be brought up from Ireland. Thinks the Duke of Ormond should be acquainted with it, and refuses money from the Treasury, without an order from the King. The Lord President (Shaftesbury), incensed that an order of the Council should be questioned, got up and left the Council; but nobody followed him.

Letters to Lord Essex.

Feb. 2, 1675.

His Majesty declared his resolution to suppress all sorts of recusants.-Enquiry to be made when any great persons left out of the presentment.-All priests to leave the kingdom by 1st of March.-Conventicles to be suppressed.-To be determined in council next day.

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May 18. Confesses he is melancholy; for he speaks in Parliament as men fence in the dark—“ Speak what I think, and mean well, but very uncertain when I do good or hurt by it."

Dec. 26, 1676.

For your other letter, your Excellency states all things very right: what a wise and honest man proposes to himself is what is his duty; some things better to suffer for, than gain by the contrary.

Letters to the Duke of Ormond.

Sept. 8, 1677. Threats from the Spaniards of breaking with us, and seizing merchants' effects, on account of Salines and Fonseca.-Alarm on 'Change; "it gives occasion to a sad reflection, that he who is over all the world beaten, should threaten us."

Sept. 18.

Ministers inform against Rutherfort.-Correspondence of sectaries in Ireland with those of Scotland.

Newmarket, Oct. 12.

"The town is full of public ministers, to watch what the arrival of the Prince (of Orange) will produce.-I do not believe he and his uncle have one word beyond what Newmarket may justify; so that I believe the foreign ministers will be hard put to it, to give an account to their superiors of their journey hither."

Nov. 6.

Answer to application for pay to general officers.-Lord Essex had made a saving.

No levies to be made for France.

Dec. 18.

Dec. 25.

Condoles with his gout; but expects some pity for himself, who is like to have gout and parliament together.

Jan. 1, 1678.

The King refuses a recommendation concerning the Provost of Dublin, "saying, that where there are many young men in a college that are not to be dispensed with, he knoweth no reason why those that are elder should; and to forbid the youth of the college any indulgence to that

appetite, and at the same time to bring women into the college to be always in sight, is like the Welsh hook, a puller-to, and a putter-from."

Jan. 15.

Several distastes of the Speaker, but the adjournments only held forth.

March 5.

Directions for holding the Parliament of Ireland.

66

Upon many accounts, His Majesty finding it absolutely necessary to increase his army in that kingdom, and that when it is so, there will be less need, upon any sudden occasion, to arm either the Scots, the non-conformists, or the old militia, none of which can be done without some danger, be judgeth, ten thousand men, besides officers, is the number he would constantly maintain there."

April 13.

Upon the French King's declaration on what terms he would have peace, and that before the 10th of May, he says, "never was so great a part of Christendom, united, treated so de haut en bas, since it was Christendom."

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