Whitehall by night, and kill Cromwell as he came out in the confusion. He had bribed a great number of accomplices, many of them in the palace itself, and had probably a considerable number of fellow conspirators, for he had a hundred swift horses in stables in the neighbourhood, on which he and his confederates might escape, the deed being done. All this was with the privity and approbation of Charles, Clarendon, and the rest of that Court, and shows the state of moral principle in it, and which, after the Restoration, broke over England like a pestilence. They were constantly dabbling in attempts at assassination, and in the Clarendon papers themselves we have Clarendon's own repeated avowals of his satisfaction in them. He styles these base assassins "brave fellows and honest gentlemen," and thinks it a pity that any agent of the Protectorate abroad should not have his throat cut. But Sindercomb's wholesale bribery led to the detection of the plot. Amongst those tampered with was Henry Toope, a Life Guardsman, who revealed the scheme. On the 8th of January, 1657, Sindercomb attended public worship in the evening at Whitehall Chapel. Toope, Cecil--who had been engaged in the construction of the infernal machine--and Sindercomb were arrested, and having been seen about General Lambert's seat, it was examined, and there was found a basketful of the most inflammable materials--strong enough, it was said, to burn through stones--and a lighted slow-burning match, calculated to reach the combustibles about midnight. There were found also holes bored in the wainscot, to facilitate the communication of the fire, and of draughts to encourage it. Toope and Cecil gave all the information that they could, but Sindercomb was obstinately silent, and being found guilty by a jury of high treason, was condemned to die on Saturday, the 13th. But the evening before, his sister taking leave of him, contrived to carry some poison to him, and the next morning he was found dead in his bed.