conspiracies against his life; and he was incapable of saying what he did not believe. In the same memorial he shows too much magnanimity to assert that the birth of the Prince of Wales was an imposture. 3. A paper by Charnock, undeniably one of the conspirators, addressed to James, contains a marked allusion to William's possible death in a short time; which even Macpherson calls a delicate mode of hinting the assassination-plot to him. Macpherson, _State Papers_, i. 519. Compare also _State Trials_, xii. 1323, 1327, 1329. 4. Somerville, though a disbeliever in James's participation, has a very curious quotation from Lamberti, tending to implicate Louis XIV. (p. 428); and we can hardly suppose that he kept the other out of the secret. Indeed, the crime is greater and less credible in Louis than in James. But devout kings have odd notions of morality; and their confessors, I suppose, much the same. I admit, as before, that the evidence falls short of conviction; and that the verdict, in the language of Scots law, should be Not Proven; but it is too much for our Stuart apologists to treat the question as one absolutely determined. Documents may yet appear that will change its aspect. I leave the above paragraph as it was written before the publication of M. Mazure's valuable _History of the Revolution_. He has therein brought to light a commission of James to Crosby, in 1693, authorising and requiring him "to seize and secure the person of the Prince of Orange, and to bring him before us, taking to your assistance such other of our faithful subjects in whom you may place confidence." _Hist. de la Révol._ iii. 443. It is justly observed by M. Mazure, that Crosby might think no renewal of his authority necessary in 1696 to do that which he had been required to do in 1693. If we look attentively at James's own language, in Macpherson's extracts, without much regarding the glosses of Innes, it will appear that he does not deny in express terms that he had consented to the attempt in 1696 to seize the Prince of Orange's person. In the commission to Crosby he is required not only to do this, but _to bring him before the king_. But is it possible to consider this language as anything else than an euphemism for assassination? Upon the whole evidence, therefore, I now think that James was privy to the conspiracy, of which the natural and inevitable consequence must have been foreseen by himself; but I leave the text as it stood, in order to show that I have not been guided by any prejudice against his character. [194] _Parl. Hist._ 991. Fifteen peers and ninety-two commoners refused. The names of the latter were circulated in a printed paper, which the house voted to be a breach of their privilege, and destruction of the freedom and liberties of parliament. Oct. 30, 1696. This, however, shows the unpopularity of their opposition.