to be near the being acted over again. Both city and country were full of many indecencies that broke out on this occasion.”[72] Revolutionary designs were charged upon the Whig party generally; and Nonconformists unjustly came in for a large share of suspicion. [Sidenote: STEPHEN COLLEDGE.] [Sidenote: 1681.] The first-fruit of this reaction appears in the discovery of a pretended new plot against the life of the King, arranged to be executed during his stay in the City of Oxford. The person made the scape-goat of the offence was Stephen Colledge, who had acquired some notice as a violent Protestant, and who had mixed himself up with Oates and the other witnesses against the convicted Papists. Colledge being indicted at the Old Bailey, had no true Bill found against him. Political opinions then influenced Jurymen to an extent which shocks us now that everything is done to banish prejudice from our Courts of Justice; and therefore the Ministers of the Crown, who managed this prosecution, after being baffled by the Whigs, who formed the panel in London, determined to carry the case down to Oxford, where they could empanel a number of Tories.[73] A true bill being found at last, Chief Justice North tried the prisoner; and, on that occasion, behaved in such an infamous manner, that it was thought probable, if he had lived to see another Parliament, he might have been impeached.[74] Nothing which any lawyer would now consider treasonable, could be proved against Colledge; yet he was convicted, condemned, and executed. The fate of this man excited a great degree of interest at the time, he being considered a rebel by one party, and a martyr by another. Letters written to the Secretary of State after Colledge’s death indicate the eager desire of the former to establish his guilt;[75] and, if we may credit other letters, Nonconformists showed much sympathy with the sufferer. One writer thought it very credible, that the Presbyterians at Lewes did, against the execution of Colledge, keep a very strict fast; and it was supposed they of Chichester did the like, but the circumstance wanted confirmation. Another correspondent the same month reported that the general discourse in that Cathedral City turned upon the man’s innocence, and described how much he had been wronged, and how his blood would cry for vengeance against the rogues who took away his life.[76] It is a strange circumstance, but it illustrates the irrational feeling of the moment, that some people, who were hounding this poor fellow on to the gallows, called him a Papist, and some called him an Anabaptist. At Colledge’s execution the Sheriff evinced much anxiety to know whether he belonged to the Presbyterians, to the Independents, or to the Church of England. Colledge--after having previously declared that he never had been a Papist--replied, that before the Restoration, he was a Presbyterian; that since then he had conformed to the Episcopal Church, until he saw so much persecution of