Oates and Bedloe are two names which have come down to posterity abhorred and execrated by every honest man. These infamous and abandoned men accused the Jesuits, the Pope, the Kings of France and Spain, many English noblemen, and some scores of thousands of the English citizens, of a plot so absurd, as to make, in our days, every one ashamed of repeating it. And yet the generality of the common people, and the greater part of the higher classes, at the time believed in its reality. Nothing else was talked of, and all the cares of the government, the activity of the parliament, and the energy of the citizens, were exerted to protect the nation from an imaginary impending ruin. This ought to teach us how the passions and spirit of party deprive us of our right feeling and judgment, and how dangerous it is to give way to the impulse of the moment in times of great commotion. Many noblemen and citizens were arrested upon the deposition of these scoundrels. Many suffered the extreme penalty of the law. Father Ireland, on the deposition of Oates, for which the latter was afterwards condemned for perjury, was sentenced to death and executed; and soon after, the provincial and four other Jesuits met with the same fate upon the same absurd and unjust accusation. We do not pretend to say, however, that the Jesuits at such an epoch had quite renounced their intrigues and treacherous projects, and were not to be looked after. No; their restless and enterprising spirit rendered, and does still render, them very dangerous, and their conduct in Protestant countries may be said, with justice, to be a permanent conspiracy against the welfare and the interests of all other communities; and they themselves, as we said, confess as much. But they were guiltless of the crime of which they were accused, and for which they suffered. How much more mischief they were the cause of in the reign of the despotic and bigoted James II.! It was at their instigation that this bigoted monarch annulled the test act, imprisoned many Protestant bishops, had as many as four Roman Catholic priests consecrated bishops at a time, and had formed a plan for converting England to the Popish idolatry. Yet all these arbitrary and foolish acts resulted also at last in the great advantage of the English nation. The Jesuits’ influence had grown so powerful under James’s reign, that Father Peter was admitted into the privy council, and we do not hesitate to say, that the favour James shewed to the members of the Company and to the Catholics in general, and the authority they exercised over him, was one of the most efficient causes of raising up the people of England’s feelings of indignation, and to bring them to resolve upon and achieve the glorious Revolution of 1688. CHAPTER XIII. 1600-1753. AMERICAN MISSIONS.