But to return from this digression to Rapin. We learn from him, that Elizabeth herself, {47} whom no one will charge with over-tenderness, reprobated the cruelties practised upon the catholics. "Meanwhile," says he, "the queen sent for the judges of the realm, and sharply reproved them for having been too severe in the _tortures_ they had made these men suffer[22]." We have only to reflect on this passage of {48} Rapin, to appreciate the evidence furnished by the state trials of those days, the _actio in proditores_, and the reporters of "Criminels de Lege Majesté," so often cited by the enemies of the Jesuits. It was not only in catholic countries, we see, that the rack and other modes of torture were made the tests of truth; but they have been so long abhorred by Englishmen, that I fondly believed that there was not one among us who would allow himself to cite the efficacy of them as a proof in any argument. Their _inefficacy_, indeed, may justly be cited in testimony; for what they extort is in all probability false, what they fail to extort is in all probability true. If this reasoning be sound, how many blameless, how many virtuous men has the hand of party in this country consigned to cruel deaths[23]! In addition to what Rapin {49} states of Elizabeth, it is not irrelevant to add here what Camden reports of her on the same subject: he tells us expressly, that she thought most of the priests were innocent, or, which is the same thing, that she did not believe them guilty. His words are, _Plerosque tamen ex misellis his sacerdotibus exitii in patriam conflandi conscios fuisse non credidit_[24].