If he is successfully persuaded to take part in such an act, the persuasion must be regarded as tantamount to force, for persuasion of the king to commit treason against himself is absurd. And the position of a man declaring his intention to accomplish this change is exactly that of Coleman and the Jesuit party in England. There can be no doubt that the subjects who took part with Charles II in the treaty of Dover were guilty of high treason, none the less because the man who was king acted in concert with them. And similarly, none the less because they expressed the intention of bribing the king to assist their design, no doubt can exist that Coleman and his associates were brought by their schemes under the penalty of the same crime. Such was the state of the Roman Catholic designs—the real Popish Plot—in England at the close of the year 1675. The direction in which they turned during the next three years is now to seek. At the outset the chief part of the evidence fails. Until his arrest in September 1678 Coleman continued his foreign correspondence,[86] but in comparison with the letters of earlier date the portion of it preserved is meagre indeed. Above all, no such exposition of his schemes as Coleman sent to La Chaize exists to afford a clue to the tangled and mysterious allusions with which his letters abound. The only two of Coleman’s later correspondents whose letters are extant were St. Germain and Cardinal Howard. The last written by St. Germain from Paris bears the date October 15, 1678, but with this exception all his letters belong to the year 1676. They are partly occupied with business of slight connection with politics. A scheme of the Duchess of York for the increase of an English Carmelite convent at Antwerp was pressed upon the French court. Rambling intrigues undertaken for the purpose finally succeeded in breaking down Louis XIV’s reluctance, the convent was allowed to plant colonies in the French Netherlands, and the irritation caused to the duchess by the delay was allayed by a splendid present of diamonds made her in secret by the King of France.[87] St. Germain’s letters also show that intrigues were being ceaselessly carried on in the French and Jesuit interest throughout the year 1676 by Coleman and his party. They do not show at all clearly of what nature those intrigues were. After the failure in England caused by his indiscretion Coleman probably did not accord him full confidence. St. Germain’s complaints of his treatment were constant; and he was always in want of money.[88] Nor does the Italian correspondence throw much greater light. Cardinal Howard’s letters extend with somewhat longer intervals from January 1676 to the end of the following year. They tell still less of the political intrigues. The business passing through Howard’s hands was considerable. He was concerned with the difficult business of keeping the Duke of York on good terms with the Pope.