those on whose loyalty reliance could be placed from those who must be suspected of disloyalty; and the former class suffered for what the latter alone undertook. The line lay between the Catholic and the Jesuit parties, between those who would be satisfied with liberty of conscience and those who would not. Undoubtedly the Catholic body in England was much weakened thereby, and government owed not a little to the moderate Catholics; but however much the execution of Catholic policy was hampered, its direction was not diverted. Abstinence from political action was the basis of the pure Catholic position. The Jesuits held the wires of politics in their hands and directed the policy. They too affirmed purity of faith to be their motive. “Prosecution for matters of conscience,” remarks Halifax, “is very unjust; but great care ought to be taken that private conscience is not pleaded against the security of the public constitution. For when private conscience comes to be a justifiable rule of action, a man may be a traitor to the state and plead conscience for treason.”[97] Thus it may be accepted that Coleman’s correspondence between the years 1675 and 1678 was not of an entirely innocent character, but was concerned with matters of perilous import for the prosperity of the government and of the Church of England. Since it was not dropped, the negotiation must have proceeded either in the same line as that in which it lay at the end of 1675 or in another. Did the design drag on a weary course in the feeble hope of finding a parliament congenial to Roman Catholic ideas and of obtaining the king’s support in return for a substantial sum of money: or did the Catholic politicians change their tactics to discover a better opening? If the argument is thus far sound, answer can be made without hesitation. Early in that year Coleman and his party had found that in the event of a dissolution of Parliament they could not hope for a third declaration of indulgence and the reappointment of the Duke of York to the offices which he had formerly held. The design was thereupon altered to a scheme for bribing the existing parliament to petition for the recall to office of James, and to pass an act for general liberty of conscience. Coleman’s ideas were based on two miscalculations. He understood neither the temper of the English people nor the character of Charles II. The king was to him an amiable debauchee, caring only for his pleasures and his pocket. A sufficient present of money would induce him to retire from the management of affairs and console himself with his mistresses, leaving the reins of power for his brother to handle. As most men of his own and after times have thought the same, Coleman’s mistake is perhaps excusable. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not money, but power was what Charles wanted, and in the use of power, not of money, he was skilled. Any plan grounded upon this conception of his character was foredoomed to failure.