his information the fact of Berkshire’s correspondence with Coleman was not publicly known. Coleman had already been tried and executed, and at the trial a number of his letters were read as evidence against him, but among them none from Lord Berkshire. Until the publication of the correspondence by order of the House of Commons this was the only channel by which particular knowledge of it reached the world at large. The other letters were not published until December 1680. It must therefore be supposed that Scott obtained his knowledge of the earl’s correspondence privately. The only persons who had private knowledge on the subject were Lord Berkshire, the officials in whose custody the letters lay, and Coleman. Coleman was dead before Colonel Scott came into England, and the secretary of state by whom he was examined would have been most unlikely to furnish him with materials. It must therefore have been from Lord Berkshire himself that he obtained his information. But, it may be suggested, Scott may have drawn his bow at a venture, knowing merely that Berkshire was a prominent Catholic, and using his name as likely to gain credence for his story. The weight against this suggestion is heavy. If Scott had been for all he knew inventing the letters of which he spoke, he would surely have said more about them than he did. To mention them in so casual a manner would have been useless. The simplicity and directness of his relation points in this matter to its substantial truth. Another proof of genuineness has still greater force, the extreme moderation of the whole narrative. A scoundrel following in the track of Oates and Bedloe would never have concocted such a story. So far from being to his advantage, what Scott said might actually put him into a most unpleasant predicament. The chief point of the plot which Oates had discovered was the king’s assassination. The chief agents in it were said to be the Jesuits. All the informers who came after spoke to the same effect and tried to spice their tales still more highly. Scott said not a word about the Jesuits. He stated on his sole authority, one of the men who might be expected to know, that no harm was intended to the king. To some extent what he said is borne out by Berkshire’s letters. Passages in them must certainly have looked “a little oddly” to the government, and perhaps contained matters technically treasonable, but in nothing do they suggest any personal danger to the king. No one looking for the rewards of a professional informer would have acted as Colonel Scott. Nor did he ever seek these. He never came forward to give evidence against those condemned for the Plot. His name does not appear in the list of secret service money, doled out to the shameless witnesses for the crown. Nothing more is known of him.[104] His information may be accepted as genuine. Clearly then there was some truth in the discovery of a Roman Catholic conspiracy in the year 1678. What Lord Berkshire