one hand, he incurred the hatred of those who called themselves the Protestant party, for his obstinacy in exposing himself to be murdered by the papists; and, on the other hand, he was to be assassinated by the catholics, for not doing what, according to this supposition, he himself most wished to do. It would be far beyond our bounds, to notice the numberless gross absurdities to which Oates and the other witnesses deposed upon oath. It may appear almost incredible, in the present day, how such extravagant fictions should be successfully palmed upon the deluded public; but at that time there was not the same ready communication by the press, which now allows opportunity to canvass an extraordinary charge as soon as it is brought forward. The public at large had no means of judging of state matters, but from the bribed libellers of faction, and the haranguers in coffee-houses, who gave what colour they pleased to the public news of the day.[307] Besides, the catholics had given an handle against themselves, by their own obscure intrigues; and it was impossible to forget the desperate scheme of the Gunpowder Plot, by which they had resolved to cut off the heresy in the time of King James. The crime of the fathers was, in this case, visited on the children; for no person probably would, or could, have believed in the catholic plot of 1678, had not the same religious sect meditated something equally desperate in 1606. It is true, the gunpowder conspiracy was proved by the most unexceptionable testimony; and the plot in Charles' time rested on the oaths of a few boldfaced villains, who contradicted both themselves and each other; but still popular credulity was prepared to believe any thing charged on a sect, who had shown themselves so devoted to their religious zeal, and so little scrupulous about means to gratify it. Another main prop of the Catholic plot was the mystery in which it was involved. If inconsistencies were pointed out, or improbabilities urged, the answer was, that the discovery had not yet reached the bottom of the plot. Thus the disposition of the vulgar to believe the atrocious and the marvellous, was heightened by the stimulus of ungratified curiosity, and still impending danger. "Every new witness," says North, "that came in, made us start--now we shall come to the bottom. And so it continued from one witness to another, year after year, till at length it had no bottom but in the bottomless pit."[308] Thus, betwixt villainy and credulity, the spirits of the people were exasperated and kept afloat, till the bloodhounds of the plot, like those formerly used in pursuit of marauders, had drenched their scent, and annihilated their powers of quest in the best blood in the kingdom.