510 Arguments relative to the Fabrication of the Gunpowder Plot. [Jau. 1, 
sion of an enormous act of cruelty and 
wickedness, when he turned on-shore, 
on a desolate and uninhabited island, 
and deserted a pregnant girl, the vic- 
tim of his own and the lewdness of his 
dissolute companions! Contemporary 
history has laid that horrible crime to 
his charge, but servile and heroical 
history has buried itin panegyric. ‘'l'o 
the justice or injustice of his trial and 
‘execution of Doughty, we have no clue. 
In our pompous details of the victories, 
and the virtues, and moderation, of our 
glorious deliverer, William of Orange, 
not to mar so fine a subject of panegy- 
ric, we are under the necessity of over- 
looking the affair of Maestricht : 
———. Where is he, 
Famed for that brutal piece of bravery! 
Nor must one word be hazarded on the 
massacre of Glencoe. The question 
must not be asked, why the nation was 
unable to deliver itself? nor our expe- 
rience detailed, how much heavier the 
little finger of influence has proved, 
than could, possibly, the loins of pre- 
rogative. BRvrTus. 
—< 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
i) ee I request some of your cor- 
respondents to inform me ona 
point of history, which has long beena 
subject, in my estimation, worthy an 
enlightened attention. 
I am aware, that so soon as [ pro- 
pose my question, I shall array against 
me a host of opponents : but irritability 
and illiberal feeling, as they are well 
known, will only serve, in my mind, 
tofix the unknown sum of their wisdom 
and enlightened information, which 
must be reckoned to proceed in the in- 
verse ratio. What is wanting in argu- 
ment,is generally made up by invective. 
We inherit from our fathers, the be- 
lief, that some two centuries ago, the 
Catholics of this kingdom were leagued 
in a plot to blow up the House of Par- 
liament with gunpowder; at a time 
when, as the Act expresses it, “the 
king’s’ most excellent majesty, the 
queen, the prince, and all the lords 
spiritual and temporal, and commons, 
should have been assembled in the 
upper house,” namely, on the 5th day 
of November, 1605. The Act of the 
3 J. c. 1. subsequently enforced by 
more Acts than one, enjoins that, on 
every anniversary, thanks shall be pub- 
licly given to Almighty God, in every 
cathedral and church, for the most 
happy deliverance which the Act com- 
memorates. The form of thanksgiving 
prescribed by the convocation in 1662, 
and afterwards altered in the second 
year of William and Mary, has regu- 
larly been read in all churches; and, 
for aught that appears, will continue to 
be read, so long as the English church 
retains her supremacy. And so far as 
this evidence goes, the good Protes- 
tants of these kingdoms judge not 
unreasonably, in receiving the fact of 
the gunpowder conspiracy as a fact 
substantiated by all the yerity of clear 
and positive testimony. 
May I he allowed, however, to state, 
that, as the Catholics of this realm are 
disposed to deny the construction 
which their Protestant brethren have 
put upon the evidence; so I, though a 
Protestant, am also disposed to ques- 
tion the fairness of the representations, 
upon which the common persuasion 
has rested, and the justice of the com- 
memoration which every fifth of 
November has witnessed. In plain 
terms, I believe that the whole concern 
was a fabrication of the secretary 
Cecil’s, got up with his knowledge, if 
not under his superintendance ; and, 
that the ostensible conspirators, the 
men who were punished, and who are 
now annually execrated for this ‘‘in- 
vention, so inhumane, barbarous, and 
cruel,” were as much its inventors, as 
men who are tempted, and incited, and 
decoyed by others, into a conspiracy, 
are chargeable with its contrivance. 
And as to the odium, which the 5th of 
November serves to stir up against the 
general body of Catholic subjects ; this 
is as justly heaped upon them, as any 
other obloquy which may be extended 
to a whole body, for the crime of a few 
individuals. And, as to the rancour in 
which some good Protestants indulge, 
on this account and at this season, 
towards the present generation of 
Catholics, it is, doubtless, as just as 
the contempt with which an inflated 
and infidel Jew might regard us Gen- 
tiles, for the idolatries of our fore- 
fathers. 
If you ask me for my authority, I 
well remember some years since to 
have met with a book which contained 
these same sentiments, and which de- 
fended them in a manner very far su- 
perior to my ability; and by which I, 
for one, was convinced: but the title, 
and the precise mode of defence, have 
entirely escaped me. ‘The impression 
produced remains unabated. If any 
of 
