■william and hart.

57

without great risk of being insulted. A report that arms were ciiap.hidden in a house sufficed to bring a furious mob to the door. ' [( . 9 ~ -The mansion of one Jacobite gentleman in Kent had beenattacked, and, after a fight in which several shots were fired,had been stormed and pulled down* Yet such riots were by-no means the worst symptoms of the fever which had inflamedthe whole society. The exposure of Fuller, in February, had,as it seemed, put an end to the practices of that vile tribeof which Oates was the patriarch. During some weeks, indeed,the world was disposed to be unreasonably incredulous aboutplots. But in April there was a reaction. The French and Irishwere coming. There was but too much reason to believe thatthere were traitors in the island. Whoever pretended that hecould point out those traitors was sure to be heard with atten-tion ; and there was not wanting a false witness to avail himselfof the golden opportunity.

This false witness was named Robert Young. His history Young’s

. plot.

was in his own lifetime so fully investigated, and so much of hiscorrespondence has been preserved, that the whole man isbefore us. His character is indeed a curious study. His birth-place was a subject of dispute among three nations. TheEnglish pronounced him Irish. The Irish, not being ambitiousof the honour of having him for a countryman, affirmed that hewas born in Scotland. Wherever he may have been born, it isimpossible to doubt where he was bred: for his phraseology isprecisely that of the Teagues who w 7 ere, in his time, favouritecharacters on our stage. He called himself a priest of theEstablished Church: but he was in truth only a deacon; andhis deacon’s orders he had obtained by producing forged certi-ficates of his learning and moral character. Long before theRevolution he held curacies in various parts of Ireland; but hedid not remain many days in any spot. He was driven from one* Narcissus Luttreil’s Diary.