WILLIAM AND MART.

329

with reports of conspiracies. But Trenchard was both an activepublic servant and an earnest Whig. Even if he had himselfbeen inclined to lenity, he would have been urged to severityby those who surrounded him. He had constantly at his sideHugh Speke and Aaron Smith, men to whom a hunt after aJacobite was the most exciting of all sports. The cry of themaleeont.ents was that Nottingham had kept his bloodhounds inthe leash, but that Trenchard had let them slip. Every honestgentleman who loved the Church and hated the Dutch went indanger of his life. There was a constant bustle at the Secre-tary’s Office', a constant stream of informers coming in, andof messengers with warrhnts going out. It was said too, thatthe warrants were often irregularly drawn, that they did notspecify the person, that they did not specify the crime, and yetthat, under the authority of such instruments as these, housesw r ere entered, desks and cabinets searched, valuable paperscarried away, and men of good birth and breeding flung intogaol among felons.* The minister and his agents answeredthat Westminster Hall was open; that, if any man had beenillegally imprisoned, he had only to bring his action; thatjuries xvere quite sufficiently disposed to listen to any person■who pretended to have been oppressed by cruel and gripingmen in power, and that, as none of the prisoners whose wrongswere so pathetically described had ventured to resort to thisobvious and easy mode of obtaining redress, it might fairly beinferred that nothing had been done which could not be justi-fied. The clamour of the malecontents however made a con-siderable impression on the public mind; and at length, a trans-action in which Trenchard was more unlucky than culpable,brought on him and on the government with which he was con-nected much temporary obloquy.

CHAP.

xx.

J6M.

* Letter to Trenchard, 1694.