332

HISTOBY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XX.

I6S4.

assisted in ransacking. When therefore he applied for reward,

- he was dismissed, not merely with a refusal, but with a sternreprimand. He went away mad with greediness and spite.There was yet one way in which he might obtain both moneyand revenge; and that way he took. He made overtures to thefriends of the prisoners. He and he alone could undo what hehad done, could save the accused from the gallows, could coverthe accusers with infamy, could drive from office the Secretaryand the Solicitor who were the dread of all the friends of KingJames. Loathsome as Taaffe was to the Jacobites, his offerwas not to be slighted. He received a sum in hand: he wasassured that a comfortable annuity for life should be settled onhim when the business was done; and he was sent down intothe country, and kept in strict seclusion against the day oftrial*

Meanwhile unlicensed pamphlets, in which the Lancashireplot was classed with Oates’s plot, with Oangerfield’s plot, withFuller’s plot, with Young’s plot, with Whitney’s plot, were cir-culated all over the kingdom, and especially in the countywhich was to furnish the jury. Of these pamphlets the longest,the ablest, and the bitterest, entitled a Letter to SecretaryTrenchard, was commonly ascribed to Ferguson. It is not im-probable that Ferguson may have furnished some of the ma-terials, and may have conveyed the manuscript to the press.But many passages are written with an art and a vigourwhich assuredly did not belong to him. Those who judge byinternal evidence may perhaps think that, in some parts of thisremarkable tract, they can discern the last gleam of the ma-lignant genius of Montgomery. A few weeks after the ap-pearance of the Letter he sank, unhonoured and unlamented,into the grave. **

* Kingston. For the fact that a bribe was given to Taaffe, Kingstoncites the evidence taken on oath by the Lords.

** Narcissus Luttrell’s Diary, Oct. C. 16‘J4.