JAMES THE SECOND.

95

hopeless by any man whose passions had not deprived him of chap.the power of calculating chances. i685.

In this mood were many of the outlaws who had assembled Their

. * corre-

on tlie Continent. The correspondence which they-kept upspon-with England was, for the most part, such as tended to excite England,their feelings and to mislead their judgment. Their infor-mation concerning the temper of the public mind was chieflyderived from the worst members of the Whig party, from menwho were plotters and libellers by profession, who werepursued by the officers of justice, who were forced to sculk indisguise through back streets, and who sometimes lay hid forweeks together in cocklofts and cellars. The statesmen whohad been the ornaments of the Country Party, the statesmenwho afterwards guided the counsels of the Convention, wouldhave given advice very different from that which was given bysuch men as John Wildman and Henry Danvers.

Wildman had served forty years before in the parlia-mentary army, but had been more distinguished there as anagitator than as a soldier, and had early quitted the professionof arms for pursuits better suited to his temper. His hatredof monarchy had induced him to engage in a long series ofconspiracies, first against the Protector, and then against theStuarts. But with Wildman’s fanaticism was joined a tendercare for his own safety. He had a wonderful skill in grazingthe edge of treason. No man understood better how to in-stigate others to desperate enterprises by words which, whenrepeated to a jury, might seem innocent, or, at worst,ambiguous. Such was his cunning that, though alwaysplotting, though always known to be plotting, and thoughlong malignantly watched by a vindictive government, heeluded every danger, and died in his bed, after having seentwo generations of his accomplices die on the gallows.*

* Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion, book xiv.; Burnet’s OwnTimes, 1.546. G25 ; ; Wade’s and Ireton’s Narratives, Lansdowne MS. 1152.;

West’s information in the Appendix to Sprat’s True Account.