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religion, indeed, where it is established, is better cfitted than the protestant for supporting an abso-lute monarchy; but would any man have thoughtof it as the means of acquiring arbitrary authorityin England , where it was more detested thaneven slavery itself?

It must be allowed, that the difficulties, andeven inconsistencies, attending the schemes of theCabal, are so numerous and obvious, that onefeels at first an inclination to deny the reality ofthose schemes, and to suppose them entirely thechimeras of calumny and faction. But the utterimpossibility of accounting, by any other hypo-thesis , for those strange measures embraced bythe court, as well as for the numerous circum-stances, which accompanied them, obliges us toacknowledge (though there remains no directevidence of it *) that a formal plan was laid for

1 Since the publication of this History , the Author hashad occasion to see the most direct and positive evidence ofthis conspiracy. From the humanity and candor of theprincipal of the Scotch College at Paris, he was admitted t<Jperuse James the Second’s Memoirs , kept there. Theyamount to several volumes of small folio, all writ with thatprince's own hand , and comprehending the remarkableincidents of his life from his early youth till near the timeof his death. His account of the French alliance is asfollows : The intention of the king and duke was chiefly tochange the religion of England, which they deemed an easyundertaking , because of the great propensity, as theyimagined, of the cavaliers and church party to popery :The treaty with Lewis was concluded at Versailles in theend of 1669, or beginning of 1670, by Lord Arundel of

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H A ,PLXVI.