-98 HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

chat that purpose. Coleman had remitted two hundredIXvii. thousand pounds to promote the rebellion in"78. Ireland ; and the French king was to land a greatarmy in that island. Boole, who wrote theSynopsis , was particularly marked out for assas-sination ; as was also Dr. Stillingfleet, a contro-versial writer against the papists. Burnet tells us,that Oates paid him the same compliment. Afterall this havoc, the crown was to be offered tothe duke, but on the following conditions; thatlie receive it as a gift from the pope ; that heconfirm all the papal commissions for offices andemployments ; that he ratify all past transactions,by pardoning the incendiaries , and the murderersof his brother and of the people ; and that heconsent to the utter extirpation of the protestantreligion. If he refuse these conditions, he himselfwas immediately to be poisoned or assassinated.To pot James must go ; according to the expressionascribed by Oates to the Jesuits.

Oates , the informer of this dreadful plot,was himself the most infamous of mankind. Hewas the son of an Anabaptist preacher, chaplainto colonel Pride ; but having taken orders in thechurch , he had been settled in a small living bythe duke of Norfolk. He had been indicted forperjury ; and by some means had escaped. Hewas afterwards a chaplain on board the fleet;whence he had been dismissed on complaint ofsome unnatural practices, not fit to be named.He then bee j me a convert to the catholics ; buthe afterwards boasted, that his conversion was