3 oo HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

chap. Notwithstanding these objections, great at-txvii. ten lion was paid to Oates’s evidence , and theplot became very soon the subject of conversation,and even the object of terror to the people. I heviolent animosity , which had been excited a gain IIthe catholics in general, made the public swallowthe grossest absurdities when they accompaniedan accusation of those religionists: And the morediabolical any contrivance appeared, the betterit suited the tremendous idea entertained of aJesuit. Dauby likewise, who stood in oppositionto the French and catholic interest at court, waswilling to encourage every story, which mightserve to discredit that party. By his suggestion,when a warrant was signed for arresting Coleman,there was inserted a clause for seizing his papers;a circumstance attended with the most importantconsequences.

Coieman’s Coleman , partly on his own account, partly

letters. jjy orders from the duke, had been engaged ina correspondence with father la Chaise, with thepope’s nuncio at Brussels, and with other catholicsabroad; and being himself a fiery zealot, busyand sanguine, the expressions in his letters oftenbetrayed great violence and indiscretion. Hiscorrespondence, during the years 1674, 1675,and part of 1676, was seized, and contained manyextraordinary passages. In particular he said to laChaise, “ We have here a mighty work uponcc our hands, no less than the conversion of three“ kingdoms, and by that perhaps the utter fub-cc doing of a pestilent heresy , which has a long