3 o HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

chap. with the same terror, and were thence inclined .i.xrx. to undertake the most perilous enterprises. Besides»6Sj. the city, the gentry and nobility in several conn' 'ties of England were solicited to rise in arms.Monmotith engaged the earl of Macclesfield»lord Brandon, Sir Gilbert Gerrard, and othergentlemen in Cheshire; lord Russel fixed a corre-spondence with Sir William Courtney, Sir FrancisRowles, Sir Francis Drake, who promised toraise the west; and Trenchard in particular, whohad interest in the disaffected town of Taunton,assured him of considerable assistance from thatneighbourhood. Shaftesbury and his emissary,Ferguson, an independent clergyman and a restlessplotter, managed the correspondence in the city,upon which the confederates chiefly relied. Thewhole train was ready to take fire ; but wasprevented by the caution of lord Russel , whoinduced Monmouth to delay the enterprise.Shaftesbury in the mean time was so much affectedwith the sense of his danger, that he had leftIris house, and secretly lurked in the city; medi-tating all those desperate schemes, which disap-pointed revenge and ambition could inspire. Heexclaimed loudly against delay, and representedto his confederates, that having gone so far, andintrusted the secret into so many hands, therewas no safety for them but in a bold and desperateprosecution of their purpose. The projects weretherefore renewed: Meetings of the conspiratorswere appointed in different houses, particularlyin Shephard's, an eminent wine-merchant in the