saying so, that Godfrey communicated Oates's charges to Coleman
merely for the purpose of 'pumping' him and surprising some secret.
If so he acted foolishly.

*Pollock, p. 154.

In fact, Godfrey was already 'stifling the plot.' A Government
official, he was putting Coleman in a posture to fly, and to burn
his papers; had he burned all of them, the plot was effectually
stifled. Next, Godfrey could not reveal the secret without
revealing his own misprision of treason. He would be asked 'how he
knew the secret.' Godfrey's lips were thus sealed; he had neither
the wish nor the power to speak out, and so his knowledge of the
secret, if he knew it, was innocuous to the Jesuits. 'What is it
nearer?' Coleman was reported, by a perjured informer, to have
asked.*

*State Trials, vii. 1319. Trial of Lord Stafford, 1680.

To this point I return later. Meanwhile, let it be granted that
Godfrey knew the secret from Coleman, and that, though, since
Godfrey could not speak without self-betrayal--though it was 'no
nearer'--still the Jesuits thought well to mak sikker and slay him.

Still, what is the evidence that Godfrey had a mortal secret? Mr.
Pollock gives it thus: 'He had told Mr. Wynnel that he was master
of a dangerous secret, which would be fatal to him. "Oates," he
said, "is sworn and is perjured."'* These sentences are not thus
collocated in the original. The secret was not, as from Mr.
Pollock's arrangement it appears to be, that Oates was perjured.