the Doctor has more Gods than one to swear by."61

Sherlock would, perhaps, have doubted whether the government to
which he had submitted was entitled to be called a settled
government, if he had known all the dangers by which it was
threatened. Scarcely had Preston's plot been detected; when a new
plot of a very different kind was formed in the camp, in the
navy, in the treasury, in the very bedchamber of the King. This
mystery of iniquity has, through five generations, been gradually
unveiling, but is not yet entirely unveiled. Some parts which are
still obscure may possibly, by the discovery of letters or
diaries now reposing under the dust of a century and a half, be
made clear to our posterity. The materials, however, which are at
present accessible, are sufficient for the construction of a
narrative not to be read without shame and loathing.62

We have seen that, in the spring of 1690, Shrewsbury, irritated
by finding his counsels rejected, and those of his Tory rivals
followed, suffered himself, in a fatal hour, to be drawn into a
correspondence with the banished family. We have seen also by
what cruel sufferings of body and mind he expiated his fault.
Tortured by remorse, and by disease the effect of remorse, he had
quitted the Court; but he had left behind him men whose
principles were not less lax than his, and whose hearts were far
harder and colder.

Early in 1691, some of these men began to hold secret
communication with Saint Germains. Wicked and base as their
conduct was, there was in it nothing surprising. They did after
their kind. The times were troubled. A thick cloud was upon the