about what was doing in the office of the Secretary of State. A
deposition had been sworn against one zealous royalist. A warrant
was preparing against another. These intimations saved several of
the malecontents from imprisonment, if not from the gallows; and
it was impossible for them not to feel some relenting towards the
awakened sinner to whom they owed so much.

He however, in his secret conversations with his new allies, laid
no claim to merit. He did not, he said, ask for confidence. How
could he, after the villanies which he had committed against the
best of Kings, hope ever to be trusted again? It was enough for a
wretch like him to be permitted to make, at the cost of his life,
some poor atonement to the gracious master, whom he had indeed
basely injured, but whom he had never ceased to love. It was not
improbable that, in the summer, he might command the English
forces in Flanders. Was it wished that he should bring them over
in a body to the French camp? If such were the royal pleasure, he
would undertake that the thing should be done. But on the whole
he thought that it would be better to wait till the next session
of Parliament. And then he hinted at a plan which he afterwards
more fully matured, for expelling the usurper by means of the
English legislature and the English army. In the meantime he
hoped that James would command Godolphin not to quit the
Treasury. A private man could do little for the good cause. One
who was the director of the national finances, and the depository
of the gravest secrets of state, might render inestimable
services.

Marlborough's pretended repentance imposed so completely on those
who managed the affairs of James in London that they sent Lloyd