From the obloquy which the appearance of submission to the usurpers
brought upon him, his biographer has been very diligent to clear
him, and indeed it does not seem to have lessened his reputation.
His wish for retirement we can easily believe to be undissembled; a
man harassed in one kingdom, and persecuted in another, who, after a
course of business that employed all his days and half his nights,
in ciphering and deciphering, comes to his own country and steps
into a prison, will be willing enough to retire to some place of
quiet and of safety. Yet let neither our reverence for a genius,
nor our pity for a sufferer, dispose us to forget, that, if his
activity was virtue, his retreat was cowardice.

He then took upon him the character of physician, still, according
to Sprat, with intention "to dissemble the main design of his coming
over;" and, as Mr. Wood relates, "complying with the men then in
power (which was much taken notice of by the royal party), he
obtained an order to be created doctor of physic; which being done
to his mind (whereby he gained the ill-will of some of his friends),
he went into France again, having made a copy of verses on Oliver's
death."

This is no favourable representation; yet even in this not much
wrong can be discovered. How far he complied with the men in power
is to be inquired before he can be blamed. It is not said that he
told them any secrets, or assisted them by intelligence or any other
act. If he only promised to be quiet, that they in whose hands he
was might free him from confinement, he did what no law of society
prohibits.

The man whose miscarriage in a just cause has put him in the power