o
the Gunpowder Treason; yet some of the planners and contrivers of the
plot were protected at Rome. Had his holiness been sincere in his
professions to King James, he would have delivered up those jesuits who
were implicated in the treason, and who escaped to Rome. The surrender
of the conspirators would have been the strongest proof of his
sincerity. But not only did he not give them up to the sovereign, whose
life they had sought; he did not even call them to account for the part
which they had taken in the conspiracy. I would not charge the guilt of
that conspiracy on the members of the church of Rome indiscriminately,
for there were many who were horror-struck at the deed, and there always
have been many who did not receive all the principles maintained by the
church; but I contend, that the head of the church, the pope of that
day, approved of the act, or he would never have adopted the course
which he then pursued; and in his guilt all the leading members of the
conclave were also implicated. We can only judge of men by their
actions; which, if they mean any thing, certainly involve the church of
Rome of that period in the guilt of the treason. Garnet was regarded as
a martyr, not as a traitor; and the absurd miracle of the _Straw_, was
sanctioned at Rome. These facts certainly involve the then church of
Rome in the treason; and as her principles are unchanged, there would be
no security against the same practices, were circumstances to favour her
ascendency[31].

[Footnote 31: Hallam remarks, "There seems, indeed, some ground
for suspicion, that the Nuncio at Brussels was privy to the
conspiracy; though this ought not to be asserted as an
historical fact." _Const. Hist._ i. 554.]

It is also worthy of remark, that the jesuits who were privy to the
design, and who escaped from the knife of the executioner, never
expressed the least remorse for the part they had taken; on the
contrary, they never failed to speak of the treason as a glorious and
meritorious deed. When Hall the jesuit, _alias_ Oldcorne, was reminded
of the ill success of the treason as a proof that it was displeasing to
God, he immediately replied, that the justice of the cause must not be
determined by the event, for that the eleven tribes were commanded by
God himself to fight against Benjamin, and were twice overthrown; and
that Lewis of France was conquered by the Turks. By reminding some of
his dispirited companions of many gl