t there was no overt act which an attainder could be
founded on; and government, contented with suppressing the insurrection
of 1715, felt it neither prudent nor safe to push their vengeance
further than against those unfortunate gentlemen who actually took up
arms.

Nor did Sir Everard's apprehensions of personal consequences seem to
correspond with the reports spread among his Whig neighbours. It was
well known that he had supplied with money several of the distressed
Northumbrians and Scotchmen, who, after being made prisoners at Preston
in Lancashire, were imprisoned in Newgate and the Marshalsea; and it was
his solicitor and ordinary counsel who conducted the defence of some of
these unfortunate gentlemen at their trial. It was generally supposed,
however, that, had ministers possessed any real proof of Sir Everard's
accession to the rebellion, he either would not have ventured thus to
brave the existing government, or at least would not have done so with
impunity. The feelings which then dictated his proceedings, were
those of a young man, and at an agitating period. Since that time Sir
Everard's jacobitism had been gradually decaying, like a fire which
burns out for want of fuel. His Tory and High Church principles were
kept up by some occasional exercise at elections and quarter-sessions:
but those respecting hereditary right were fallen into a sort of
abeyance. Yet it jarred severely upon his feelings, that his nephew
should go into the army under the Brunswick dynasty; and the more
so, as, independent of his high and conscientious ideas of paternal
authority, it was impossible, or at least highly imprudent, to interfere
authoritatively to prevent it. This suppressed vexation gave rise to
many poohs and pshaws, which were placed to the account of an incipient
fit of gout, until, having sent for the Army List, the worthy Baronet
consoled himself with reckoning the descendants of the houses of genuine
loyalty, Mordaunts, Granvilles, and Stanleys, whose names were to be
found in that military record; and, calling up all his feelings of
family grandeur and warlike glory, he concluded, with logic something
like Falstaff's, that when war was at hand, although it were shame to
be on any side but one, it were worse shame to be idle than to be on the
worst side, though blacker than usurpation could make it. As for Aunt
Rachel, her scheme had not exactly terminated according to her wishes,
but she was under the necessity