roggs beginning his speech--and these were the words
which first he addressed to the jury.

"Gentlemen," he said, "you have done like very good subjects and very
good Christians; that is to say like very good Protestants; and now much
good may their thirty thousand masses do them!" When he said this, he
was referring to a piece of Dr. Oates' lying evidence as to a part of
the reward that they should get for killing the King. But I closed the
door; for I could bear to hear no more. But afterwards I heard that they
then adjourned for an hour or two, and that it was the Recorder--Sir
George Jeffreys--that gave sentence.

When I presented myself, half an hour later, at Mr. Chiffinch's
lodgings, I had very nearly persuaded myself that all would yet be well.
For I thought it impossible that any man to whom the report of the trial
should be brought, could ever think that justice had been done; least of
all the King who is the fount of it, under God. I knew very well that
His Majesty would have to bear the brunt of some unpopularity if he
refused to sign the warrants for their death; but he appeared to me to
care not very much for popularity--since he outraged it often enough in
worse ways than in maintaining the right. He had said to me, too, so
expressly that no harm should come to the Fathers or to Mr. Grove and
Mr. Pickering either; and he had said so, I was informed, even more
forcibly to the Duke and those that were with him--saying that his right
hand should rot off if ever he took the pen into his hand for such a
purpose. I remembered these things, even while the plaudits of the crowd
still rang in my ears, and the bitter cruelty of my Lord Chief Justice's
words to the jury. His Majesty, I said to myself, is above all these
lesser folk, and will see that no wrong is done. And, besides all this,
he is half a Catholic himself and he knows against what kind of men
these charges have been made.

I was pretty reassured then, when I knocked upon the door of Mr.
Chiffinch's lodgings, and told the man who opened to me that I must see
his master.

He took me through immediately into the little passage I had been in
before, and himself tapped upon the door of the inner parlour; then he
opened it, and let me through: for Mr. Chiffinch was accustomed by now
to receive me at any hour.

He rose civilly enough, and asked me what I wished with him, so soon as
the door was shut.

"The verdict is given," I said. "I must see His Ma