Reflections upon the Whole.

I Shall now pass some Necessary Reflections up∣on the Whole. There never was, perhaps, since the Creation of the World, so much Confu∣sion Wrought, by so Mean, so Scandalous, and so Ridiculous Instruments; Lowzy, Greazy Rogues, to be taken into the Arms of Princes: Porters, and the Coursest of Letter-Carryers, to be made the Confidents of Publique Ministers: Starving Indi∣gent Varlets, that had not Credit in the World, for a Brumigen Groat, and liv'd upon the Com∣mon Charity of the Basket, to be a matter of Se∣ven Hundred Pound out of Pocket, in his Maje∣sties Service; as Otes and Bedloe pretended. Sots, to find Treason, in Words, at length, in Common Post-Letters. The Four Ruffians to have but Twenty Pound a Man, for Murdering the King by Assault, and Sir George Wakeman, Fifteen Thousand Pound, only for Poysoning him, with∣out running the Fifteenth Part of the Risque; Nay and Bedloe, Fifteen Hundred Pound for but Lending a Hand to the Helping away of a Dead Iustice. These, and a Thousand Incredi∣bilities more, must be All Believ'd, or the Wit∣nesses found to be most Damnably Forsworn; Unless it were for the Evidences sake that they had Credit given 'em; for the Matter of 〈◊〉, under Such Circumstances, was Morally Im∣p•••ble to be True; And for the Probity of the Page  127 Witnesses, they were already as well known as the Whipping Post, for a Pack of Swearing, Ly∣ing, Cheating; a Prostitute, and an Abandon'd Sort of Mercenary Villains: And yet such was the Infatuated Credulity of the Common People at that Season, and such the Bold, and Shameless Hypocrisy of the Managers of That Imposture, that there was no Place, for either Truth, or Honesty to Appear. The Inference I draw from This Preposterous way of Proceeding, is, that the Whole Story, from End to End, was a Prac∣tice; that the Suborners of the Perjury, were also the Protectors, and the Patrons of it Both under One: And that they had their Accomplices in the House of Commons, upon This Crisis of State, that play'd the same Game which their Fore-fathers had done upwards of Forty Years before.