Even among the extreme Rumpers or pure Republicans, now maddened by Lambert's coup _d'etat_, there were some, Colonel Herbert Morley for one, who were feeling cautiously for ways and means of forgiveness at Brussels.

Nay, in the present Committee of Safety and in the Wallingford-House Council associated with it, there were some fully prepared, should this experiment also fail, to help in a restoration of the Stuarts rather than go back into the Republican grasp of Scott, Neville, and Hasilrig.

There was a vague common cognisance of this convergence of so many separate currents to one final reservoir.

It showed itself in mutual accusations of that very tendency of which all were conscious.

Every party of Commonwealth's men accused every other party of a design to bring the King in, and every party so accused repudiated the charge with such strength of language as to beget the suspicion, "The Lady protests too much, methinks." On the other hand, the uneasy common consciousness disposed people to be practically somewhat tolerant.
When no one knew what might happen to himself, why should he indict his neighbour for treason?
On some such ground it may have been, as well as to try to win grace with the Presbyterians or new Royalists, that the present Government did not proceed with the trials of the lords and gentlemen committed for high treason for their concern in the late Insurrection, but released all or most of them.