CHAPTER LXVII.
Charles II.
{1678.} THE English nation, ever since the fatal league with France, had entertained violent jealousies against the court; and the subsequent measures adopted by the king had tended more to increase than cure the general prejudices.

Some mysterious design was still suspected in every enterprise and profession: arbitrary power and Popery were apprehended as the scope of all projects: each breath or rumor made the people start with anxiety: their enemies, they thought, were in their very bosom, and had gotten possession of their sovereign's confidence.

While in this timorous, jealous disposition, the cry of a plot all on a sudden struck their ears: they were wakened from their slumber: and like men affrightened and in the dark, took every figure for a spectre.

The terror of each man became the source of terror to another.

And a universal panic being diffused, reason and argument, and common sense and common humanity, lost all influence over them.