But in proportion as this event was agreeable to the Catholics, it increased the disgust of the Protestants, by depriving them of that pleasing though somewhat distant prospect, in which at present they flattered themselves.

Calumny even went so far as to ascribe to the king the design of imposing on the world a supposititious child, who might be educated in his principles, and after his death support the Catholic religion in his dominions.

The nation almost universally believed him capable, from bigotry, of committing any crime; as they had seen that, from like motives, he was guilty of every imprudence: and the affections of nature, they thought, would be easily sacrificed to the superior motive of propagating a Catholic and orthodox faith.

The present occasion was not the first when that calumny had been invented.

In the year 1682, the queen, then duchess of York, had been pregnant; and rumors were spread that an imposture would at that time be obtruded upon the nation: but happily, the infant proved a female, and thereby spared the party all the trouble of supporting their improbable fiction.[*] * This story is taken notice of in a weekly paper, the Observator, published at that very time, 23d of August, 1682.