THE EARL OF MARLBOROUGH, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER, &c, FALSELY ACCUSED.

While king William seemed wholly engrossed by the affairs of the continent, England was distracted by domestic dissension, and overspread with vice, corruption, and profaneness. Over and above the Jacobites, there was a set of malcontents whose number daily increased. They not only murmured at the grievances of the nation, but composed and published elaborate dissertations upon the same subject. These made such impressions upon the people, already irritated by heavy burdens, distressed in their trade, and disappointed in their sanguine expectations, that the queen thought it necessary to check the progress of those writers by issuing out a proclamation offering a reward to such as would discover seditious libellers. The earl of Marlborough had been committed to the Tower on the information of one Robert Young, a prisoner in Newgate, who had forged that nobleman’s hand-writing, and contrived the scheme of an association in favour of king James, to which he affixed the names of the earls of Marlborough and Salisbury, Sprat, bishop of Rochester, the lord Cornbury, and sir Basil Firebrace. One of his emissaries had found means to conceal this paper in a certain part of the bishop’s house at Bromley in Kent, where it was found by the king’s messengers, who secured the prelate in consequence of Young’s information. But he vindicated himself to the satisfaction of the whole council; and the forgery of the informer was detected by the confession of his accomplice. The bishop obtained his release immediately and the earl of Marlborough was admitted to bail in the court of king’s bench.