TRIAL OF LINDSAY.

About this period the earl of Nottingham, after having ineffectually pressed the queen to discard the dukes of Somerset and Devonshire, resigned the seals. The carl of Jersey and sir Edward Seymour were dismissed; the earl of Kent was appointed chamberlain, Harley secretary of state, and Henry St. John secretary of war. The discovery of the Scottish conspiracy was no sooner known in France, than Louis ordered Fraser to be imprisoned in the Bastile. In England, Lindsay being sentenced to die for having corresponded with France, was given to understand that he had no mercy to expect, unless he would discover the conspiracy, He persisted in denying all knowledge of any such conspiracy; and scorned to save his life by giving false information. In order to intimidate him into a confession, the ministry ordered him to be conveyed to Tyburn, where he still rejected life upon the terms proposed; then he was carried back to Newgate, where he remained some years; at length he was banished, and died of hunger in Holland. The ministers had been so lukewarm and languid in the investigation of the Scottish conspiracy, that the whigs loudly exclaimed against them as disguised Jacobites, and even whispered insinuations, implying, that the queen herself had a secret bias of sisterly affection for the court of St. Germain’s. What seemed to confirm this allegation was the disgrace of the duke of Queensberry, who had exerted himself with remarkable zeal in the detection; but the decline of his interest in Scotland was the real cause of his being laid aside at this juncture.

1704