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James II convinced him that such doctrines would no longer be the best passport to promotion; and, in. the spring of 1690, he was imprisoned on a well-grounded suspicion of holding treasonable correspondence with the northern insurgents. From this imprisonment he is said to have been liberated owing to the intervention of Chief Justice Herbert. As soon as the battle of the Boyne had made the final result of the contest no longer doubtful, King heartily and unreservedly adopted the opinions of the party which was now dominant, and henceforth devoted his literary talents, which were by no means contemptible, to slandering the government which he had so long served and to eulogising the rebellion which he had so long denounced. The State of the Protestants of Ireland under the late King James's Government, was published in London in 1691, and passed rapidly through four editions. It was, says Burnet, "not only the best book that hath been written for the service of the Government, but without any figure it is worth all the rest put together, and will do more than all our scribblings for settling the minds of the nation; and it secured for its author immediate preferment to the see of Derry and ultimate translation to the archbishopric of Dublin.

It must, I think, be acknowledged that a writer 142