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James II pecuniary recognition of his services. Other writers have hinted that this gentleman exaggerated his own merits, and that the forgeries were the work of Marshal Schomberg, who wished "both to feel the pulse of the nation and inspire them with resentment against the Popish party." The question is not one of very great importance; but it is interesting to observe that in the whole Williamite literature of the period we look in vain for an admission that this intrigue, an intrigue which cost the lives of great numbers of innocent people, was in any sense discreditable either to its author or to the government which profited by it.

A few days before the perpetration of this audacious forgery in England a similar expedient was employed with even greater success to induce the Protestants of Ulster to renounce the authority of James. An anonymous letter, addressed, according to the most trustworthy account, to Lord Mount-Alexander, informed his lordship that the Irish throughout the country were meditating a massacre of the colonists not less horrible than that which was said to have accompanied the rising of 1641. It was afterwards acknowledged that this letter was composed with the object of inducing some gentlemen of rank and wealth to join an association 156