Page:The plot discovered; or, An address to the people, against ministerial treason (IA plotdiscoveredor00cole).pdf/14

6 believe, there is only one herd of abandoned miscreants in his majesty's dominions capable of committing so wicked and treasonable an attack on the first magistrate of the land, those purjured conspirators against the lives and liberties of the people, the disbanded troops of spies and informers who, since the late state trials, had been out of employment.

But whatever the causes may have been, on account of these outrages the ministers "have judged that it is become necessary to provide a further remedy against all such treasonable and seditious practices and attempts. A man suspected from confused evidence of having thrown a stone at his Majesty has been committed for High Treason; and another who only exclaimed, no war! bread! no war! has been committed for a high misdemeanour: and yet it has been judged necessary to provide further remedies! O that our beloved Sovereign may never have cause through the machinations of his quacking ministers to adapt the old epitaph, I was well, they would make me better, and so destroyed me. In all ministerial measures there are two reasons, the real, and the ostensible. The ostensible reason of the present Bill we have heard; the real reason will not elude the search of common sagacity. The