387 her husband had bene intimate with Vane, Pierrep~nt, and St. Johns, whose councells they knew how farre they had gone in this matter, and that if she would prevent others in the declaring of them, she might much advantage herselfe. But she told him, she pcrceiv'd any safety one could buy of them was not worth the price of honor and conscience; that she knew nothing of state managements, or if she did, she would not establish herselfc upon any man's blood ancL ruine. Then he employ'd all his witt to circumvent her in discource, to have gotten something out of her concerning some persons they aym'd at, which if he could, I believe would have bene beneficiall to him; but she discern'd his drift, and scorn' cl to become. an informer, and made him believe she was ignorant, though she could have enlightened him in the thing he sought for; · which they are now never likely to know much of, it being lockt up in the grave, and they that survive not knowing that their secrets are remoov'd into another cabinett.' After all, natural! affection working • Any who are delighted with the discovery of a secret will be disappointed that Mrs. Hutchinson did not even here reveal hers, but resisted the bewitching vanity of ahewing the confidence that had been reposed in her by betraying it. She might perh'aps, with great propriety, think it not prudent to commit it to writing, though it was to be read only by her own family.-Of the persons here named Sir H. Vane, it is well known, was sacrificed to the manes of Lord Stratford, whose attainder he was supposed in a great measure to have procured; hut there seems not to have been any pretence for excepting him out of ·the amnesty. He viewed his fate, and the king who sentenced him to it, with equal contempt; and the passage before us is a proof .of the fidel ity he maintained towards his associates.-St. John was excluded from all offices; but Pie rrepont escaped untouched in all respects, and represented the county of Nottingham in the short parliament which restored the king, but appears not to have been Ye-chosen in that which ~ucceeded it. That he who was so "deeply engaged should have come off so well, is matter of wonder, and the more so -when we take into consideration ' the fo1lowing particulars. The ingenious writer of the critique of thi·s work in the Annual Review, conjectures that the secret which th is friend of 1-Irs.· Hutchinson endeavoured to extort fi·om hC' r was, th~ 11ame ofthld comiderable person who hadf?rmed the design ofsettliug t!te stare
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