Note 7 — Chapter IV · —THE COST OF INTEMPERANCE.

“Titus Oates.” An Englishman who in the reign of Charles II. communicated the details of a pretended plot, “the figment of his own brain,” in which were revealed a rising of the Catholic party, a general massacre of the Protestants, the burning of London, and the assassination of the king. Several incidents seemed to corroborate the monstrous assertion, and it was universally believed. All London went wild with fear and rage, and at one time a massacre of the Roman Catholics seemed likely to occur in anticipation of the one the Protestants feared. Many of the Catholics were arrested, tried and condemned to meet the death of traitors at the block. On the accession of James II., Oates was tried, sentenced to be pilloried, publicly whipped, and afterward imprisoned for life. When William III. came to the throne he was pardoned, and was no more heard of. He died in obscurity seventeen years later, in 1705, at the age of seventy-six.