Now, to my mind, it is a proposition so plain as not to require arguing,
that there must have been at least _two_ persons engaged in the two-fold
transaction of dictating the Letter and of being the penman of the same.
For although it is, of course, physically possible that the work may have
been accomplished by one and the same person, yet that there was a
division of labour in the two-fold transaction is infinitely the more
likely supposal: because of the terrible risk to the revealing conspirator
of his handwriting being detected by the Government authorities, and,
through them, by his co-partners in guilt, should he have rashly
adventured to be his own scribe; and this though he feigned his penmanship
never so cunningly.
Now if such were the case, it follows that there must have been some
second person——some entirely trustworthy friend——in the conspirator’s
confidence. Nay, if the exigencies of the nature and posture of affairs
demanded it, a third person, or even a fourth, might have been also taken
into confidence. But only if absolutely necessary. For the risk of
detection would be proportioned to the number of persons in the
secret:——it being a rule of common prudence in such cases that confidences
must not be unnecessarily multiplied.
Therefore it follows that, supposing there was a second person in the
confidence of the “discovering” or revealing conspirator to pen the
Letter; and supposing there was a third person in the confidence of that
conspirator, with or without the knowledge and consent of the second
person, to act as a go-between, an “_interpres_,” between the conspirator
and Lord Mounteagle, these two persons must have been very trustworthy
persons indeed.
Now a man trusts his fellow-man in proportion as he has had knowledge of
him either directly or indirectly; directly by personal contact,
indirectly through the recommendation of some competent authority.
_Experientia docet._ Experience teaches. A man has knowledge of his
fellow-man as the resultant of the experience gained from relationship of
some kind or another. And relationship is created by kinship, friendship,
or business——intending the word “business” to embrace activity resulting
from thought, word, and deed extending to the widest range of human
interests conceivable. Relationship creates bonds, ties, obligations
between the several persons united by it.
Hence, the practical conclusion is to be drawn that if “the discovering”
or disclosing Gunpowder conspirator, with a view to revealing the intended
massacre, had recourse to one or more confidants, they must have been one
or more person or persons who were united to him by kinship, friendship,
or business, in the sense predicated, possibly in all three, and that they
must have been persons bound to him by bonds, which if “light as air were
strong as iron.”
Let us now turn to the Evidence to-day available bearing upon the
momentous document under consideration. We will begin by saying a few
words respecting the Lord Mounteagle, whose name, at least, the Gunpowder
Treason will have for ever enshrined in the remembrance of the British
people.