Read it through once

The spirit of resistance which the king showed in the instance of the militia and the exclusion bills, seems to have been systematically confined to those cases where he supposed his power to be more immediately concerned. In the prosecution of the aged and innocent Lord Stafford, he was so far from interfering in behalf of that nobleman, that many of those most in his confidence, and, as it is affirmed, the Duchess of Portsmouth herself, openly favoured the prosecution. Even after the dissolution of him last parliament, when he had so far subdued his enemies as to be no longer under any apprehensions from them, he did not think it worth while to save the life of Plunket, the popish Archbishop of Armagh, of whose innocence no doubt could be entertained. But this is not to be wondered at, since, in all transactions relative to the popish plot, minds of a very different cast from Charles's became, as by some fatality, divested of all their wonted sentiments of justice and humanity. Who can read without horror, the account of that savage murmur of applause, which broke out upon one of the villains at the bar, swearing positively to Stafford's having proposed the murder of the king? And how is this horror deepened, when we reflect, that in that odious cry were probably mingled the voices of men to whose memory every lover of the English constitution is bound to pay the tribute of gratitude and respect! Even after condemnation, Lord Russell himself, whose character is wholly (this instance excepted) free from the stain of rancour or cruelty, stickled for the severer mode of executing the sentence, in a manner which his fear of the king's establishing a precedent of pardoning in cases of impeachment (for this, no doubt, was his motive) cannot satisfactorily excuse.