MR. WALLER.
To lead you through all particulars, would not suit with the brevity you require of me. But something I will say to obviate the misconceptions you may possibly have entertained of this business[26]. For the plot itself, the utmost of my design was only to form such a combination among the honest and well-affected of all sorts, as might have weight enough to incline the houses to a peace, and prevent the miseries that were too certainly to be apprehended from a civil war. It was never in my thoughts to surprize the parliament or city by force, or engage the army in the support and execution of my purpose. But my design in this affair, though the fury of my enemies, and the fatal jealousy of the time, would not suffer it to be rightly understood, is not that which my friends resented, and which most men were disposed to blame in me. It was my behaviour afterwards, and the obliquity of some means which I found expedient to my own safety, that exposed me to so rude a storm of censure. It continues, I know, to beat upon me even at this distance. But the injustice hath arisen from the force of vulgar prejudices, and from the want of entering into those enlarged principles, on which it was necessary for me to proceed in that juncture.