The ignominious services which he had formerly rendered to his party as a spy, a raiser of riots, a dispenser of bribes, a writer of libels, a prompter of false witnesses, had been rewarded only too prodigally for the honour of the new government.

That he should hold any high office was of course impossible.

But a sinecure place of five hundred a year had been created for him in the department of the Excise.

He now had what to him was opulence: but opulence did not satisfy him.

For money indeed he had never scrupled to be guilty of fraud aggravated by hypocrisy; yet the love of money was not his strongest passion.