In one paragraph of this letter he had held language bearing some resemblance to that of the pamphlet which had just been sentenced to the flames.

There were indeed distinctions which a judicious and impartial tribunal would not have failed to notice.

But the tribunal before which Burnet was arraigned was neither judicious nor impartial.

His faults had made him many enemies, and his virtues many more.

The discontented Whigs complained that he leaned towards the Court, the High Churchmen that he leaned towards the Dissenters; nor can it be supposed that a man of so much boldness and so little tact, a man so indiscreetly frank and so restlessly active, had passed through life without crossing the schemes and wounding the feelings of some whose opinions agreed with his.