’That Milton escaped is well known, but not how.  By the accounts we have, he was by the Act of Indemnity only incapacitated for any public employment.  This is a notorious mistake, though Toland, the bishop of Sarum, Fenton, &c, have gone into it, confounding him with Goodwin; their cases were very different, as I found upon enquiry.  Not to take a matter of this importance upon trust, I had first recourse to the Act itself.  Milton is not among the excepted.  If he was so conditionally pardoned, it must then be, by a particular instrument.  That could not be after he had been purified entirely by the general indemnity, nor was it likely the King, who had declared from Breda, he would pardon all but whom the Parliament should judge unworthy of it, and had thus lodged the matter with them, should, before they came to a determination, bestow a private act of indulgence to one so notorious as Milton.  It is true, Rapin says, several principal republicans applied for mercy, while the Act was yet depending, but quotes no authority; and upon search, no such pardon appears on record, though many are two or three years after, but then they are without restrictions; some people were willing to have a particular, as well as a general pardon; but whatever was the case of others, there was a reason besides what has been already noted, that no such favour would be shewn to Milton.  The House of Commons, June 16, 1660, vote the King to be moved to call in his two books, and that of John Goodwin, written in justification of the murder of the King, in order to be burnt, and that the Attorney General do proceed against them by indictment.  June 27, an Order of Council reciting that Vote of the 16th, and that the persons were not to be found, directs a Proclamation for calling in Milton’s two books, which are here explained, to be that against Salmasius, and the Eikon Basilike, as also Goodwin’s book; and a Proclamation was issued accordingly, and another to the same purpose the 13th of August:  as for Goodwin he narrowly escaped for his life, but he was voted to be excepted out of the Act of Indemnity, amongst the twenty designed to have penalties inflicted short of death, and August 27, these books of Milton and Goodwin were burnt by the hangman.  The Act of Oblivion, according to Kennet’s Register, was passed the 29th.  It is seen by this account, that Milton’s person and Goodwin’s are separated, tho’ their books are blended together.  As the King’s intention appeared to be a pardon to all but actual regicides, as Burnet says, it is odd, he should assert in the same breath, almost all people were surprized that Goodwin and Milton escaped censure.  Why should it be so strange, they being not concerned in the King’s blood? that he was forgot, as Toland says, some people imagined, is very unlikely.  However, it is certain, from what has been shewn from bishop Kennet, he was not.  That he should be distinguished from Goodwin, with advantage, will justly appear strange; for his vast merit, as an honest man,