. Six
weeks passed, and nothing was heard of the witnesses. The friends of the
lords and gentlemen who had been accused represented strongly that
the House ought not to separate for the summer without coming to some
decision on charges so grave. Fuller was ordered to attend. He pleaded
sickness, and asserted, not for the first time, that the Jacobites
had poisoned him. But all his plans were confounded by the laudable
promptitude and vigour with which the Commons acted. A Committee was
sent to his bedside, with orders to ascertain whether he really had
any witnesses, and where those witnesses resided. The members who were
deputed for this purpose went to the King's Bench prison, and found him
suffering under a disorder, produced, in all probability, by some emetic
which he had swallowed for the purpose of deceiving them. In answer to
their questions he said that two of his witnesses, Delaval and Hayes,
were in England, and were lodged at the house of a Roman Catholic
apothecary in Holborn. The Commons, as soon as the Committee had
reported, sent some members to the house which he had indicated. That
house and all the neighbouring houses were searched. Delaval and Hayes
were not to be found, nor had any body in the vicinity ever seen such
men or heard of them. The House, therefore, on the last day of the
session, just before Black Rod knocked at the door, unanimously resolved
that William Fuller was a cheat and a false accuser; that he had
insulted the Government and the Parliament; that he had calumniated
honourable men, and that an address should be carried up to the throne,
requesting that he might be prosecuted for his villany. [199] He was
consequently tried, convicted, and sentenced to fine, imprisonment and
the pillory. The exposure, more terrible than death to a mind not lost
to all sense of shame, he underwent with a hardihood worthy of his
two favourite models, Dangerfield and Oates. He had the impudence to
persist, year after year, in affirming that he had fallen a victim to
the machinations of the late King, who had spent six thousand pounds
in order to ruin him. Delaval and Hayes--so this fable ran--had been
instructed by James in person. They had, in obedience to his orders,
induced Fuller to pledge his word for their appearance, and had then
absented themselves, and left him exposed to the resentment of the House
of Commons. [200] The story had the reception which it deserved, and
Fuller sank into an obscur