rrangements do not seem to have
been skilful. The chief counsel for the Crown was Sir William Williams,
who, though now well stricken in years and possessed of a great estate,
still continued to practise. One fault had thrown a dark shade over the
latter part of his life. The recollection of that day on which he had
stood up in Westminster Hall, amidst laughter and hooting, to defend the
dispensing power and to attack the right of petition, had, ever
since the Revolution, kept him back from honour. He was an angry and
disappointed man, and was by no means disposed to incur unpopularity in
the cause of a government to which he owed nothing, and from which he
hoped nothing.

Of the trial no detailed report has come down to us; but we have both
a Whig narrative and a Jacobite narrative. [543] It seems that the
prisoners who were first arraigned did not sever in their challenges,
and were consequently tried together. Williams examined or rather
crossexamined his own witnesses with a severity which confused them. The
crowd which filled the court laughed and clamoured. Lunt in particular
became completely bewildered, mistook one person for another, and did
not recover himself till the judges took him out of the hands of the
counsel for the Crown. For some of the prisoners an alibi was set up.
Evidence was also produced to show, what was undoubtedly quite true,
that Lunt was a man of abandoned character. The result however seemed
doubtful till, to the dismay of the prosecutors, Taaffe entered the box.
He swore with unblushing forehead that the whole story of the plot was a
circumstantial lie devised by himself and Lunt. Williams threw down his
brief; and, in truth, a more honest advocate might well have done the
same. The prisoners who were at the bar were instantly acquitted; those
who had not yet been tried were set at liberty; the witnesses for
the prosecution were pelted out of Manchester; the Clerk of the Crown
narrowly escaped with life; and the judges took their departure amidst
hisses and execrations.

A few days after the close of the trials at Manchester William returned
to England. On the twelfth of November, only forty-eight hours after
his arrival at Kensington, the Houses met. He congratulated them on the
improved aspect of affairs. Both by land and by sea the events of the
year which was about to close had been, on the whole, favourable to the
allies; the French armies had made no progress; the French fleets ha