are. One of the
outpost men was to knock at Lord Harrowby's door, and the moment the
door was opened all the gang were to rush in and put the ministers to
death. Lord Harrowby took good care not to have any guests that
evening, but the outpost men of the conspiracy were deceived by the
fact that a dinner-party was actually going on at the house of the
Archbishop of York next door, and when they saw carriages arriving
there they felt sure this was the dinner-party for which they were
waiting. They waited there until the last of the guests appeared to
have arrived, and then set out to give notice to Thistlewood and his
companions. Before the outpost men had got back to Cato Street the
police were already there, and an attempt was made to arrest the whole
of the conspirators. A scuffle took place, in which Thistlewood
stabbed one of the policemen to the heart. The constituted authorities
had contrived to make almost as much of a bungle as the conspirators
had done; the military force did not arrive in time, and Thistlewood
and some of his accomplices succeeded, for the moment, in making their
escape. It was only for the moment. Thistlewood was arrested next
day. There was nothing heroic or dramatic about the manner of his
capture. He had sought refuge at the house of a friend in Moorfields,
and he was comfortably asleep in bed when the house was surrounded and
he was made prisoner. He was put on trial soon after, and, {19} with
four of his accomplices, was sentenced to death, and on May 1 the five
were executed.

[Sidenote: 1820--The government and the conspiracy]

The evidence at the trial made it clear to any reasonable mind that the
plot was confined altogether to the small knot of ignorant desperadoes
who held their councils in Cato Street, and to the informer Edwards,
who had been in communication with them. The public were never allowed
to know what had become of this man Edwards. Had he been pensioned by
the Government and been allowed to pass into honorable and comfortable
retirement, or was he to be arrested and put on his trial like other
conspirators? Several attempts were made to get at the truth by means
of questions to the ministers in the House of Commons, but no
satisfactory reply could be extracted or extorted. Indeed, it seemed
quite probable that the general feeling among the ruling classes at the
time would have been that the Government had done a very good thing by
employing a man to h