REPORT OF THE SECRET COMMITTEE.
Mr. Layer being brought to his trial at the king’s bench, on the twenty-first day of November, was convicted for having enlisted men for the pretender’s service, in order to stir up a rebellion, and received sentence of death. He was reprieved for some time, and examined by a committee of the house of commons: but he either could not, or would not, discover the particulars of the conspiracy, so that he suffered death at Tyburn, and his head was fixed up at Temple-bar. Mr. Pulteney, chairman of the committee, reported to the house, that, from the examination of Layer and others, a design had been formed by persons of figure and distinction at home, in conjunction with traitors abroad, for placing the pretender on the throne of these realms: that their first intention was to procure a body of foreign troops to invade the kingdom at the time of the late elections; but that the conspirators being disappointed in this expectation, resolved to make an attempt at the time that it was generally believed the king intended to go to Hanover, by the help of such officers and soldiers as could pass into England unobserved, from abroad, under the command of the late duke of Ormond, who was to have landed in the river with a great quantity of arms provided in Spain for that purpose; at which time the Tower was to have been seized. That this scheme being also defeated by the vigilance of the government, they deferred their enterprise till the breaking up of the camp; and, in the meantime, employed their agents to corrupt and seduce the officers and soldiers of the army: that it appeared from several letters and circumstances, that the late duke of Ormond, the duke of Norfolk, the earl of Orrery, lord North and Grey, and the bishop of Rochester, were concerned in this conspiracy; that their acting agents were Christopher Layer and John Plunket, who travelled together to Rome; Dennis Kelly, George Kelly, and Thomas Carte, nonjuring clergymen; Neynoe the Irish priest, who by this time was drowned in the river Thames in attempting to make his escape from the messenger’s house; Mrs. Spilman, alias Yallop, and John Sample.