This special pleading did not greatly deceive judge or jury, but the prosecution broke down upon a technical detail, and Darkin was acquitted; not, however, without an affecting address to the prisoner from the judge, Mr. Justice Willmott, who urged him to amend his ways, while there was yet time.
It is thus quite sufficiently evident that, although the Court was bound to acquit the prisoner, no one had the least doubt of his guilt. His narrow escape does not appear to have impressed Darkin, or "Dumas"; but he was anxious enough to be off, as we learn from a contemporary account of the proceedings, in which it is quaintly said: "He discovered great Impatience 'till he had got off his Fetters and was discharged, which was about five o'clock in the evening, when he immediately set out for London in a post-chaise."
The fair ladies of Salisbury sorrowed when he was gone. They had been constant in visiting him in prison, and had regarded him as a hero, and Lord Percival as a disagreeable hunks. The hero-worship he received is properly noted in the account of his life, trial, and execution, issued in haste from an Oxford press in 1761, shortly after the final scene had been enacted. In those pages we read: "During Mr. Dumas' imprisonment at Salisbury, we find his sufferings made a deep impression upon the tender Hearts of the Ladies, some of whom, having visited him in his Confinement, his obliging Manner, genteel Address, lively Disposition, and whole Deportment so struck them that his Fame soon became the Discourse of the Tea Table; and at the happy Termination of His Affair with my Lord Percival, produced between them the following Copy of Verses:
Joy to thee, lovely Thief! that thou
Hast 'scaped the fatal string,
Let Gallows groan with ugly Rogues,
Dumas must never swing.
Dost thou seek Money?—To thy Wants
Our Purses we'll resign;
Could we our Hearts to guineas coin