KELLY’S DEFENCE.
Kelly delivered a remarkably able speech in his own defence. Its chief points were a general denial of every charge—a denial that he had ever employed one Neynoe in treasonable matters. This fellow had himself been arrested, but was drowned in the Thames in an attempt to escape. Kelly called on Heaven to witness that he had never been employed by Atterbury to write letters of any sort; that he had never visited the bishop privately, nor had ever conversed with him but in company with other persons. As for the treasonable-looking dog, ‘He was given to me,’ said Kelly, ‘by a surgeon in Paris;’ he added that the surgeon’s affidavit could be procured, and, that it was trustworthy was warranted by the surgeon being the medical attendant of the Minister himself. ‘The dog,’ said the prisoner, ‘was never intended for anybody but who I gave him to,’ which was true enough. Kelly then complained, but contemptuously, that creatures of the vilest condition had been hired as witnesses, and that partly on their testimony, heard in private, this Bill was founded. Newgate had been swept for evidence-men. A servant of his own, discharged for grave offence, was sought out and heard against his master. A man in Government employment, on being tampered with, had honestly declared that he knew nothing whatever against the prisoner, Kelly. He was, in consequence, dismissed from his employment, but was reinstated on dishonestly offering to bear witness against him. ‘All which,’ said the candid Jesuit in conclusion, ‘is of a piece with an infamous offer made to myself by one of the under-secretaries of State, who, the morning after I was first examined, came to me with a message (as he said) from one of his superiors, to let me know “That I had now a very good opportunity of serving myself, and that he was sent to offer me my own conditions.” And when I declared myself an entire stranger to the conspiracy, and was sorry to find that noble Lord have so base an opinion of me, he seemed to wonder that I would neglect so good an occasion of serving myself; “especially when I might have anything I pleased to ask for.” What authority that person had for his message, or the rest of his after-proceedings, I will not pretend to say; but as I have been ruined and utterly undone by them, I hope your Lordships will take my sufferings as well as circumstances into consideration, and instead of inflicting any further pains and penalties on me (as I really am) a person highly injured, and not a criminal concerned in any transactions against the government.’
SENTENCE ON KELLY.
Of course the defence availed the speaker nothing. Like Plunkett, Kelly was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, with forfeiture of all property. Since their offence was precisely of the same nature as Councillor Layer’s, it is incomprehensible that their sentences and fates were not similar.
THE KING AT KENSINGTON.
Among the public, a sensation was kept up. The ‘Plot’ was as much talked of as Titus Oates’s. Arrests were made, especially of Nonjurors, ministers, or laymen. Even young ladies could not arrive in London from France without being subject to a summons to explain the wherefore to some sapient Justice of the Peace. Judges were furiously anti-Jacobite. One of these—finding a jury resolute in returning a verdict of not guilty against a respectable Pall Mall tradesman, whom two rascally soldiers, unsuccessful in trying to extort money from him, charged with uttering treasonable words—loaded the jurors with obloquy, then attempted to cajole them into a loyal verdict, and failing, ordered their names and addresses to be taken down, and declared them too infamous to ever have the honour of serving on a jury again. Persons who had a proper sense of allegiance quite pitied the king, whom the temper of the times drove into taking care of himself. Every day he walked in Kensington Gardens, alone, but before beginning that wholesome exercise, the gardens were thoroughly gone over by soldiers, and during the promenade, every outlet was strictly guarded. This done, the king went alone, as he loved to do, and had the gardens all to himself.
ARRESTS.
Throughout the early part of the year there was an incessant persecution of Tory printers, pamphlet-writers, and of noisy and conspicuous Nonjurors. Thus the ‘British Journal’ tells its readers: ‘The late Duke of Buckingham’s Works, in two vols. in quarto, lately printed by Alderman Barber, were on Sunday last seized by some of his Majesty’s Messengers, as it is said, because in some parts of these volumes great Reflections are cast upon the late happy Revolution.’ Later, may be gathered from the ‘Weekly Journal,’ the following intelligence, likely to painfully stir all Tory hearts:—‘Mr. Matthias Earbery, a Nonjuring Parson, appeared upon his recognizances, having lately been taken up for a seditious libel; but he having in the year 1717 been outlaw’d upon an indictment found against him for a most virulent and traitorous Libel, entitled “The History of the Clemency of our English Monarchs,” Mr. Attorney-General moved that he might thereupon be committed, which was order’d by the Court accordingly. Thus, this Gentleman, regardless of the Mercy and Forbearance of the Government to him, hath by a base Ingratitude, common to a certain set of people, brought this upon himself, which one might think should be a Caution to others not to abuse the great Clemency they daily meet with.’ The same paper announces the conviction of Redmayne, the printer, for a ‘scurrilous pamphlet,’ ‘The Advantages accruing to England from the Hanover Succession.’ Phillips was also convicted for printing ‘A Second Part of the “Advantages.”’ On the other hand, persons with too much zeal for the House of Hanover, which they demonstrated by accusing innocent persons of high treason, and broke down in endeavouring to substantiate their accusation, were flung into Newgate by Lord Cartaret with an alacrity which did that Secretary great credit. One of these was Middleton, a fellow who was so steeped in perjury that he was set in the pillory, where a mob of both Whigs and Jacobites killed him. The inquest jury, equally united, brought in a verdict of ‘accidental strangulation.’ This fate did not deter others, for the remainder of the year. ‘It is reckoned,’ writes Swift, ‘that the best trade in London this winter will be that of an evidence.’ PATTEN IN PERIL. It is curious to find drawn to town by the atmosphere of treachery and perjury, no less a person than that Rev. Mr. Patten, who turned King’s evidence in 1716, against the Preston prisoners. He was taken up in Fleet Street for disorderly conduct, in pretty disreputable company; and he came to temporary grief through beating the constable, hectoring the justice, and maintaining, with a modern ritualistic minister’s contempt for the law, that his offence was cognizable only in an Ecclesiastical Court!
Previous to Atterbury’s appearance before his Judges, the papers on the Whig side reported petty details of his life in the Tower, and of the doings of his chaplains outside of it. In March, the ‘British Journal’ understood that ‘the Rev. Mr. Thomas Moore, Chaplain to the Bishop of Rochester, now in custody, is charged with secreting a Duty-Bond of Accounts, kept by William Ward, the bishop’s coachman (who is likewise in custody), in which book the Times of the said Bishop’s coming in and going out of Town were set down.’ In another column was given this exquisite specimen of sermon-reporting in the first quarter of the last century:—
A STRANGE SERMON.