338

HISTOllY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XX.

would have been satisfied with the advantage which they hadalready gained. Their friends had been set free. The prose-cutors had with difficulty escaped from the hands of an enragedmultitude. The character of the government had been seriouslydamaged. The ministers were accused, in prose and in verse,sometimes in earnest and sometimes in jest, of having hired agang of ruffians to swear away the lives of honest gentlemen.1*1 veil moderate politicians, who gave no credit to these foul im-putations, owned that Trenchard ought to have rememberedthe villanies of Fuller and Young, and to have been on hisguard against such wretches as Taaffe and Lunt. The unfor-tunate Secretary’s health and spirits had given way. It wassaid that he was dying; and it was certain that he would notlong continue to hold the seals. The Tories had Avon a greatvictory; but, in their eagerness to improA'e it, they turned itinto a defeat.

Early in the session IIoAve complained, Avith his usual vehe-mence and asperity, of the indignities to which innocent andhonourable men, highly' descended and highly esteemed, hadbeen subjected by Aaron Smith and the AA'retches Avho Avere inhis pay. The leading Whigs, AA'ith great judgment, demandedan inquiry. Then the Tories began to flinch. They Avell kncAVthat an inquiry could not strengthen their case, and mightweaken it. The issue, they said, had been tried: a jury hadpronounced: the A'erdict was definitive; and it Avould ho mon-strous to give the false Avitnesses AA'ho had been stoned out ofManchester an opportunity of repeating their lesson. To thisargument the answer Avas obvious. The verdict Avas definitiveas respected the defendants, but not as respected the prose-cutors. The prosecutors were noAV in their turn defendants,and were entitled to all the privileges of defendants. It did notfollow, because the Lancashire gentlemen had been found, andvery properly found, not guilty of treason, that the Secretary of