192

BISTORT OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

VIII.

IG8S.

complained bitterly of the position in which he found himself.-“Whatever I do,” he said, “I am sure to be half ruined. IfI say Not Guilty, I shall brew no more for the King; and ifI say Guilty, I shall brew no more for anybody else.” *

The trial then commenced, a trial which, even when coolyperused after the lapse of more than a century and a half, hasall the interest of a drama. The advocates contended on bothsides with far more than professional keenness and vehemence:the audience listened with as much anxiety as if the fate ofevery one of them was to be decided by the verdict; and theturns of fortune were so sudden and amazing that the multi-tude repeatedly passed in a single minute fromanxiety to exul-tation and back again from exultation to still deeper anxiety.

The information charged the Bishops with having writtenorpublished, in the county of Middlesex, a false, malicious,and seditious libel. The Attorney and Solicitor first tried toprove the writing. For this purpose several persons werecalled to speak to the hands of the Bishops. But the witnesseswere so unwilling that hardly a single plain answer could beextracted from any of them. Pemperton, Pollexfen, andLevinz contended that there was no evidence to go to the jury.Two of the Judges, Holloway andPowell, declared themselvesof the same opinion; and the hopes of the spectators rosehigh. All at once the crown lawyers announced their inten-tion to take another line. Powis, with shame and reluctancewhich he could not dissemble, put into the witness box Blath-\vayt, a Clerk of the Privy Council, who had been presentwhen the King interrogated the Bishops. Blathwayt sworethat he had heard them own their signatures. His testimonywas decisive. “ Why,” said Judge Holloway to the Attorney,“ when you had such evidence, did you not produce it at first,without all this waste of time?” It soon appeared why thecounsel for the crown had been unwilling, without absolutenecessity, to resort to this mode of proof. Pemberton stoppedBlathwayt, subjected him to a searching cross examination,and insisted upon having all that had passed between theKing and the defendants fully related. “ That is a pretty thing* Revolution Politics.