At first the Tories seem scarcely to have believed that the Whigs would push their policy to extremities. The eccentric Jacobite Shippen publicly scoffed at the committee, and declared in the Mouse of Commons that its investigations would vanish into smoke. Such confidence was quickly and rudely shattered. June 9th saw a memorable scene. On that day Robert Walpole, as chairman of the Committee of Secrecy, rose and told the House of Commons that he had to present a report, but that he was commanded by the committee to move in the first instance that a warrant be issued by the Speaker to apprehend several persons who should be named by him, and that meantime no member be permitted to leave the House. Thereupon the lobbies were cleared of all strangers, and the Sergeant-at-arms stood at the door in order to prevent any member from going out. Then Walpole named Mr. Matthew Prior, Mr. Thomas Harley, and other persons, and the Speaker issued his warrant for their arrest. Mr. Prior was arrested at once; Mr. Harley a few hours afterwards. [Sidenote: 1715--"Most contagious treason"] Prior was the poet, the friend and correspondent of Bolingbroke. He had been much engaged in the negotiations for the Treaty of Utrecht, and had at one time actually held the rank of English Envoy. He had but lately returned from Paris; had arrived in London just before Bolingbroke's flight. Thomas Harley, cousin of Lord Oxford, had also been concerned in the negotiations in a less formal and more underhand sort of way. When the arrests had been ordered, Walpole informed the House that the Committee of Secrecy had agreed upon their report, and had commanded him to submit it to the House of Commons. The report, which Walpole himself, as {107} chairman of the committee, had drawn up, was a document of great length; it occupied many hours in the reading. But the time could not have seemed tedious to those who listened. The report was an indictment and a State paper combined. It arrayed with the utmost skill all the evidences and arguments, all the facts and all the passages of correspondence, necessary to make out a case against the accused statesmen. It carried with it, beyond question, the complete historical condemnation of Oxford and Bolingbroke in all that related to the Treaty of Utrecht. Never was it more conclusively established for the historian that Ministers of State had used the basest means to bring about the basest objects. It was made clear as light that the national interests and the national honor had been sacrificed for partisan and for personal purposes. Objects in themselves criminal for statesmen to aim at had been sought by means which would have been shameful even if employed for justifiable ends. Had Bolingbroke and Oxford been endeavoring to save the State by the arts which they employed to sacrifice it, their conduct would have called for the condemnation of all honest men. But as regards the