[105] Lord Dartmouth wrote to say that Fletcher told him there were good grounds to suspect that the prince, underhand, encouraged the expedition, with design to ruin the Duke of Monmouth; and this Dalrymple believes. P. 136. It is needless to observe, that such subtle and hazardous policy was totally out of William's character; nor is there much more reason to believe what is insinuated by James himself (Macpherson's _Extracts_, p. 144; _Life of James_, ii. 34), that Sunderland had been in secret correspondence with Monmouth; unless indeed it were, as seems hinted in the latter work, with the king's knowledge. [106] The number of persons who suffered the sentence of the law, in the famous western assize of Jefferies, has been differently stated; but according to a list in the Harleian Collection, n. 4689, it appears to be as follows: at Winchester, one (Mrs. Lisle) executed; at Salisbury, none; at Dorchester, 74 executed, 171 transported; at Exeter, 14 executed, 7 transported; at Taunton, 144 executed, 284 transported; at Wells, 97 executed, 393 transported. In all, 330 executed, 855 transported; besides many that were left in custody for want of evidence. It may be observed, that the prisoners sentenced to transportation appear to have been made over to some gentlemen of interest at court; among others, to Sir Christopher Musgrave, who did not blush to beg the grant of their unfortunate countrymen, to be sold as slaves in the colonies. The apologists of James II. have endeavoured to lay the entire blame of these cruelties on Jefferies, and to represent the king as ignorant of them. Roger North tells a story of his brother's interference, which is plainly contradicted by known dates, and the falsehood of which throws just suspicion on his numerous anecdotes. See _State Trials_, xi. 303. But the king speaks with apparent approbation of what he calls Jefferies's campaign, in writing to the Prince of Orange (Dalrymple, 165); and I have heard that there are extant additional proofs of his perfect acquaintance with the details of those assizes; nor, indeed, can he be supposed ignorant of them. Jefferies himself, before his death, declared that he had not been half bloody enough for him by whom he was employed. Burnet, 651 (note to Oxford edition, vol. iii.). The king, or his biographer in his behalf, makes a very awkward apology for the execution of Major Holmes, which is shown by himself to have been a gross breach of faith. _Life of James_, ii. 43. It is unnecessary to dwell on what may be found in every history: the trials of Mrs. Lisle, Mrs. Gaunt, and Alderman Cornish; the former before Jefferies, the two latter before Jones, his successor as chief justice of K. B., a judge nearly as infamous as the former, though not altogether so brutal. Both Mrs. Lisle's and Cornish's convictions were without evidence, and consequently were reversed after the revolution. _State Trials_, vol. xi.