In the latter country, as in Scotland, the Jacobites were very numerous, and the loyalty that had been the characteristic of the Welsh people in the troubled times of the great Rebellion, and which made Wales almost the last rallying place of the unhappy Charles Stuart, and his devoted followers, still existed among the Welsh people, and rendered them ready to undergo the greatest personal sacrifices, or to encounter any perils, in upholding the cause of his unfortunate descendant. {7} Had Charles Stuart followed the counsels that were freely urged upon him during the ill-judged retreat from Derby, and marched his forces into Wales, it is probable that a formidable rising would have occurred in that country, and that, if not ultimately successful, the struggle would have been greatly prolonged, and have proved of a still more serious and sanguinary character. But, had that course been adopted, and failure ensued, several of the great Welsh landed proprietors would have been involved in the ruin that overtook so many of the leading Scottish Jacobites, and their heads would most assuredly have fallen on the scaffold. As it was, the Duke of Beaufort, with hereditary devotion to the Stuarts, and Sir Watkin Wynn, were so seriously compromised as to place them for a time in considerable danger. The infamous Secretary Murray, of Broughton, revealed the whole of the particulars of the Jacobite intrigues and conspiracies that had existed since the year 1740, and made such criminatory statements, with respect to the complicity of the Duke, and Sir Watkin, as clearly proved their active participation in the plots that had preceded and led to the Rebellion. The law, however, required that, in cases of treason, _two_ witnesses should depose to the facts on which the charge was founded; and it was consequently found impracticable to proceed against them on Murray’s traitorous testimony. It is, moreover, suspected that the king and the government felt indisposed to have them impeached, fearing that the prosecution of men so powerful and influential might give rise to serious disturbances, and cause a further outbreak of a still more dangerous character than that which had been so recently suppressed.