Then, after short speeches by Stanley and Dicconson, the witnesses for the defence were examined. The first half-dozen made some damaging attacks upon the character of John Lunt, representing him as a mean scoundrel, a bigamist, and a notorious highwayman. Then Lawrence Parsons, his brother-in-law, testified that he had been invited by Lunt to aid him in denouncing the Lancashire gentlemen, but had refused the offer of 20s. per week and £150 at the end, rather than “swear against his countrymen that he knew nothing against.” Mr. Legh Bankes, a gentleman of Gray’s Inn, told how Taafe, an intimate friend of Lunt’s, and who was expected to be a witness for the crown, had been to the wife of Mr. Dicconson, and revealed to her the whole design of Lunt, offering to introduce some friend of the prisoner’s to Lunt, as persons likely to be serviceable in any swearing that might be needed to hang the prisoners. Mr. Bankes was suspicious of this being a trap; but having been introduced to Lunt, that worthy, over a glass of ale, very frankly said that he wanted gentlemen of reputation to back his own evidence, and if Bankes would join he should be well provided for. He produced his “narrative of the plot,” and Taafe read aloud this manuscript, which named several hundreds besides the prisoners. “Why were these not taken up also?” inquired Bankes. Lunt’s answer was, “We will do these people’s business first, and when that hath given us credit, we will run through the body of the nation.” When the next witness arose, Lunt and Aaron Smith must surely have trembled, for it was their old friend Taafe, who, after adding his testimony to Lunt’s villainous character, gave a brief account of that worthy gentleman’s career as a discoverer of plots. How the first one he discovered (it was in Kent) came to nothing, as he had failed to find corroborative evidence; and how he was near failing again from the same cause; how Aaron Smith had edited and improved his original narrative. Lunt wanted Taafe as a witness, complained that the men he had hired to swear were blockish, and of such low caste as to carry little weight. Could Taafe introduce him to some gentleman—(God save the mark!)—willing to perjure his soul, consign innocent men to the scaffold, and receive blood-money from Aaron Smith? Taafe, from some motive not clear, determined to baulk the villany of his fellow-informer, hence the circumstances narrated by Mr. Legh Bankes, whose suspicions of treachery had prevented a full discovery. Taafe had partially opened his mind to the Rev. Mr. Allenson, who had also distrusted him in a similar manner. In Roger Dicconson, brother of the prisoner, he found a bolder and more adventurous spirit. The evidence of Mr. Allenson need not be analysed. He was followed by Mr. Roger Dicconson, who told how he was introduced at a coffee-house in Fetter Lane, by Taafe to Lunt, as a proper person to aid in the plan. Dicconson called himself Howard, a member of the