The next step was to prove the discovery of treasonable papers in Layer’s handwriting. This proof was established by King’s Messengers, who, acting on information, made seizure of such papers in a house in Stonecutter’s Yard, Little Queen Street. Layer had entrusted them to the keeping of ‘an honest woman named Mason,’ who kept the house with equally honest ladies in it. He called them ‘love letters,’ said they were worth 500_l._, and was anxious that his wife should be kept from all knowledge of them. ‘What’s your trade, mistress?’ asked Kettleby. ‘What’s that to you?’ rejoined the honest woman; with which reply the learned gentleman seemed satisfied. [Sidenote: _LAYER’S ‘SCHEME.’_] Her testimony helped Layer towards the scaffold, for among the papers was one entitled the ‘Scheme,’ which a Mr. Doyley, in whose office, many years before, Layer had been a clerk, swore to be in Layer’s handwriting, to the best of his belief. This most damaging document bore, by way of epigraph, these words: ‘Au défaut de la force il faut employer la ruse.’ In detail it gave instructions how the insurrection was to be begun, carried on, and ended,――from the first summoning of soldiers in their lodgings, and of drilled mobs, to their various quarters in and about London, to the insulting direction which bade ‘an officer to go to Richmond, and at the exact hour of 9, to seize on Prince Prettyman, and bring him away to Southwark.’ The details were made out as a stage-manager might note down dramatic business, wherein every actor knows what he has to do, and can find no obstacle in the doing of it, except from his own dulness. When some comment came to be made by the Chief Justice on this and on certain correspondence between Layer and the Pretender, Mr. Hungerford interrupted with ‘I humbly beg your lordship’s pardon――――,’ but Pratt cut the remark and the maker of it short by petulantly exclaiming, ‘Sir, if you will not hear me, you’ll teach me not to hear you!’ After this rebuke, ample proof was adduced of the intimate relations which existed between the Pretender’s family and Mr. Layer’s. One instance was, that the exiled prince and his wife had consented to stand, by proxies, godfather and godmother to Layer’s daughter. The proxies were Lord North and Grey and the Duchess of Ormond. The ceremony was privately performed at a china shop in Chelsea, the minister being, doubtless, what Plunket would have called ‘an unjuring parson.’ [Sidenote: _THE DEFENCE._]