Kelly delivered a remarkably able speech in his own defence. Its chief points were a general denial of every charge――a denial that he had ever employed one Neynoe in treasonable matters. This fellow had himself been arrested, but was drowned in the Thames in an attempt to escape. Kelly called on Heaven to witness that he had never been employed by Atterbury to write letters of any sort; that he had never visited the bishop privately, nor had ever conversed with him but in company with other persons. As for the treasonable-looking dog, ‘He was given to me,’ said Kelly, ‘by a surgeon in Paris;’ he added that the surgeon’s affidavit could be procured, and, that it was trustworthy was warranted by the surgeon being the medical attendant of the Minister himself. ‘The dog,’ said the prisoner, ‘was never intended for anybody but who I gave him to,’ which was true enough. Kelly then complained, but contemptuously, that creatures of the vilest condition had been hired as witnesses, and that partly on their testimony, heard in private, this Bill was founded. Newgate had been swept for evidence-men. A servant of his own, discharged for grave offence, was sought out and heard against his master. A man in Government employment, on being tampered with, had honestly declared that he knew nothing whatever against the prisoner, Kelly. He was, in consequence, dismissed from his employment, but was reinstated on dishonestly offering to bear witness against him. ‘All which,’ said the candid Jesuit in conclusion, ‘is of a piece with an infamous offer made to myself by one of the under-secretaries of State, who, the morning after I was first examined, came to me with a message (as he said) from one of his superiors, to let me know “That I had now a very good opportunity of serving myself, and that he was sent to offer me my own conditions.” And when I declared myself an entire stranger to the conspiracy, and was sorry to find that noble Lord have so base an opinion of me, he seemed to wonder that I would neglect so good an occasion of serving myself; “especially when I might have anything I pleased to ask for.” What authority that person had for his message, or the rest of his after-proceedings, I will not pretend to say; but as I have been ruined and utterly undone by them, I hope your Lordships will take my sufferings as well as circumstances into consideration, and instead of inflicting any further pains and penalties on me (as I really am) a person highly injured, and not a criminal concerned in any transactions against the government.’ [Sidenote: _SENTENCE ON KELLY._] Of course the defence availed the speaker nothing. Like Plunkett, Kelly was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, with forfeiture of all property. Since their offence was precisely of the same nature as Councillor Layer’s, it is incomprehensible that their sentences and fates were not similar. [Sidenote: _THE KING AT KENSINGTON._]