Lord Cromartie’s reply could only be heard by those who sat near him, as he read it with a low and tremulous voice. They who heard it are said to have preferred it to Kilmarnock’s address――an opinion in which they who now read both will not concur. Cromartie expressed sorrow at having drawn his eldest son (who was captured with him) into the rebellion, and while he hoped for mercy, professed to be resigned to God’s will, if mercy were denied him; but the substance of his reply was that he had never thought of rebelling till there was a rebellion! Walpole has put on record that if Lord Cromartie had pleaded ‘_Not Guilty_,’ there was ready to be produced against him a paper, signed with his own hand, for putting the English prisoners to death. The best proof that the statement is unfounded is the fact that Cromartie was ultimately pardoned. [Sidenote: _BALMERINO’S DEFENCE._] Last came bold Balmerino. He had little to say, but it was to the purpose. Before the three lords left the Tower, that morning, a good friend had sent them a suggestion, in the form of a plea which, if successfully made, would not only save the lives of the lords, but stop the further execution of the Jacobites at Kennington. The plea was,――that as the Act for regulating the trials of these lords did not take place till after their crime was committed, judgment ought not to be pronounced. The plea had been handed to the Lieutenant of the Tower, who had made it over to the Governor, the Earl of Cornwallis, by whom it was laid before the Lords sitting in Westminster Hall, who ‘tenderly and rightly,’ says Walpole, sent it to the Jacobite peers awaiting judgment. Balmerino alone made use of it, and he demanded counsel to assist him in establishing it. ‘The High Steward,’ almost in a passion, told him that when he had been offered counsel he did not accept it! After some discussion, Messrs. Forester and Wilbraham were named as counsel, and as they needed time to consider the question, the Court adjourned to Friday, August 1st, on which day Balmerino’s counsel confessed that the plea was invalid, and simply apologised for having wasted their lordships’ time, and Lord Hardwicke, after a tedious speech, pronounced sentence. The worst point in the Lord High Steward’s speech was in a taunting expression of surprise at the two earls, who, with so much loyal feeling as they pretended to possess, had gone into rebellion. ‘Your lordships,’ he remarked, ‘have left that a blank in your apologies,’ a course, he added, which might be safely left to the construction of others. [Sidenote: _BALMERINO’S CONDUCT._]