"May it please your Majesty, here is Lieutenant Vanslyperken, commanding one of your Majesty's vessels, who states that he has important intelligence, and that he has possession of Jacobite papers." "Indeed!" replied King William, who was always alive to Jacobite plotting, from which he had already run so much risk. "What is it, Mr Vanslyperken? speak boldly what you have to communicate." "Your Majesty, I beg your gracious pardon, but here are copies of the correspondence carried on by the traitors in England and this country. If your Majesty will deign to have it read, you will then perceive how important it is--after your Majesty has read it, I will have the honour to explain to you by what means it came into my possession." King William was a man of business, and Vanslyperken had done wisely in making this proposal. His Majesty at once sat down, with the Duke of Portland on the one side and Lord Albemarle on the other: the latter took the letters which were arranged according to their dates, and read them in a clear distinct voice. As the reading went on, his Majesty made memorandums and notes with his pencil on a sheet of paper, but did not interrupt during the whole progress of the lecture. When the last and most important was finished, the two noblemen looked at his Majesty with countenances full of meaning. For a few moments his Majesty drummed with the second and third finger of his left hand upon the table, and then said-- "Pray, Mr Vanslyperken, how did you obtain possession of these papers and letters, or make copies of these letters?" Vanslyperken, who had been standing at the other side of the table during the time of the reading, had anxiously watched the countenance of his Majesty and the two noblemen, and perceived that the intelligence which the letters contained, had created a strong feeling, as he expected. With a certain degree of confidence, he commenced his explanation. He stated that the crew of the cutter had been accustomed to frequent the Lust Haus of a certain widow Vandersloosh, and that he had made her acquaintance, by several times going there to look after his seamen. That this widow had often hinted to him, and at last proposed to him, that he should take letters for some friends of hers--at last she had told him plainly that it was for the Jacobite party, and he pretended to consent. That he had been taken by her to the house of a Jesuit, 169, in the Bur street, nearly opposite to her Lust Haus, and that the Jesuit had given him some letters and fifty guineas for his trouble. He then stated, that he had opened, copied, and resealed them; further, that he had brought over one of the confederates, who was now residing in the house of the syndic, Van Krause. That he should have made all this known before, only that he waited till it was more important. That the last letters appeared of such consequence, that he deemed it his duty no longer to delay.