On Friday, the Ist of June, Robert Perreau was put to the bar at the Old Bailey. Owing to ill-health he had been allowed to remain in the Clerkenwell prison, and was not taken to Newgate until the morning of his trial--a privilege shared also by his brother. The President of the Court was Sir Richard Aston, who, as a junior of the Oxford circuit, had helped to defend the unfortunate Miss Blandy. By his side sat the Right Honourable John Wilkes, Lord Mayor of London, a quite tame City patriot now almost ready for the royal embraces, very different from the Wilkes winged by pistol-practising Martin, M.P., and hounded by renegade Jemmy Twitcher. This same City patriot--if we may credit one of Dame Rumour’s quite credible stories--whispered into the ear of the judge the most important words spoken during the trial:--“My lord, you can convict these men without the woman’s evidence.... It is a shocking thing that she should escape unpunished, as she must if you call her as a witness!” Which advice--if the lady had been as kind to ‘squinting Jacky’ as the world believed--shows that he was rising on stepping stones of Medmenham Abbey to higher things. At all events, instead of summoning Mrs Rudd into the box, the judge startled the world by ordering her to be detained in Newgate. In spite of the efforts of his counsel and his friends, the Court did not put the least faith in the wily apothecary, refusing to believe that he had been ignorant of his brother’s relationship to his mistress, or, if this were true, that an innocent man would obtain cash for a succession of huge bonds, drawn on the well-known house of Adair, at the bidding of a woman without making inquiries. Even granting that he was so credulous as to remain silent when he saw that suspicion was aroused, it was clear that no man of honour would strive to stifle mistrust by telling lies. Then there were other compromising circumstances. It was apparent that the Perreaus needed money to repay certain bonds that were falling due. Robert had antedated the latest forgery to make it agree with one of his falsehoods to the Messrs Drummond, for in the previous January he had endeavoured to obtain money from them by a fictitious story. Not only did the employment of a scrivener have no weight in his favour, but pointed to premeditation. In the face of these facts his guilt seemed clear. Notwithstanding an eloquent defence written for him by Hugh M’Auley Boyd, in which he protested that he had received the bonds from Mrs Rudd in good faith, the jury required no more than five minutes to return a hostile verdict.