ships, who passed it on to Stukely, who thereupon communicated both attempts to the King. The next day Stukely sent the further information to the Court, that Le Clerc, the agent of the King of France, had offered Raleigh a passage on a French ship, and letters which would procure him an honourable reception in France, which Raleigh had refused on the ground that his escape was already provided for. Stukely was accordingly ordered to feign friendship with Raleigh, and to aid his attempt to escape, arresting him at the last moment; the object being to gain as much information as to his designs as he could from Raleigh, and possibly to obtain papers which would contain evidence against him and his confederates. Raleigh was thereupon taken to his own house in Bread Street, where he received a visit from Le Clerc, who repeated his offers, which were accepted, and he was finally arrested the next morning as he was escaping in a boat with Stukely and King, and brought back once more to the Tower. Here Sir Thomas Wilson, an old spy of Queen Elizabeth's, was set to extract from him, if he could, an acknowledgment of the true character of his dealings with the French; and at length Raleigh wrote to the King admitting that he had sailed with a commission from the French admiral, and that La Chesnée, the interpreter to the French Ambassador, had offered to assist in his escape. Meanwhile a commission had been sitting to advise the King as to the best course for him to follow. In the end they reported that Raleigh could not be tried for any offence of which he had been guilty as an attainted man, that if he were executed at all, he must therefore be executed upon the old judgment, and that it would not be illegal to send him to execution on a simple warrant. At the same time, they recommended that he should be allowed something as near a trial as the circumstances admitted of; that there should be a public proceeding in which the witnesses should be publicly called, and that Raleigh should be heard in his own defence. This, however, the King would not allow; and on the 28th of October 1618, Raleigh was brought up from the Tower to the King's Bench at Westminster to receive judgment. He was called on to say why execution should not be awarded against him, and pleaded that whereas since judgment he had held the King's commission for a voyage beyond the seas, with power of life and death over others, he was discharged of the judgment; 'but the voyage, notwithstanding my endeavour, had no other success, but what was fatal to me, the loss of my son, and the wasting of my whole estate.' Sir Edward Coke, now Lord Chief-Justice, ruled that this plea was bad, as the commission had not the effect of a pardon, 'for by words of a special nature, in case of treason, you must be pardoned, and not implicitly.' He then proceeded, not without dignity, to order that execution should be granted.