He had remained in this suspense a few days, when Mr Kirby, the keeper of Newgate, one morning came, desired that he would follow him, and led him through the otherwise impassable gates to an apartment in his own house. Here he was introduced to Mr White, the Solicitor for the Treasury, and his two clerks; and this gentleman presented him with the indictment, a list of witnesses, and another list of the jurymen summoned for these trials: informing him at the same time that the Crown would grant as many subpœnas, without expense, as he should think proper to demand. Mr Holcroft received the indictment, bowed, withdrew, and was re-conducted to the place of confinement. His eagerness to examine the charges brought against him, the list of the witnesses who were his accusers, and the names of the persons by some of whom he was to be tried, was great: so was the astonishment he felt after examining the papers. He was indicted with eleven other persons in the same bill, for whose actions he was to answer, when, or wheresoever committed, though totally without his knowledge or participation. There was not a specific statement of any one action of the prisoner: but general affirmations concerning the collective actions of twelve men, together with other unknown conspirators, which, with regard to himself at least, he knew to be absolutely, and without exception, false. A promiscuous list of 208 witnesses was also given him, nine-tenths of whom were utter strangers to him, in person, abode, and even name; and of whom not one had any possible charge to bring against him. Yet he was left, out of all this inexplicable confusion, to conjecture (if he could) who were his accusers; and of what they were to accuse him. Mr Holcroft intended to have entered a protest to this effect against the indictment, but he was overruled by his counsel. The Tuesday following the trials began. ‘And perhaps this country,’ says Mr Holcroft, ‘never witnessed a moment more portentous. The hearts and countenances of men seemed pregnant with doubt and terror. They waited, in something like a stupor of amazement, for the fearful sentence on which their deliverance, or their destruction, seemed to depend. Never surely was the public mind more profoundly agitated. The whole power of Government was directed against Thomas Hardy: in his fate seemed involved the fate of the nation, and the verdict of Not Guilty appeared to burst its bonds, and to have released it from inconceivable miseries, and ages of impending slavery. The acclamations of the Old Bailey reverberated from the farthest shores of Scotland, and a whole people felt the enthusiastic transport of recovered freedom.’