What then becomes of Prance’s statement that the only source of his information was the paper introduced into his cell on the morning of December 22, and containing the substance of Bedloe’s evidence? He professed that it was solely from this that his elaborate confession of December 23 and 24 was drawn, and that it was arranged not only by the connivance, but absolutely at the direction of the Earl of Shaftesbury. Nor was this all. He told L’Estrange further that after he had been forced to retract his recantation his friend Boyce had acted as agent of Bedloe and Shaftesbury in bringing his evidence into line with that of Bedloe. On one point he refused to yield; he would not own that he had worn the periwig of which Bedloe had spoken; but for the rest, according to his own account, he made no difficulty.[266] The story is glaringly inconsistent with the facts. So far from agreeing first or last with Bedloe, Prance contradicted him in almost every possible point. If it was true that, as he said, he was wholly ignorant of the murder and concocted his confession from minutes of Bedloe’s evidence which were given to him, the confession would have worn a very different colour. His only object was to save his neck and get out of Newgate. He would certainly have taken the material with which he was provided, and have simply repeated Bedloe’s tale with so much alteration as was necessary to make himself a partner in the murder. He had no motive to do anything else. Even alone he could hardly have missed the point, and by his own statement did not. Under the astute guidance of Shaftesbury there could be no possible danger of bungling. Instead of this being the case he acted in a fashion which, if he spoke the truth, would have been inconceivable. Not only did he not tell the same story as that which he professed was his only guide, but he told a tale so entirely different that neither Bedloe’s name nor the name of a single man given by Bedloe was mentioned in it at all. The idea of collusion between the informers in this way must be discarded. It is impossible that it should be true.