The real case against Arnold and in favour of the prisoner did not come into court. Sir Leoline Jenkins, secretary of state, employed an agent to draw up a report on the subject. The report was confined entirely to the assault itself and did not discuss the movements of either Arnold or Giles before or afterwards. It is notable that Arnold himself was the only witness as to the manner of the attack and the incidents connected with it, and that the important part of his evidence was wholly uncorroborated. Although he wished to deny the fact, he was well acquainted with Giles, who had been his chief constable, and probably knew enough of his movements to lay a false charge against him without running too great a risk of detection.[783] Jenkins’ information throws a curious light upon his evidence. It does not afford proof that Arnold lent himself to a bogus attempt on his life, but it raises strong suspicion that this was the case. There was no motive for the reporter not to tell the truth in points of fact. His deductions are lucid and apparently sound. The government probably refrained from bringing forward the new material owing to the intense opposition which the effort to obtain Giles’ acquittal would have raised. I quote the most important portion of the minute at length from the S.P. Dom. Charles II 414: 245. The paper is undated, but from internal evidence is seen to have been composed before the trial. It is without title, but is endorsed by Jenkins: “Mr. Arnold and about his being assassinated.”[784] “1. Mr. Arnold was found near two at night April 15th, 1680 sitting in the dirt, wounded, leaning his head against the wall, some four yards within Jackanapes Lane, and immediately upon crying out, Murther. “2. Quaere:—the manner of the assault. When and where he received his wounds; whether before his crying out or just at the time: what words passed on the one side and on the other, and concerning their going away laughing and triumphing. “3. He was struck down, muffled in a cloak, and they stamped upon his breast; and yet he was found with a white hat on his head, no dirt upon it, and his clothes only dirty where he sat; though the land was fouler at that time than ordinary. “4. Two pricks in his arm, the one so just against the other, that it seemed to be one wound; and yet hard to imagine how it should pass, for the bone. “5. Upon his crying out, a woman held a candle from a window just over him, and two of the neighbours’ servants went immediately to him; but neither could see nor hear of anybody near him. “6. If wounded before he cried out, ’tis a wonder that one of these boys should not hear either the blows or the scuffle; especially standing within 6 or 7 yards of him in the street, and having a duskish view of his body so long before he cried out, till upon his knocking at the door of the Sugar-loaf for drink, a servant of the house came downstairs, took his errand, went down for drink and came up again, in the meantime.