The trial of the type-rioters next required consideration. Collins's counsel moved for leave to the prosecutor to conduct this case also by private counsel, but to this the Attorney-General firmly refused to consent. It was urged that one of the accused was his nephew, and that two others had been clerks in his office at the time of the outrage. No matter; he was determined to withstand any further interference with Crown prosecutions on the part of the bar. There was no telling, he remarked, where such interference would end. There had already been too much of it. He was about to proceed with the prosecution, when Mr. Rolph arose on behalf of Collins, and expressed a wish that, as the painful investigation of the murder case had been finished, the prosecutions for libel might be discontinued. Judge Willis warmly seconded the proposal, and further suggested that the prosecution of the type-rioters might also be dropped. The type-rioters, however, were ready and waiting for their trial, and, through their counsel, objected to any abandonment so far as they were concerned. It was urged on their part that they had never wished to avoid prosecution, but had rather courted it; that they would accept of no compromise of a proceeding which had been maliciously and vexatiously instituted, not by the person injured, but by one who, being brought into Court for libel, had been received as a sort of public prosecutor, and allowed to harass them by raking into old transactions which had long since been investigated and atoned for. They insisted upon the matter being there and then finally disposed of, so that it might no longer be in the power of any malicious person wholly unconnected with the case to prosecute them at his pleasure. The trial was then proceeded with. The persons charged were of course found guilty. Judge Willis was very lenient, and sentenced them to a nominal fine of five shillings each, expressly stating as a reason for this slight punishment that more than ample recompense had already been obtained in the civil action.[123]