These men were immediately sent over to England; and though they possessed neither character sufficient to gain belief even for truth, nor sense to invent a credible falsehood, they were caressed, rewarded, supported, and recommended by the earl of Shaftesbury.

Oliver Plunket, the titular primate of Ireland, a man of peaceable dispositions, was condemned and executed upon such testimony.
And the Oxford parliament entered so far into the matter, as to vote that they were entirely satisfied in the reality of the horrid and damnable Irish plot.

But such decisions, though at first regarded as infallible, had now lost much of their authority; and the public still remained somewhat indifferent and incredulous.
After the dissolution of the parliament, and the subsequent victory of the royalists, Shaftesbury's evidences, with Turberville, Smith, and others, addressed themselves to the ministers, and gave information of high treason against their former patron.

It is sufficiently scandalous, that intelligence conveyed by such men should have been attended to; but there is some reason to think, that the court agents, nay, the ministers, nay, the king himself,[*] went further, and were active in endeavoring, though in vain, to find more reputable persons to support the blasted credit of the Irish witnesses.
* See Captain Wilkinson's Narrative.
Shaftesbury was committed to prison, and his indictment was presented to the grand jury.

The new sheriffs of London, Shute and Pilkington, were engaged as deeply as their predecessors in the country party; and they took care to name a jury devoted to the same cause; a precaution quite necessary, when it was scarcely possible to find men indifferent or attached to neither party.