This intelligence being communicated to the king and council, an order was sent to captain Billop to watch the motion of the vessel and secure the passengers.
He accordingly boarded her at Gravesend, and found in the hold lord Preston, Mr.Ashton, a servant of the late queen, and one Elliot.
He likewise seized a bundle of papers, some of which were scarce intelligible; among the rest, two letters supposed to be written by Turner, bishop of Ely, to king James and his queen, under fictitious names.

The whole amounted to an invitation to the French king to assist king James in re-ascending the throne upon certain conditions, while William should be absent from the kingdom; but the scheme was ill laid, and countenanced but by a very few persons of consideration, among whom the chiefs were the earl of Clarendon, the bishop of Ely, lord Preston, his brother Mr.Graham, and Penn the famous quaker.

Notwithstanding the outcries which had been made against the severities of the late government, Preston and his accomplice Ashton were tried at the Old Bailey for compassing the death of their majesties king William and queen Mary; and their trials were hurried on without any regard to their petitions for delay.

Lord Preston alleged in his defence that the treasons charged upon him were not committed in the county of Middlesex, as laid in the indictment; that none of the witnesses declared he had any concern in hiring the vessel; that the papers were not found upon him; that there ought to be two credible witnesses to every fact, whereas the whole proof against him rested on similitude of hands and mere supposition.

He was, nevertheless, found guilty.