Lunt, when desired in court to point out the persons whom he had accused, committed such a mistake as greatly invalidated his testimony; and Taaffe declared before the bench, that the pretended plot was no other than a contrivance between himself and Lunt in order to procure money from the government.

The prisoners were immediately acquitted, and the ministry incurred a heavy load of popular odium, as the authors or abettors of knavish contrivances to insnare the innocent.

The government, with a view to evince their abhorrence of such practices, ordered the witnesses to be prosecuted for a conspiracy against the lives and estates of the gentlemen who had been accused; and at last the affair was brought into the house of commons.

The Jacobites triumphed in their victory.

They even turned the battery of corruption upon the evidence for the crown, not without making a considerable impression.