It was moved that there had been a sufficient ground for the proceedings before the Special Commission; and this motion was carried without a division.

The opposition proposed to add some words implying that the witnesses for the Crown had forsworn themselves; but these words were rejected by one hundred and thirty-six votes to one hundred and nine, and it was resolved by one hundred and thirty-three votes to ninety-seven that there had been a dangerous conspiracy.

The Lords had meanwhile been deliberating on the same subject, and had come to the same conclusion.

They sent Taaffe to prison for prevarication; and they passed resolutions acquitting both the government and the judges of all blame.

The public however continued to think that the gentlemen who had been tried at Manchester had been unjustifiably persecuted, till a Jacobite plot of singular atrocity, brought home to the plotters by decisive evidence, produced a violent revulsion of feeling.