and ranting about the coming restoration, the French fleet, and the
thousands of honest Englishmen who were awaiting the signal to rise in
arms for their rightful Sovereign. He was carried to the Secretary's
office at Whitehall. He at first seemed to be confident and at his
ease: but when Fuller appeared among the bystanders at liberty, and in a
fashionable garb, with a sword, the prisoner's courage fell; and he was
scarcely able to articulate, [642]

The news that Fuller had turned king's evidence, that Crone had been
arrested, and that important letters from Saint Germains were in the
hands of William, flew fast through London, and spread dismay among all
who were conscious of guilt, [643] It was true that the testimony of one
witness, even if that witness had been more respectable than Fuller, was
not legally sufficient to convict any person of high treason. But Fuller
had so managed matters that several witnesses could be produced to
corroborate his evidence against Crone; and, if Crone, under the strong
terror of death, should imitate Fuller's example, the heads of all the
chiefs of the conspiracy would be at the mercy of the government. The
spirits of the Jacobites rose, however, when it was known that Crone,
though repeatedly interrogated by those who had him in their power, and
though assured that nothing but a frank confession could save his life,
had resolutely continued silent. What effect a verdict of Guilty and the
near prospect of the gallows might produce on him remained to be seen.
His accomplices were by no means willing that his fortitude should be
tried by so severe a test. They therefore employed numerous artifices,
legal and illegal, to avert a conviction. A woman named Clifford, with
whom he had lodged, and who was one of the most active and cunning
agents of the Jacobite faction, was entrusted with the duty of keeping
him steady to the cause, and of rendering to him services from which
scrupulous or timid agents might have shrunk. When the dreaded day
came, Fuller was too ill to appear in the witness box, and the trial
was consequently postponed. He asserted that his malady was not natural,
that a noxious drug had been administered to him in a dish of porridge,
that his nails were discoloured, that his hair came off, and that able
physicians pronounced him poisoned. But such stories, even when they
rest on authority much better than that of Fuller, ought to be received
with great distrust.

While