ntroduce, who would thoroughly inform him of
Miss Hyde's conduct before he became acquainted with her; and provided
he did not tell them that he really was married, he would soon have
sufficient grounds to come to a determination.

The Duke of York consented, and Lord Falmouth, having assembled both
his council and his witnesses, conducted them to his Royal Highness's
cabinet, after having instructed them how to act: these gentlemen were
the Earl of Arran, Jermyn, Talbot, and Killegrew, all men of honour;
but who infinitely preferred the Duke of York's interest to Miss Hyde's
reputation, and who, besides, were greatly dissatisfied, as well as the
whole court, at the insolent authority of the prime minister.

The Duke having told them, after a sort of preamble, that although they
could not be ignorant of his affection for Miss Hyde, yet they might be
unacquainted with the engagements his tenderness for her had induced him
to contract; that he thought himself obliged to perform all the
promises he had made her; but as the innocence of persons of her age
was generally exposed to court scandal, and as certain reports, whether
false or true, had been spread abroad on the subject of her conduct, he
conjured them as his friends, and charged them upon their duty, to
tell him sincerely everything they knew upon the subject, since he was
resolved to make their evidence the rule of his conduct towards her.
They all appeared rather reserved at first, and seemed not to dare to
give their opinions upon an affair of so serious and delicate a nature;
but the Duke of York having renewed his entreaties, each began to relate
the particulars of what he knew, and perhaps of more than he knew,
of poor Miss Hyde; nor did they omit any circumstance necessary to
strengthen the evidence. For instance the Earl of Arran, who spoke
first, deposed, that in the gallery at Honslaerdyk, where the Countess
of Ossory, his sister-in-law, and Jermyn, were playing at nine-pins,
Miss Hyde, pretending to be sick, retired to a chamber at the end of
the gallery; that he, the deponent, had followed her, and having cut her
lace, to give a greater probability to the pretence of the vapours, he
had acquitted himself to the best of his abilities, both to assist and
to console her.

Talbot said, that she had made an appointment with him in the
chancellor's cabinet, while he was in council; and, that, not paying so
much attention to what was upon the table as to wha