he had to dwell principally upon the conduct of the
conspirators and himself; he did so more boldly, and gave a full
account of all that had been said and done till the entrance of the
Duke of Berwick. He knew, or rather divined, from what had already
passed, that this was in reality the point to which the examination
he underwent principally tended. But yet he spoke with more ease,
for, notwithstanding the danger which existed at that moment in
acknowledging any communication whatsoever with Jacobites, he well
knew that the conduct of the Duke of Berwick himself only required to
be truly reported, to be admired by every noble and generous mind;
and he felt conscious that in his own behaviour he had only acted as
became an upright and an honourable heart. He detailed then,
particularly, the fact of his having seen one of his opponents in the
act of pointing a pistol at him over the shoulder of their principal
spokesman: he mentioned his having cocked his own pistol to fire in
return, and he stated that at the time he felt perfectly sure his
life was about to be made a sacrifice to apprehensions of discovery
on the part of the conspirators; and he then related to the King how
he had seen a stranger enter and strike up the muzzle of the pistol
pointed at him, at the very moment the other was in the act of
firing.
"The ball," he said, "passed through the window above my head, and
seeing that new assistance had come to my aid, I did not fire."
"Stay, stay!" said the King. "Let me ask you a question or two first.
Did you see, in the course of all this time, the person called Sir
George Barkley amongst these conspirators?"
"I saw a person, sire," replied Wilton, "whom I believed at the time
to be Sir George Barkley, and have every reason to believe so still."
"And this person who came to your assistance so opportunely was not
the same?" demanded the King.
"Not the least like him, sire," replied Wilton. "He was a young
gentleman, of six or seven and twenty, I imagine, but certainly no
more than thirty."
"What was his name?" demanded the King.
"The name he gave," replied Wilton, "was Captain Churchill."
"Go on," said William, and Wilton proceeded.
Avoiding all names as far as possible, he told briefly, but
accurately, the severe and striking reprehension that the Duke of
Berwick had bestowed upon Sir George Barkley and the rest of the
conspirators: he dwelt upon the hatred he had displayed of the crime
they were about to commit, and of the noble and upri