out the Duke?"
"When your majesty was last pleased to receive me," replied Wilton,
"I had the honour of recounting to you how I had been employed by his
grace to set free his daughter who had been carried away by Sir John
Fenwick and other Jacobites. I explained to your majesty at that time
that this daring act had been committed by those Jacobites in
consequence of a quarrel between the Duke and Sir John Fenwick, which
quarrel was occasioned by the Duke indignantly refusing to take part
in the infamous conspiracy against your majesty. Since then, Sir John
Fenwick has been arrested, and has charged the Duke with being a
party to that conspiracy. He has done this entirely and evidently out
of revenge, and as far as my testimony goes, I can distinctly show
your majesty, that after his daughter was carried away, the Duke had
no opportunity whatsoever of revealing what he knew of the conspiracy
without endangering her safety till after the whole was discovered,
for on the morning of her return to town, after being set free, the
warrants against the conspirators were already issued."
"You told me all this before, I think," said the King, with somewhat
of a heavy brow and impatient air. "Where is the Duke now?"
"He is in the Tower, sire," replied Wilton, "a prisoner of state,
upon this charge of Sir John Fenwick's, and I am bold to approach
your majesty to beseech you to take his case into consideration."
The King's brow had by this time grown very dark, and turning to Lord
Portland, he said, "This is another, you see, Bentinck."
"I beseech your majesty," continued Wilton, as soon as the King
paused, "I beseech you to hear my petition, and to grant it. It is a
case in which I am deeply interested. You were pleased to say that I
had conducted myself well, you were pleased to promise me your
gracious favour, and I beseech you now to extend it to me so far, as
at my petition to show clemency to a nobleman who, perhaps, may have
acted foolishly in suffering his ears to be guilty of hearing some
evil designs against you, but who testified throughout the most
indignant horror at the purposes of these conspirators, who has been
punished severely already by the temporary loss of his child, by the
most terrible anxiety about her, and by long imprisonment in the
Tower, where he now lies, withering under a sense of your majesty's
displeasure. Let me entreat your majesty to grant me this petition,"
and advancing a step, Wilton knelt at the King's feet.
"Why, I though