much solicitation: that he proposed
to enter the Park without passing through the Abbey, but was
prevailed upon by Mr. Greenwood, who expressed a desire of seeing the
newly-erected monument of general Hardgrave: that as he had formerly
communicated to his friend the strange circumstance of the duke's
speaking to him in Hyde-park, Mr. Greenwood no sooner saw that
nobleman in the Abbey, than he gave notice to Mr. Barnard, who was very
short-sighted; and that from his passing them several times, concluding
he wanted to speak with Mr. Barnard alone, he quitted him and retired
into the choir, that they might commune together without interruption.
It likewise appeared, from undoubted evidence, that Barnard had often
mentioned openly to his friends and acquaintance, the circumstance of
what passed between him and the duke in the Park and in the Abbey;
that his father was a man of unblemished reputation, and in affluent
circumstances; that he himself was never reduced to any want, or such
exigence as might impel him to any desperate methods of obtaining
money; that his fidelity had been often tried, and his life always
irreproachable. For these reasons he was acquitted of the crime laid to
his charge, and the mystery remains to this day undiscovered.

After all, the author of the letters does not seem to have had any real
design to extort money, because the scheme was very ill calculated for
that purpose; and indeed could not possibly take effect without the most
imminent risk of detection. Perhaps his aim was nothing more than to
gratify a petulance and peculiarity of humour, by alarming the duke,
exciting the curiosity of the public, puzzling the multitude, and
giving rise to a thousand ridiculous conjectures. If anything more
was intended, and the duke earnestly desired to know the extent of the
scheme, he might, when he closeted the person suspected, have encouraged
him to a declaration, by promising inviolable secrecy on his word and
honour, in which any man would have confided as a sacred obligation. On
the whole, it is surprising that the death of the duke, which happened
in the course of this year, was never attributed to the secret practices
of this incendiary correspondent, who had given him to understand that
his vengeance, though slow, would not be the less certain.]

Footnote 485: Note 3 S, p. 485. The next bill that fell under the
cognizance of the house, related to a law transaction, and was suggested
by a pe