 as publickly known as
any circumstance of that kind could possibly be, at so great a distance of time.
    The usurper and his friends gave all the interruption in their power to any
researches concerning that affair; and had recourse to every art and expedient
that could be invented, to prevent its being brought to a legal discussion:
privilege, bills in chancery, orders of court surreptitiously and illegally
obtained, and every other invention, was made use of to bar and prevent a fair
and honest trial by a jury. The usurper himself, and his agents, at the same
time that they formed divers conspiracies against his life, in vain endeavoured
to detach Mr. M--r from the orphan's cause by innumerable artifices,
insinuating, cajoling, and misrepresenting with surprising dexterity and
perseverance.
    His protector, far from being satisfied with their reasons, was not only
deaf to their remonstrances, but, believing him in danger from their repeated
efforts, had him privately conveyed into the country; where an unhappy accident
(which he hath ever since sincerely regreted) furnished his adversary a
colourable pretext to cut him off in the beginning of his career.
    A man happening to lose his life, by the accidental discharge of a piece,
that chanced to be in the young gentleman's hands, the account of this
misfortune no sooner reached the ears of his uncle, than he expressed the most
immoderate joy at having found so good a handle for destroying him, under colour
of law. He immediately constituted himself prosecutor, set his emissaries at
work to secure a coroner's inquest suited to his cruel purposes; set out for the
place in person, to take care that the prisoner should not escape; insulted him
in jail, in the most inhuman manner; employed a whole army of attornies and
agents, to spirit up and carry on a most virulent prosecution; practised all the
unfair methods that could be invented, in order that the unhappy gentleman
should be transported to Newgate, from the healthy prison to which he was at
first committed; endeavoured to inveigle him into destructive confessions; and,
not to mention other more infamous arts employed in the affair of evidence,
attempted to surprize him upon his trial, in the absence of his witnesses and
council, contrary to a previous agreement with the prosecutor's own attorney:
nay, he even appeared in person upon the bench at the trial, in order to
intimidate the evidence, and brow-beat the unfortunate prisoner at the bar, and
expended above a thousand pounds in that prosecution. In spite of all his wicked
efforts, however, which
