at Saint Germains, calculated to draw from
her such a letter as suited their designs.
Fuller delivered the forged letter, and
brought from the queen an answer
considered likely to try the loyalty of Crayford,
or to compromise him in some way. Crayford,
however, by his honesty, foiled their
plans. " When I carried him the letter,"
Fuller says, " he received me civilly; but
started when I named a letter from the
queen in France. He took it, but told me
he must confine me as a prisoner, until he
had sent it to the Secretary of State. Then I
showed him a warrant from my Lord Shrewsbury,
requiring all officers, military and civil,
to permit me to pass in any part of this kingdom
without control; and I was not to be
confined on any account whatever, without
first giving notice to the Privy Council. I
made a true report of my reception when I
came to the king, my business having made a
great noise in the world, and abundance of
persons being put into the Tower, and all
other prisons in England."

Thus did Mr. Fuller continue to testify his
loyalty to King William; but the best of
men in public life make enemies. Having to
give evidence against a friend whom he had
betrayed, he suddenly fell ill before the trial.
Dr. Lower, he says, and others, gave t'neir
opinion that he was poisoned, and he lay
seven weeks without moving hand or foot.
His hair came off, and his nails also changed
their colour. And after all, Mr. Thomas White
confessed that he, for a large bribe, gave him
the dose in a dish of Scotch porridge, to
prevent his giving evidence. Mr. Fuller complains
bitterly of other underhand tricks devised
to prevent his old friend from being hanged.
One of the jurymen had the amazing wickedness
to object to Fuller as a witness, on the
ground that no man being in a plot should
be an evidence against any other of the
conspirators; and this pretence he maintained
in defiance of Chief Justice Holt and other
judges, who rebuked him. This fellow
held out for forty-eight hours; and two or
three of his brother jurymen, being ancient,
subsequently died of the effects of their fast
—though he himself, as he afterwards
admitted, was provided with a store of
sweetmeats, one Madam Clifford being actually
taken in the act of flinging him papers of
good things in at the court-house window.

Mr. Fuller, the evidence, as he was
called, being very busy in this way, now
began to flourish amazingly. He had a
handsome allowance from the Government, and
being a goodlooking fellow, as his portrait
testifies, he started as a man of fashion. He
set up his coach, and had servants clothed in
rich liveries: he lodged in Pall Mall, going
to Court every day. " I lived," says he, " in
hopes of mighty things, and spent the devil
and all in following the Court—followed all
fashions, and, like others, run into tradesmen's
debts. Every birthday or ball night I
had all new. I was a good benefactor to the
playhouse, and never missed any opportunity
of being amongst the ladies. When the king
went to Ireland, Mr. Fuller followed thither
with a handsome equipage, consisting of
several servants, horses, and the like, and
was every way richly accoutred. His
purpose was to obtain a captain's commission;
but though he did not succeed in this, his
journey appears to have paid its expenses,
for he made a good deal of money by
persuading unfortunate prisoners of his power
and influence, and promising for a consideration
in ready money to obtain their freedom.
By such means, and by a skilful knack of
borrowing money of strangers upon false
pretences, Mr. Fuller's journey became a
profitable one, but he spent all his gains in
riotous living. When the king went to
Holland, Fuller followed him again. "I
made me twelve suits of clothes," he says,
"and my waistcoats were the worst of them
of silver stuff of about forty shillings the
yard, so that at the Hague I made no small
figure."

All this was a much finer thing than
cutting coney-skins at Mr. Hartley's dingy
warehouse in Shoe Lane: but there came a
change. Mr. Fuller's affairs were
embarrassed. One day, as he was going to Court
through Pall Mall, eight bailiffs stopped his
chairman, and arrested him. It was not
customary then, as it is now, to yield as
matter of course to the officers of the law;
"but," says Fuller, " I had but two footmen
there, and the bailiffs being so many
in number, I was carried to a spunging-
house." Finally, he removed to the King's
Bench prison; but by giving security to the
Marshal, with twenty guineas, he obtained
his release, and took lodgings in Axe Yard,
within the liberty of the Court.

This was a dismal change indeed. Spying
and informing had had their day. Imitators
had sprung up on all sides, and the trade
had gone to wrack and ruin: but Fuller did
not despair. Single traitors were no longer
worth a guinea. A plot—a good plot,
involving the lives and fortunes of a hundred
or so of unsuspecting English gentlemen—
was the thing to revive the business. Fuller
determined to discover one: and took some
pains to settle what sort of a plot was likely
to suit the public taste. Indeed, it is pretty
evident from his own story, that he removed
to Axe Yard for no other purpose than to
take lessons in this new branch of his
profession from the infamous Doctor Titus
Oates, who had himself become too well
known some years before, to enable him to
practice in person.

Fuller's account of his connection with
Oates affords a curious picture of the times.
"Whilst I lodged in Axe Yard," says he,
"I became acquainted with Doctor Oates,
who had seen me before, as I had
him, puffing about the Court; but now