lock up to be reserved for public punishment; and though neither my looks nor my behaviour betrayed the least symptom of guilt, yet I was treated as a condemned criminal.  I was thrown into prison, and committed to a set of wretches who bore no character of humanity but its form.  My residence—­to speak in the jail dialect—­was in the SECRET, which is no other than the dungeon of the prison, where all the furniture was a wretched mattress and a crazy chair.  The weather was cold, and I called for a fire; but I was told I could have none.  I was thirsty, and called for some wine and water, or even a draught of water by itself, but was denied it.  All the favour I could obtain was a promise to be waited on in the morning; and then was left by myself under a hundred locks and bolts, with a bit of candle, after finding that the words of my jailors were few, their orders peremptory, and their favours unattainable.

“I continued in this dismal dungeon till the 2nd of November, entirely ignorant of the crime I was accused of; but at nine in the morning of that day, I was carried before a magistrate, where I underwent an examination by which I understood the heads of the charge against me, and which I answered in a manner that ought to have cleared my own innocence.”

The story of the charge and trial is a long one; but it can be briefly outlined as follows:—­It seems that one, Abraham Paya, a Jew, who, disguised as “Mr Roberts,” was staying with a Miss Rose who was not his wedded wife, accused Montagu and two of his friends, Mr Taafe and Lord Southwell, of making him drunk as a preliminary to inveigling him into play and winning 870 louis d’or from him.

As the Jew, whom his losses had sobered, refused to pay, Montagu and his associates had compelled him by violence and threats to give them drafts for the sums owing to them.  Then, knowing that payment would be refused, “Roberts” shook the dust of Paris off his feet, turned his back on lady and creditors alike, and ran away to Lyons.  Whereupon, so said the complainant, Montagu and his fellow-thieves had ransacked his baggage (which he had foolishly left behind him), and appropriated all his money and jewels, to the value of many thousands of livres.

To quote Mr Montagu again, the latter part of the charge was that Mr Taafe

“smashed all the trunks, portmanteaus and drawers belonging to the complainant, from whence he took out in one bag 400 louis d’or, and out of another, to the value of 300 louis d’or in French and Portuguese silver; from another bag, 1200 livres in crown pieces, a pair of brilliant diamond buckles, for which the complainant paid 8020 livres to the Sieur Pierre; his own picture set around with diamonds to the amount of 1200 livres ... laces to the amount of 3000 livres, seven or eight women’s robes; two brilliant diamond rings, several gold snuff-boxes, a travelling-chest containing his plate and china,