Possibly, also, the severity of the Court was increased by Defoe's indiscretion in commenting upon the case in the _Review_, while it was still _sub judice_.

At any rate he escaped punishment.

The Attorney-General was ordered to prosecute him, but before the trial came off Defoe obtained a pardon under the royal seal.
The Whigs were thus baulked of revenge upon their renegade.

Their loyal writers attributed Defoe's pardon to the secret Jacobitism of the Ministry--- quite wrongly--as we have just seen he was acting for Harley as a Hanoverian and not as a Jacobite.

Curiously enough, when Defoe next came before the Queen's Bench, the instigator of the prosecution was a Tory, and the Government was Whig, and he again escaped from the clutches of the law by the favour of the Government.