The trials on 17-27 April, sentences on 28 April, and executions on Monday, 1 May counted among the greatest public sensations of the era. Adolphus’s brilliant defence rested on the conspiracy’s absurdity and the crown’s dependence on the evidence of the unreliable turncoat, Adams.Chief justice Abbott, an unlovely enemy of radicals, advised the jury to deliver guilty verdicts, which they did.Abbott then ordered eleven conspirators to be executed as traitors.Five, however, were shown ‘mercy’ and transported, and one had his sentence respited.Adolphus asked them all to write in their own hands memento passages for him to distribute to his cabinet friend in facsimile.