On 30 January 1682 he appeared at the bar of the King's Bench on a charge of providing Stephen College with seditious papers for the purposes of his defence.
He had by this time obtained the confidence of the leaders of the disaffected "country party", and the council, consisting of Monmouth, Russell, Essex, Sidney, and Hampden, despatched him in January 1683 to confer with their friends in Scotland.
[1] When the government got wind of the Rye House plot, they arrested Smith in Axe Yard on 4 July and committed him to the Tower.
On 27 October he was sentenced for his previous offence to a fine, two hours in the pillory, and to remain in prison pending security for good behaviour.
Some compromising letters and some arms behind a false fireplace were discovered, and five Lancashire gentlemen were arrested; but Ferguson and other pamphleteers alluded to the plot as a ridiculous sham; Taafe changed sides at the last moment, and at the trial at Manchester in October 1694 the prisoners were acquitted.