Joyce remained in custody until 19 May when, with others, he was committed to the Tower of London on a charge of high treason. While he was there, he was visited by his friend William Shepherd. Two treason trials took place in Edinburgh, in August and September. In September a grand jury of Middlesex concluded that there was evidence for treason charges against 12 men. Seven of the detained group were moved from the Tower to Newgate Gaol on 24 October. They were arraigned at the Old Bailey on 25 October. The judges involved were James Eyre, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Archibald Macdonald, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, both of whom had been present at the Privy Council hearings. After the acquittal of his co-defendants Hardy and Horne Tooke, charges against Joyce were dropped. He had suffered 23 weeks imprisonment. While Joyce was confined, supporters printed a book under his name. It was a sermon from earlier in the year, but contained also an appendix consisting of his examination by the Privy Council, and that of Bonney who was released at the same time. After his release it was being distributed by Arthur Aikin. His own work on the legal process, An Account of Mr. Joyce's Arrest for "treasonable Practices". His Examination ... With Remarks on the Speeches of Mr. Windham, &c., appeared in 1795. Later life Joyce was released on 1 December 1794, and was welcomed back to Chevening, the village being lit up; if not by the rector, the Rev. Samuel Preston, chaplain to John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham who was Lord Privy Seal. He was quick to pay a visit to William Shepherd at Gatacre. Stanhope built Joyce a house in the grounds at Chevening. Joyce lived there for about four years, joined by his wife Elizabeth in 1796. He moved away in 1799. The troubled Stanhope household, where the father's insistence on home education was contentious, started to break up over the period. Daughter Lady Hester in the end moved out to live at Walmer with her uncle William Pitt the Younger, the Prime Minister, in 1803 according to John Ehrman; where he reportedly told her Tom Paine was "quite in the right" but he couldn't risk revolution. At this period, Theophilus Lindsey had hopes to find Joyce a full place as Unitarian minister; but he found that impossible, as he explained