pencer, as if
anxious to show that he had taken no part in the machinations of which
his father was justly or unjustly suspected, spoke in this debate with
great warmth against Duncombe and for Montague.

A few days later, the bill of pains and penalties against Duncombe
passed the Commons. It provided that two thirds of his enormous
property, real and personal, should be confiscated and applied to the
public service. Till the third reading there was no serious opposition.
Then the Tories mustered their strength. They were defeated by a hundred
and thirty-eight votes to a hundred and three; and the bill was carried
up to the Lords by the Marquess of Hartington, a young nobleman whom the
great body of Whigs respected as one of their hereditary chiefs, as the
heir of Devonshire, and as the son in law of Russell.

That Duncombe had been guilty of shameful dishonesty was acknowledged
by all men of sense and honour in the party to which he belonged. He had
therefore little right to expect indulgence from the party which he had
unfairly and malignantly assailed. Yet it is not creditable to the Whigs
that they should have been so much disgusted by his frauds, or so much
irritated by his attacks, as to have been bent on punishing him in a
manner inconsistent with all the principles which governments ought to
hold most sacred.

Those who concurred in the proceeding against Duncombe tried to
vindicate their conduct by citing as an example the proceeding
against Fenwick. So dangerous is it to violate, on any pretence, those
principles which the experience of ages has proved to be the safeguards
of all that is most precious to a community. Twelve months had hardly
elapsed since the legislature had, in very peculiar circumstances, and
for very plausible reasons, taken upon itself to try and to punish a
great criminal whom it was impossible to reach in the ordinary course
of justice; and already the breach then made in the fences which protect
the dearest rights of Englishmen was widening fast. What had last year
been defended only as a rare exception seemed now to be regarded as the
ordinary rule. Nay, the bill of pains and penalties which now had
an easy passage through the House of Commons was infinitely more
objectionable than the bill which had been so obstinately resisted at
every stage in the preceding session.

The writ of attainder against Fenwick was not, as the vulgar imagined
and still imagine, objectionable because i