ament would not interpose
except in extraordinary cases; that here the evidence necessary in
inferior courts being defective, the parliament, which was not tied down
by legal evidence, had a right to exert their extraordinary power in
punishing an offender, who would otherwise escape with impunity; that
as the law stood, he was but a sorry politician that could not ruin the
government, and yet elude the statute of treason; that if a plot,
after being discovered, should not be thoroughly prosecuted, it would
strengthen and grow upon the administration, and probably at length
subvert the government; that it was notorious that parties were forming
for king James; persons were plotting in every part of the kingdom, and
an open invasion was threatened; therefore this was a proper time for
the parliament to exert their extraordinary power; that the English
differed from all other nations in bringing the witnesses and the
prisoner face to face, and requiring two witnesses in cases of treason;
nor did the English law itself require the same proof in some cases as
in others, for one witness was sufficient in felony, as well as for the
treason of coining; that Fenwick was notoriously guilty, and deserved
to feel the resentment of the nation; that he would have been brought
to exemplary punishment in the ordinary course of justice, had he not
eluded it by corrupting evidence and withdrawing a witness. If
this reasoning be just, the house of commons has a right to act in
diametrical opposition to the laws in being; and is vested with a
despotic power over the lives and fortunes of their constituents, for
whose protection they are constituted. Let us therefore reflect upon
the possibility of a parliament debauched by the arts of corruption into
servile compliance with the designs of an arbitrary prince, and tremble
for the consequence. The debate being finished, the prisoner was, at the
desire of admiral Russel, questioned with regard to the imputations he
had fixed upon that gentleman and others from hearsay; but he desired
to be excused on account of the risk he ran while under a double
prosecution, if any thing which should escape him might be turned to his
prejudice.

After he was removed from the bar, Mr. Vernon, at the desire of the
house, recapitulated the arts and practices of sir John Fenwick and his
friends to procrastinate the trial. The bill was read a second time;
and the speaker asking, If the question should be put fo