18.
It is apparent that, notwithstanding what is pretended, there must have been some deficiency in the evidence against Seymour, when such demands, founded on the plainest principles of law and equity, were absolutely rejected.

We shall indeed conclude, if we carefully examine the charge, that many of the articles were general, and scarcely capable of any proof many of them, if true, susceptible of a more favorable interpretation; and that though, on the whole, Seymour appears to have been a dangerous subject, he had not advanced far in those treasonable projects imputed to him.

The chief part of his actual guilt seems to have consisted in some unwarrantable practices in the admiralty, by which pirates were protected and illegal impositions laid upon the merchants.
But the administration had at that time an easy instrument of vengeance, to wit, the parliament; and needed not to give themselves any concern with regard either to the guilt of the persons whom they prosecuted, or the evidence which could be produced against them.

A session of parliament being held, it was resolved to proceed against Seymour by bill of attainder; and the young king being induced, after much solicitation, to give his consent to it, a considerable weight was put on his approbation.

The matter was first laid before the upper house; and several peers, rising up in their places, gave an account of what they knew concerning Lord Seymour's conduct, and his criminal words or actions.
{1549.} These narratives were received as undoubted evidence; and though the prisoner had formerly engaged many friends and partisans among the nobility, no one had either the courage or equity to move, that he might be heard in his defence, that the testimony against him should be delivered in a legal manner, and that he should be confronted with the witnesses.