Doubts were raised by the jury with regard to their power of trying him, after the concluding vote of the commons: but the judges took upon them to decide the question in the affirmative, and the jury were obliged to proceed.

The writing of the libel was clearly proved upon Fitzharris: the only question was with regard to his intentions.

He asserted, that he was a spy of the court, and had accordingly carried the libel to the duchess of Portsmouth; and he was desirous that the jury should, in this transaction, consider him as a cheat, not as a traitor.

He failed, however, somewhat in the proof; and was brought in guilty of treason by the jury.
Finding himself entirely in the hands of the king, he now retracted all his former impostures with regard to the popish plot, and even endeavored to atone for them by new impostures against the country party.

He affirmed, that these fictions had been extorted from him by the suggestions and artifices of Treby, the recorder, and of Bethel and Cornish, the two sheriffs: this account he persisted in even at his execution; and though men knew that nothing could be depended on which came from one so corrupt, and so lost to all sense of honor, yet were they inclined, from his perseverance, to rely somewhat more on his veracity in these last asseverations.