He concluded with saying, "We know at present on what ground we stand; by the statute of Edward III.

we know what treason is; by the two statutes of Edward VI.

and the late act, we know what is proof; by the Magna Charta we know we are to be tried _per legem terrae el per judicium parium_, by the law of the land and the judgment of our peers; but if bills of attainder come into fashion, we shall neither know what is treason, what is evidence, nor how nor where we are to be tried." He was seconded by sir Bartholomew Shower, who spoke with equal energy and elocution; and their arguments were answered by the king's counsel.

The arguments in favour of the bill imported that the parliament 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.