This language however was at first held but by few.

The Whigs, as a party, seem to have felt that they could not honourably defend, in the season of their prosperity, what, in the time of their adversity, they had always designated as a crying grievance.

A bill for regulating trials in cases of high treason was brought into the House of Commons, and was received with general applause.

Treby had the courage to make some objections; but no division took place.

The chief enactments were that no person should be convicted of high treason committed more than three years before the indictment was found; that every person indicted for high treason should be allowed to avail himself of the assistance of counsel, and should be furnished, ten days before the trial, with a copy of the indictment, and with a list of the freeholders from among whom the jury was to be taken; that his witnesses should be sworn, and that they should be cited by the same process by which the attendance of the witnesses against him was secured.
The Bill went to the Upper House, and came back with an important amendment.