What had last year been defended only as a rare exception seemed now to be regarded as the ordinary rule.

Nay, the bill of pains and penalties which now had an easy passage through the House of Commons was infinitely more objectionable than the bill which had been so obstinately resisted at every stage in the preceding session.
The writ of attainder against Fenwick was not, as the vulgar imagined and still imagine, objectionable because it was retrospective.

It is always to be remembered that retrospective legislation is bad in principle only when it affects the substantive law.

Statutes creating new crimes or increasing the punishment of old crimes ought in no case to be retrospective.

But statutes which merely alter the procedure, if they are in themselves good statutes, ought to be retrospective.