_Attainder of Sir John Fenwick._--Perhaps the indignation of parliament against those who sought to bring back despotism through civil war and the murder of an heroic sovereign, was carried too far in the bill for attainting Sir John Fenwick of treason. Two witnesses, required by our law in a charge of that nature, Porter and Goodman, had deposed before the grand jury to Fenwick's share in the scheme of invasion, though there is no reason to believe that he was privy to the intended assassination of the king. His wife subsequently prevailed on Goodman to quit the kingdom; and thus it became impossible to obtain a conviction in the course of law. This was the apology for a special act of the legislature, by which he suffered the penalties of treason. It did not, like some other acts of attainder, inflict a punishment beyond the offence, but supplied the deficiency of legal evidence. It was sustained by the production of Goodman's examination before the privy council, and by the evidence of two grand-jurymen as to the deposition he had made on oath before them, and on which they had found the bill of indictment. It was also shown that he had been tampered with by Lady Mary Fenwick to leave the kingdom. This was undoubtedly as good secondary evidence as can well be imagined; and, though in criminal cases such evidence is not admissible by courts of law, it was plausibly urged that the legislature might prevent Fenwick from taking advantage of his own underhand management, without transgressing the moral rules of justice, or even setting the dangerous precedent of punishing treason upon a single testimony. Yet, upon the whole, the importance of adhering to the stubborn rules of law in matters of treason is so weighty, and the difficulty of keeping such a body as the House of Commons within any less precise limits so manifest, that we may well concur with those who thought Sir John Fenwick much too inconsiderable a person to warrant such an anomaly. The jealous sense of liberty prevalent in William's reign produced a very strong opposition to this bill of attainder; it passed in each house, especially in the Lords, by a small majority.[195] Nor perhaps would it have been carried but for Fenwick's imprudent disclosure, in order to save his life, of some great statesmen's intrigues with the late king; a disclosure which he dared not, or was not in a situation to confirm, but which rendered him the victim of their fear and revenge. Russell, one of those accused, brought into the Commons the bill of attainder; Marlborough voted in favour of it, the only instance wherein he quitted the tories; Godolphin and Bath, with more humanity, took the other side; and Shrewsbury absented himself from the House of Lords.[196] It is now well known that Fenwick's discoveries went not a step beyond the truth. Their effect, however, was beneficial to the state; as by displaying a strange want of secrecy in the court of St. Germains,