LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--My lord, to hear your counsel concerning this fact, that we cannot do, it was never done, nor will be done. If your lordship doubts whether this fact is treason or not, and desires your counsel may be heard to that, I will do it. SOLICITOR-GENERAL--Will your lordship please to call any witness to the matter of fact? LORD RUSSELL--It is very hard a man must lose his life upon hearsay. Colonel Rumsey says he brought a message which I will swear I never heard nor knew of. He does not say he spake to me, or I gave him any answer. Mr. Sheppard remembers no such thing; he was gone to and again. Here is but one witness, and seven months ago. ATTORNEY-GENERAL--My lord, if there is anything that is law, you shall have it LORD RUSSELL--My lord, colonel Rumsey, the other day before the king [the information of Rumsey is signed by the Duke of Abermarle and Sir Leoline Jenkins, Secretary of State] could not say that I heard it, I was in the room, but I came in late, they had been there a good while; I did not stay above a quarter of an hour tasting sherry with Mr. Sheppard. Here some of the judges desired that 25 Edw. III. c. 2 should be read, which was done. The material parts of it declare 'that whereas divers opinions have been before this time, in what case treason shall be said, and in what not ... when a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the king ... or if a man do levy war against our lord the king in his realm, or be adherent to the king's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere, and thereof be provable attainted of open deed by people of their condition,' it is treason. On this the point of law is re-discussed with the same result as before. LORD RUSSELL--I do not know how to answer it. The points methinks must be quite otherwise, that there should be two witnesses to one thing at the same time. ATTORNEY-GENERAL--Your lordship remembers, in my lord Stafford's case, there was but one witness to one act in England, and another to another in France. LORD RUSSELL--It was to the same point. ATTORNEY-GENERAL--To the general point, the lopping point. LORD RUSSELL--I can prove I was out of town when one of these meetings was; but Mr. Sheppard cannot recollect the day, for I was out of town all that time. I never was but once at Mr. Sheppard's and there was nothing undertaken of viewing the guards while I was there. Col. Rumsey, can you swear positively, that I heard the message, and gave any answer to it? LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE (to Col. Rumsey)--Sir, did my lord Russell hear you when you delivered the message to the company? Were they at the table, or where were they?