_L._ Not only so; but if a subject should counsel any other man to kill the King, Queen, or heir-apparent to the Crown, it would at this day be adjudged high-treason; and yet it is no more than bare words. In the third year of King James, Henry Garnet, a Jesuit priest, to whom some of the gunpowder traitors had revealed their design by way of confession, gave them absolution without any caution taken for their desisting from their purpose, or other provision against the danger, and was therefore condemned and executed as a traitor, though such absolution was nothing else but bare words. Also I find in the reports of Sir John Davis, Attorney-General for Ireland, that in the time of King Henry VI, a man was condemned of treason for saying the King was a natural fool, and unfit to govern. But yet this clause in the statute of _Edw. III_, viz. that the compassing there mentioned ought to be proved by some _overt act_, was by the framers of the statute not without great wisdom and providence inserted; for as Sir Edward Coke very well observeth, when witnesses are examined concerning words only, they never, or very rarely, agree precisely about the words they swear to. _P._ I deny not but that it was wisely enough done. But the question is not here of the treason, which is either fact or design, but of the proof, which when it is doubtful, is to be judged by a jury of twelve lawful men. Now whether think you is it a better proof of a man’s intention to kill, that he declare the same with his own mouth, so as it may be witnessed, or that he provide weapons, powder, poison, or assay arms? If he utter his design by words, the jury has no more to do than to consider the legality of the witnesses, the harmony of their testimonies, or whether the words were spoken advisedly. For they might have been uttered in a disputation, for exercise only; or when he that spake them, had not the use of reason, nor perhaps any design or wish at all, towards the execution of what he talked of. But how a jury, from providing or buying of armour, or buying of gunpowder, or from any other overt act, not treason in itself, can infer a design of murdering the King, unless there appear some words also signifying to what end he made such provision, I cannot easily conceive. Therefore, as the jury on the whole matter, words and deeds, shall ground their judgment concerning design or not design, so, in reason, they ought to give verdict. But to come to the treason of counterfeiting the great or privy-seal, seeing there are so many ways for a cheating fellow to make use of these seals, to the cozening of the King and his people; why are not all such abuses high-treason, as well as the making of a false seal?