"I am astonished," the King wrote, "at the fellow"s effrontery. You know me too well to think that such stories as his can make any impression on me. Observe this honest man"s sincerity. He has nothing to say except against my friends. Not a word about the plans of his brother Jacobites." The King concluded by directing the Lords justices to send Fenwick before a jury with all speed. [730]
The effect produced by William"s letter was remarkable. Every one of the accused persons behaved himself in a manner singularly characteristic.
Marlborough, the most culpable of all, preserved a serenity, mild, majestic and slightly contemptuous. Russell, scarcely less criminal than Marlborough, went into a towering pa.s.sion, and breathed nothing but vengeance against the villanous informer. G.o.dolphin, uneasy, but wary, reserved and selfpossessed, prepared himself to stand on the defensive.
But Shrewsbury, who of all the four was the least to blame, was utterly overwhelmed. He wrote in extreme distress to William, acknowledged with warm expressions of grat.i.tude the King"s rare generosity, and protested that Fenwick had malignantly exaggerated and distorted mere trifles into enormous crimes. "My Lord Middleton,"--such was the substance of the letter,--"was certainly in communication with me about the time of the battle of La Hogue. We are relations; we frequently met; we supped together just before he returned to France; I promised to take care of his interests here; he in return offered to do me good offices there; but I told him that I had offended too deeply to be forgiven, and that I would not stoop to ask forgiveness." This, Shrewsbury averred, was the whole extent of his offence. [731] It is but too fully proved that this confession was by no means ingenuous; nor is it likely that William was deceived. But he was determined to spare the repentant traitor the humiliation of owning a fault and accepting a pardon. "I can see," the King wrote, "no crime at all in what you have acknowledged. Be a.s.sured that these calumnies have made no unfavourable impression on me. Nay, you shall find that they have strengthened my confidence in you." [732]
A man hardened in depravity would have been perfectly contented with an acquittal so complete, announced in language so gracious. But Shrewsbury was quite unnerved by a tenderness which he was conscious that he had not merited. He shrank from the thought of meeting the master whom he had wronged, and by whom he had been forgiven, and of sustaining the gaze of the peers, among whom his birth and his abilities had gained for him a station of which he felt that he was unworthy. The campaign in the Netherlands was over. The session of Parliament was approaching.
The King was expected with the first fair wind. Shrewsbury left town and retired to the Wolds of Gloucestershire. In that district, then one of the wildest in the south of the island, he had a small country seat, surrounded by pleasant gardens and fish-ponds. William had, in his progress a year before, visited this dwelling, which lay far from the nearest high road and from the nearest market town, and had been much struck by the silence and loneliness of the retreat in which he found the most graceful and splendid of English courtiers.
At one in the morning of the sixth of October, the King landed at Margate. Late in the evening he reached Kensington. The following morning a brilliant crowd of ministers and n.o.bles pressed to kiss his hand; but he missed one face which ought to have been there, and asked where the Duke of Shrewsbury was, and when he was expected in town. The next day came a letter from the Duke, averring that he had just had a bad fall in hunting. His side had been bruised; his lungs had suffered; he had spit blood, and could not venture to travel. [733] That he had fallen and hurt himself was true; but even those who felt most kindly towards him suspected, and not without strong reason, that he made the most of his convenient misfortune, and, that if he had not shrunk from appearing in public, he would have performed the journey with little difficulty. His correspondents told him that, if he was really as ill as he thought himself, he would do well to consult the physicians and surgeons of the capital. Somers, especially, implored him in the most earnest manner to come up to London. Every hour"s delay was mischievous.
His Grace must conquer his sensibility. He had only to face calumny courageously, and it would vanish. [734] The King, in a few kind lines, expressed his sorrow for the accident. "You are much wanted here," he wrote: "I am impatient to embrace you, and to a.s.sure you that my esteem for you is undiminished." [735] Shrewsbury answered that he had resolved to resign the seals. [736] Somers adjured him not to commit so fatal an error. If at that moment His Grace should quit office, what could the world think, except that he was condemned by his own conscience? He would, in fact, plead guilty; he would put a stain on his own honour, and on the honour of all who lay under the same accusation. It would no longer be possible to treat Fenwick"s story as a romance. "Forgive me,"
Somers wrote, "for speaking after this free manner; for I do own I can scarce be temperate in this matter." [737] A few hours later William himself wrote to the same effect. "I have so much regard for you, that, if I could, I would positively interdict you from doing what must bring such grave suspicions on you. At any time, I should consider your resignation as a misfortune to myself but I protest to you that, at this time, it is on your account more than on mine that I wish you to remain in my service." [738] Sunderland, Portland, Russell and Wharton joined their entreaties to their master"s; and Shrewsbury consented to remain Secretary in name. But nothing could induce him to face the Parliament which was about to meet. A litter was sent down to him from London, but to no purpose. He set out, but declared that he found it impossible to proceed, and took refuge again in his lonely mansion among the hills.
[739]
While these things were pa.s.sing, the members of both Houses were from every part of the kingdom going up to Westminster. To the opening of the session, not only England, but all Europe, looked forward with intense anxiety. Public credit had been deeply injured by the failure of the Land Bank. The restoration of the currency was not yet half accomplished. The scarcity of money was still distressing. Much of the milled silver was buried in private repositories as fast as it came forth from the Mint. Those politicians who were bent on raising the denomination of the coin had found too ready audience from a population suffering under severe pressure; and, at one time, the general voice of the nation had seemed to be on their side. [740] Of course every person who thought it likely that the standard would be lowered, h.o.a.rded as much money as he could h.o.a.rd; and thus the cry for little shillings aggravated the pressure from which it had sprung. [741] Both the allies and the enemies of England imagined that her resources were spent, that her spirit was broken, that the Commons, so often querulous and parsimonious even in tranquil and prosperous times, would now positively refuse to bear any additional burden, and would, with an importunity not to be withstood, insist on having peace at any price.
But all these prognostications were confounded by the firmness and ability of the Whig leaders, and by the steadiness of the Whig majority.
On the twentieth of October the Houses met. William addressed to them a speech remarkable even among all the remarkable speeches in which his own high thoughts and purposes were expressed in the dignified and judicious language of Somers. There was, the King said, great reason for congratulation. It was true that the funds voted in the preceding session for the support of the war had failed, and that the recoinage had produced great distress. Yet the enemy had obtained no advantage abroad; the State had been torn by no convulsion at home; the loyalty shown by the army and by the nation under severe trials had disappointed all the hopes of those who wished evil to England. Overtures tending to peace had been made. What might be the result of those overtures, was uncertain; but this was certain, that there could be no safe or honourable peace for a nation which was not prepared to wage vigorous war. "I am sure we shall all agree in opinion that the only way of treating with France is with our swords in our hands."
The Commons returned to their chamber; and Foley read the speech from the chair. A debate followed which resounded through all Christendom.
That was the proudest day of Montague"s life, and one of the proudest days in the history of the English Parliament. In 1798, Burke held up the proceedings of that day as an example to the statesmen whose hearts had failed them in the conflict with the gigantic power of the French republic. In 1822, Huskisson held up the proceedings of that day as an example to a legislature which, under the pressure of severe distress, was tempted to alter the standard of value and to break faith with the public creditor. Before the House rose the young Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose ascendency, since the ludicrous failure of the Tory scheme of finance, was undisputed, proposed and carried three memorable resolutions. The first, which pa.s.sed with only one muttered No, declared that the Commons would support the King against all foreign and domestic enemies, and would enable him to prosecute the war with vigour. The second, which pa.s.sed, not without opposition, but without a division, declared that the standard of money should not be altered in fineness, weight or denomination. The third, against which not a single opponent of the government dared to raise his voice, pledged the House to make good all the deficiencies of all parliamentary fund"s established since the King"s accession. The task of framing an answer to the royal speech was entrusted to a Committee exclusively composed of Whigs. Montague was chairman; and the eloquent and animated address which he drew up may still be read in the journals with interest and pride. [742]
Within a fortnight two millions and a half were granted for the military expenditure of the approaching year, and nearly as much for the maritime expenditure. Provision was made without any dispute for forty thousand seamen. About the amount of the land force there was a division. The King asked for eighty-seven thousand soldiers; and the Tories thought that number too large. The vote was carried by two hundred and twenty-three to sixty-seven.
The malecontents flattered themselves, during a short time, that the vigorous resolutions of the Commons would be nothing more than resolutions, that it would be found impossible to restore public credit, to obtain advances from capitalists, or to wring taxes out of the distressed population, and that therefore the forty thousand seamen and the eighty-seven thousand soldiers would exist only on paper. Howe, who had been more cowed than was usual with him on the first day of the session, attempted, a week later, to make a stand against the Ministry.
"The King," he said, "must have been misinformed; or His Majesty never would have felicitated Parliament on the tranquil state of the country.
I come from Gloucestershire. I know that part of the kingdom well. The people are all living on alms, or ruined by paying alms. The soldier helps himself, sword in hand, to what he wants. There have been serious riots already; and still more serious riots are to be apprehended."
The disapprobation of the House was strongly expressed. Several members declared that in their counties every thing was quiet. If Gloucestershire were in a more disturbed state than the rest of England, might not the cause be that Gloucestershire was cursed with a more malignant and unprincipled agitator than all the rest of England could show? Some Gloucestershire gentlemen took issue with Howe on the facts.
There was no such distress, they said, no such discontent, no such rioting as he had described. In that county, as in every other county, the great body of the population was fully determined to support the King in waging a vigorous war till he could make an honourable peace.
[743]
In fact the tide had already turned. From the moment at which the Commons notified their fixed determination not to raise the denomination of the coin, the milled money began to come forth from a thousand strong boxes and private drawers. There was still pressure; but that pressure was less and less felt day by day. The nation, though still suffering, was joyful and grateful. Its feelings resembled those of a man who, having been long tortured by a malady which has embittered his life, has at last made up his mind to submit to the surgeon"s knife, who has gone through a cruel operation with safety, and who, though still smarting from the steel, sees before him many years of health and enjoyment, and thanks G.o.d that the worst is over. Within four days after the meeting of Parliament there was a perceptible improvement in trade. The discount on bank notes had diminished by one third. The price of those wooden tallies, which, according to an usage handed to us from a rude age, were given as receipts for sums paid into the Exchequer, had risen. The exchanges, which had during many months been greatly against England, had begun to turn. [744] Soon the effect of the magnanimous firmness of the House of Commons was felt at every Court in Europe. So high indeed was the spirit of that a.s.sembly that the King had some difficulty in preventing the Whigs from moving and carrying a resolution that an address should be presented to him, requesting him to enter into no negotiation with France, till she should have acknowledged him as King of England. [745] Such an address was unnecessary. The votes of the Parliament had already forced on Lewis the conviction that there was no chance of a counterrevolution. There was as little chance that he would be able to effect that compromise of which he had, in the course of the negotiations, thrown out hints. It was not to be hoped that either William or the English nation would ever consent to make the settlement of the English crown a matter of bargain with France. And even had William and the English nation been disposed to purchase peace by such a sacrifice of dignity, there would have been insuperable difficulties in another quarter. James could not endure to hear of the expedient which Lewis had suggested. "I can bear," the exile said to his benefactor, "I can bear with Christian patience to be robbed by the Prince of Orange; but I never will consent to be robbed by my own son." Lewis never again mentioned the subject. Callieres received orders to make the concession on which the peace of the civilised world depended. He and Dykvelt came together at the Hague before Baron Lilienroth, the representative of the King of Sweden, whose mediation the belligerent powers had accepted.
Dykvelt informed Lilienroth that the Most Christian King had engaged, whenever the Treaty of Peace should be signed, to recognise the Prince of Orange as King of Great Britain, and added, with a very intelligible allusion to the compromise proposed by France, that the recognition would be without restriction, condition or reserve. Callieres then declared that he confirmed, in the name of his master, what Dykvelt had said. [746] A letter from Prior, containing the good news, was delivered to James Vernon, the Under Secretary of State, in the House of Commons.
The tidings ran along the benches--such is Vernon"s expression--like fire in a field of stubble. A load was taken away from every heart; and all was joy and triumph. [747] The Whig members might indeed well congratulate each other. For it was to the wisdom and resolution which they had shown, in a moment of extreme danger and distress, that their country was indebted for the near prospect of an honourable peace.
Meanwhile public credit, which had, in the autumn, sunk to the lowest point, was fast reviving. Ordinary financiers stood aghast when they learned that more than five millions were required to make good the deficiencies of past years. But Montague was not an ordinary financier.
A bold and simple plan proposed by him, and popularly called the General Mortgage, restored confidence. New taxes were imposed; old taxes were augmented or continued; and thus a consolidated fund was formed sufficient to meet every just claim on the State. The Bank of England was at the same time enlarged by a new subscription; and the regulations for the payment of the subscription were framed in such a manner as to raise the value both of the notes of the corporation and of the public securities.
Meanwhile the mints were pouring forth the new silver faster than ever.
The distress which began on the fourth of May 1696, which was almost insupportable during the five succeeding months, and which became lighter from the day on which the Commons declared their immutable resolution to maintain the old standard, ceased to be painfully felt in March 1697. Some months were still to elapse before credit completely recovered from the most tremendous shock that it has ever sustained. But already the deep and solid foundation had been laid on which was to rise the most gigantic fabric of commercial prosperity that the world had ever seen. The great body of the Whigs attributed the restoration of the health of the State to the genius and firmness of their leader Montague.
His enemies were forced to confess, sulkily and sneeringly, that every one of his schemes had succeeded, the first Bank subscription, the second Bank subscription, the Recoinage, the General Mortgage, the Exchequer Bills. But some Tories muttered that he deserved no more praise than a prodigal who stakes his whole estate at hazard, and has a run of good luck. England had indeed pa.s.sed safely through a terrible crisis, and was the stronger for having pa.s.sed through it. But she had been in imminent danger of perishing; and the minister who had exposed her to that danger deserved, not to be praised, but to be hanged. Others admitted that the plans which were popularly attributed to Montague were excellent, but denied that those plans were Montague"s. The voice of detraction, however, was for a time drowned by the loud applauses of the Parliament and the City. The authority which the Chancellor of the Exchequer exercised in the House of Commons was unprecedented and unrivalled. In the Cabinet his influence was daily increasing. He had no longer a superior at the Board of Treasury. In consequence of Fenwick"s confession, the last Tory who held a great and efficient office in the State had been removed, and there was at length a purely Whig Ministry.
It had been impossible to prevent reports about that confession from getting abroad. The prisoner, indeed, had found means of communicating with his friends, and had doubtless given them to understand that he had said nothing against them, and much against the creatures of the usurper. William wished the matter to be left to the ordinary tribunals, and was most unwilling that it should be debated elsewhere. But his counsellors, better acquainted than himself with the temper of large and divided a.s.semblies, were of opinion that a parliamentary discussion, though perhaps undesirable, was inevitable. It was in the power of a single member of either House to force on such a discussion; and in both Houses there were members who, some from a sense of duty, some from mere love of mischief, were determined to know whether the prisoner had, as it was rumoured, brought grave charges against some of the most distinguished men in the kingdom. If there must be an inquiry, it was surely desirable that the accused statesmen should be the first to demand it. There was, however, one great difficulty. The Whigs, who formed the majority of the Lower House, were ready to vote, as one man, for the entire absolution of Russell and Shrewsbury, and had no wish to put a stigma on Marlborough, who was not in place, and therefore excited little jealousy. But a strong body of honest gentlemen, as Wharton called them, could not, by any management, be induced to join in a resolution acquitting G.o.dolphin. To them G.o.dolphin was an eyesore. All the other Tories who, in the earlier years of William"s reign, had borne a chief part in the direction of affairs, had, one by one, been dismissed. Nottingham, Trevor, Leeds, were no longer in power. Pembroke could hardly be called a Tory, and had never been really in power. But G.o.dolphin still retained his post at Whitehall; and to the men of the Revolution it seemed intolerable that one who had sate at the Council Board of Charles and James, and who had voted for a Regency, should be the princ.i.p.al minister of finance. Those who felt thus had learned with malicious delight that the First Lord of the Treasury was named in the confession about which all the world was talking; and they were determined not to let slip so good an opportunity of ejecting him from office. On the other hand, every body who had seen Fenwick"s paper, and who had not, in the drunkenness of factious animosity, lost all sense of reason and justice, must have felt that it was impossible to make a distinction between two parts of that paper, and to treat all that related to Shrewsbury and Russell as false, and all that related to G.o.dolphin as true. This was acknowledged even by Wharton, who of all public men was the least troubled by scruples or by shame. [748] If G.o.dolphin had stedfastly refused to quit his place, the Whig leaders would have been in a most embarra.s.sing position. But a politician of no common dexterity undertook to extricate them from their difficulties.
In the art of reading and managing the minds of men Sunderland had no equal; and he was, as he had been during several years, desirous to see all the great posts in the kingdom filled by Whigs. By his skilful management G.o.dolphin was induced to go into the royal closet, and to request permission to retire from office; and William granted that permission with a readiness by which G.o.dolphin was much more surprised than pleased. [749]
One of the methods employed by the Whig junto, for the purpose of inst.i.tuting and maintaining through all the ranks of the Whig party a discipline never before known, was the frequent holding of meetings of members of the House of Commons. Some of those meetings were numerous; others were select. The larger were held at the Rose, a tavern frequently mentioned in the political pasquinades of that time; [750]
the smaller at Russell"s in Covent Garden, or at Somers"s in Lincoln"s Inn Fields.
On the day on which G.o.dolphin resigned his great office two select meetings were called. In the morning the place of a.s.sembly was Russell"s house. In the afternoon there was a fuller muster at the Lord Keeper"s.
Fenwick"s confession, which, till that time, had probably been known only by rumour to most of those who were present, was read. The indignation of the hearers was strongly excited, particularly by one pa.s.sage, of which the sense seemed to be that not only Russell, not only Shrewsbury, but the great body of the Whig party was, and had long been, at heart Jacobite. "The fellow insinuates," it was said, "that the a.s.sa.s.sination Plot itself was a Whig scheme." The general opinion was that such a charge could not be lightly pa.s.sed over. There must be a solemn debate and decision in Parliament. The best course would be that the King should himself see and examine the prisoner, and that Russell should then request the royal permission to bring the subject before the House of Commons. As Fenwick did not pretend that he had any authority for the stories which he had told except mere hearsay, there could be no difficulty in carrying a resolution branding him as a slanderer, and an address to the throne requesting that he might be forthwith brought to trial for high treason. [751]
The opinion of the meeting was conveyed to William by his ministers; and he consented, though not without reluctance, to see the prisoner.
Fenwick was brought into the royal closet at Kensington. A few of the great officers of state and the Crown lawyers were present. "Your papers, Sir John," said the King, "are altogether unsatisfactory.
Instead of giving me an account of the plots formed by you and your accomplices, plots of which all the details must be exactly known to you, you tell me stories, without authority, without date, without place, about n.o.blemen and gentlemen with whom you do not pretend to have had any intercourse. In short your confession appears to be a contrivance intended to screen those who are really engaged in designs against me, and to make me suspect and discard those in whom I have good reason to place confidence. If you look for any favour from me, give me, this moment and on this spot, a full and straightforward account of what you know of your own knowledge." Fenwick said that he was taken by surprise, and asked for time. "No, Sir," said the King. "For what purpose can you want time? You may indeed want time if you mean to draw up another paper like this. But what I require is a plain narrative of what you have yourself done and seen; and such a narrative you can give, if you will, without pen and ink." Then Fenwick positively refused to say any thing. "Be it so," said William. "I will neither hear you nor hear from you any more." [752] Fenwick was carried back to his prison.
He had at this audience shown a boldness and determination which surprised those who had observed his demeanour. He had, ever since he had been in confinement, appeared to be anxious and dejected; yet now, at the very crisis of his fate, he had braved the displeasure of the Prince whose clemency he had, a short time before, submissively implored. In a very few hours the mystery was explained. Just before he had been summoned to Kensington, he had received from his wife intelligence that his life was in no danger, that there was only one witness against him, that she and her friends had succeeded in corrupting Goodman. [753]
Goodman had been allowed a liberty which was afterwards, with some reason, made matter of charge against the government. For his testimony was most important; his character was notoriously bad; the attempts which had been made to seduce Porter proved that, if money could save Fenwick"s life, money would not be spared; and Goodman had not, like Porter, been instrumental in sending Jacobites to the gallows, and therefore was not, like Porter, bound to the cause of William by an indissoluble tie. The families of the imprisoned conspirators employed the agency of a cunning and daring adventurer named O"Brien. This man knew Goodman well. Indeed they had belonged to the same gang of highwaymen. They met at the Dog in Drury Lane, a tavern which was frequented by lawless and desperate men. O"Brien was accompanied by another Jacobite of determined character. A simple choice was offered to Goodman, to abscond and to be rewarded with an annuity of five hundred a year, or to have his throat cut on the spot. He consented, half from cupidity, half from fear. O"Brien was not a man to be tricked as Clancy had been. He never parted company with Goodman from the moment when the bargain was struck till they were at Saint Germains. [754]
On the afternoon of the day on which Fenwick was examined by the King at Kensington it began to be noised abroad that Goodman was missing. He had been many hours absent from his house. He had not been seen at his usual haunts. At first a suspicion arose that he had been murdered by the Jacobites; and this suspicion was strengthened by a singular circ.u.mstance. Just after his disappearance, a human head was found severed from the body to which it belonged, and so frightfully mangled that no feature could be recognised. The mult.i.tude, possessed by the notion that there was no crime which an Irish Papist might not be found to commit, was inclined to believe that the fate of G.o.dfrey had befallen another victim. On inquiry however it seemed certain that Goodman had designedly withdrawn himself. A proclamation appeared promising a reward of a thousand pounds to any person who should stop the runaway; but it was too late. [755]
This event exasperated the Whigs beyond measure. No jury could now find Fenwick guilty of high treason. Was he then to escape? Was a long series of offences against the State to go unpunished merely because to those offences had now been added the offence of bribing a witness to suppress his evidence and to desert his bail? Was there no extraordinary method by which justice might strike a criminal who, solely because he was worse than other criminals, was beyond the reach of the ordinary law?
Such a method there was, a method authorised by numerous precedents, a method used both by Papists and by Protestants during the troubles of the sixteenth century, a method used both by Roundheads and by Cavaliers during the troubles of the seventeenth century, a method which scarcely any leader of the Tory party could condemn without condemning himself, a method of which Fenwick could not decently complain, since he had, a few years before, been eager to employ it against the unfortunate Monmouth.
To that method the party which was now supreme in the State determined to have recourse.
Soon after the Commons had met, on the morning of the sixth of November, Russell rose in his place and requested to be heard. The task which he had undertaken required courage not of the most respectable kind; but to him no kind of courage was wanting. Sir John Fenwick, he said, had sent to the King a paper in which grave accusations were brought against some of His Majesty"s servants; and His Majesty had, at the request of his accused servants, graciously given orders that this paper should be laid before the House. The confession was produced and read. The Admiral then, with spirit and dignity worthy of a better man, demanded justice for himself and Shrewsbury. "If we are innocent, clear us. If we are guilty, punish us as we deserve. I put myself on you as on my country, and am ready to stand or fall by your verdict."
It was immediately ordered that Fenwick should be brought to the bar with all speed. Cutts, who sate in the House as member for Cambridgeshire, was directed to provide a sufficient escort, and was especially enjoined to take care that the prisoner should have no opportunity of making or receiving any communication, oral or written, on the road from Newgate to Westminster. The House then adjourned till the afternoon.
At five o"clock, then a late hour, the mace was again put on the table; candles were lighted; and the House and lobby were carefully cleared of strangers. Fenwick was in attendance under a strong guard. He was called in, and exhorted from the chair to make a full and ingenuous confession.
He hesitated and evaded. "I cannot say any thing without the King"s permission. His Majesty may be displeased if what ought to be known only to him should be divulged to others." He was told that his apprehensions were groundless. The King well knew that it was the right and the duty of his faithful Commons to inquire into whatever concerned the safety of his person and of his government. "I may be tried in a few days," said the prisoner. "I ought not to be asked to say any thing which may rise up in judgment against me." "You have nothing to fear," replied the Speaker, "if you will only make a full and free discovery. No man ever had reason to repent of having dealt candidly with the Commons of England." Then Fenwick begged for delay. He was not a ready orator; his memory was bad; he must have time to prepare himself. He was told, as he had been told a few days before in the royal closet, that, prepared or unprepared, he could not but remember the princ.i.p.al plots in which he had been engaged, and the names of his chief accomplices. If he would honestly relate what it was quite impossible that he could have forgotten, the House would make all fair allowances, and would grant him time to recollect subordinate details. Thrice he was removed from the bar; and thrice he was brought back. He was solemnly informed that the opportunity then given him of earning the favour of the Commons would probably be the last. He persisted in his refusal, and was sent back to Newgate.
It was then moved that his confession was false and scandalous.
Coningsby proposed to add that it was a contrivance to create jealousies between the King and good subjects for the purpose of screening real traitors. A few implacable and unmanageable Whigs, whose hatred of G.o.dolphin had not been mitigated by his resignation, hinted their doubts whether the whole paper ought to be condemned. But after a debate in which Montague particularly distinguished himself the motion was carried. One or two voices cried "No;" but n.o.body ventured to demand a division.
Thus far all had gone smoothly; but in a few minutes the storm broke forth. The terrible words, Bill of Attainder, were p.r.o.nounced; and all the fiercest pa.s.sions of both the great factions were instantly roused.
The Tories had been taken by surprise, and many of them had left the house. Those who remained were loud in declaring that they never would consent to such a violation of the first principles of justice. The spirit of the Whigs was not less ardent, and their ranks were unbroken.
The motion for leave to bring in a bill attainting Sir John Fenwick was carried very late at night by one hundred and seventy-nine votes to sixty-one; but it was plain that the struggle would be long and hard.
[756]
In truth party spirit had seldom been more strongly excited. On both sides there was doubtless much honest zeal; and on both sides an observant eye might have detected fear, hatred, and cupidity disguised under specious pretences of justice and public good. The baleful heat of faction rapidly warmed into life poisonous creeping things which had long been lying torpid, discarded spies and convicted false witnesses, the leavings of the scourge, the branding iron and the shears. Even Fuller hoped that he might again find dupes to listen to him. The world had forgotten him since his pillorying. He now had the effrontery to write to the Speaker, begging to be heard at the bar and promising much important information about Fenwick and others. On the ninth of November the Speaker informed the House that he had received this communication; but the House very properly refused even to suffer the letter of so notorious a villain to be read.
On the same day the Bill of Attainder, having been prepared by the Attorney and Solicitor General, was brought in and read a first time.
The House was full and the debate sharp. John Manley, member for Bossiney, one of those stanch Tories who, in the preceding session, had long refused to sign the a.s.sociation, accused the majority, in no measured terms, of fawning on the Court and betraying the liberties of the people. His words were taken down; and, though he tried to explain them away, he was sent to the Tower. Seymour spoke strongly against the bill, and quoted the speech which Caesar made in the Roman Senate against the motion that the accomplices of Catiline should be put to death in an irregular manner. A Whig orator keenly remarked that the worthy Baron had forgotten that Caesar was grievously suspected of having been himself concerned in Catiline"s plot. [757] In this stage a hundred and ninety-six members voted for the bill, a hundred and four against it. A copy was sent to Fenwick, in order that he might be prepared to defend himself. He begged to be heard by counsel; his request was granted; and the thirteenth was fixed for the hearing.
Never within the memory of the oldest member had there been such a stir round the House as on the morning of the thirteenth. The approaches were with some difficulty cleared; and no strangers, except peers, were suffered to come within the doors. Of peers the throng was so great that their presence had a perceptible influence on the debate. Even Seymour, who, having formerly been Speaker, ought to have been peculiarly mindful of the dignity of the Commons, so strangely forgot himself as once to say "My Lords." Fenwick, having been formally given up by the Sheriffs of London to the Serjeant at Arms, was put to the bar, attended by two barristers who were generally employed by Jacobite culprits, Sir Thomas Powis and Sir Bartholomew Shower. Counsel appointed by the House appeared in support of the bill.
The examination of the witnesses and the arguments of the advocates occupied three days. Porter was called in and interrogated. It was established, not indeed by legal proof, but by such moral proof as determines the conduct of men in the affairs of common life, that Goodman"s absence was to be attributed to a scheme planned and executed by Fenwick"s friends with Fenwick"s privity. Secondary evidence of what Goodman, if he had been present, would have been able to prove, was, after a warm debate, admitted. His confession, made on oath and subscribed by his hand, was put in. Some of the grand jurymen who had found the bill against Sir John gave an account of what Goodman had sworn before them; and their testimony was confirmed by some of the petty jurymen who had convicted another conspirator. No evidence was produced in behalf of the prisoner. After counsel for him and against him had been heard, he was sent back to his cell. [758] Then the real struggle began. It was long and violent. The House repeatedly sate from daybreak till near midnight. Once the Speaker was in the chair fifteen hours without intermission. Strangers were freely admitted; for it was felt that, since the House chose to take on itself the functions of a court of justice, it ought, like a court of justice, to sit with open doors. [759] The substance of the debates has consequently been preserved in a report, meagre, indeed, when compared with the reports of our time, but for that age unusually full. Every man of note in the House took part in the discussion. The bill was opposed by Finch with that fluent and sonorous rhetoric which had gained him the name of Silvertongue, and by Howe with all the sharpness both of his wit and of his temper, by Seymour with characteristic energy, and by Harley with characteristic solemnity. On the other side Montague displayed the powers of a consummate debater, and was zealously supported by Littleton. Conspicuous in the front ranks of the hostile parties were two distinguished lawyers, Simon Harcourt and William Cowper.
Both were gentlemen of honourable descent; both were distinguished by their fine persons and graceful manners; both were renowned for eloquence; and both loved learning and learned men. It may be added that both had early in life been noted for prodigality and love of pleasure.
Dissipation had made them poor; poverty had made them industrious; and though they were still, as age is reckoned at the Inns of Court, very young men, Harcourt only thirty-six, Cowper only thirty-two, they already had the first practice at the bar. They were destined to rise still higher, to be the bearers of the great seal of the realm, and the founders of patrician houses. In politics they were diametrically opposed to each other. Harcourt had seen the Revolution with disgust, had not chosen to sit in the Convention, had with difficulty reconciled his conscience to the oaths, and had tardily and unwillingly signed the a.s.sociation. Cowper had been in arms for the Prince of Orange and a free Parliament, and had, in the short and tumultuary campaign which preceded the flight of James, distinguished himself by intelligence and courage.
Since Somers had been removed to the Woolsack, the law officers of the Crown had not made a very distinguished figure in the Lower House, or indeed any where else; and their deficiencies had been more than once supplied by Cowper. His skill had, at the trial of Parkyns, recovered the verdict which the mismanagement of the Solicitor General had, for a moment, put in jeopardy. He had been chosen member for Hertford at the general election of 1695, and had scarcely taken his seat when he attained a high place among parliamentary speakers. Chesterfield many years later, in one of his letters to his son, described Cowper as an orator who never spoke without applause, but who reasoned feebly, and who owed the influence which he long exercised over great a.s.semblies to the singular charm of his style, his voice and his action. Chesterfield was, beyond all doubt, intellectually qualified to form a correct judgment on such a subject. But it must be remembered that the object of his letters was to exalt good taste and politeness in opposition to much higher qualities. He therefore constantly and systematically attributed the success of the most eminent persons of his age to their superiority, not in solid abilities and acquirements, but in superficial graces of diction and manner. He represented even Marlborough as a man of very ordinary capacity, who, solely because he was extremely well bred and well spoken, had risen from poverty and obscurity to the height of power and glory. It may confidently be p.r.o.nounced that both to Marlborough and to Cowper Chesterfield was unjust. The general who saved the Empire and conquered the Low Countries was a.s.suredly something more than a fine gentleman; and the judge who presided during nine years in the Court of Chancery with the approbation of all parties must have been something more than a fine declaimer.
Whoever attentively and impartially studies the report of the debates will be of opinion that, on many points which were discussed at great length and with great animation, the Whigs had a decided superiority in argument, but that on the main question the Tories were in the right.
It was true that the crime of high treason was brought home to Fenwick by proofs which could leave no doubt on the mind of any man of common sense, and would have been brought home to him according to the strict rules of law, if he had not, by committing another crime, eluded the justice of the ordinary tribunals. It was true that he had, in the very act of professing repentance and imploring mercy, added a new offence to his former offences, that, while pretending to make a perfectly ingenuous confession, he had, with cunning malice, concealed every thing which it was for the interest of the government that he should divulge, and proclaimed every thing which it was for the interest of the government to bury in silence. It was a great evil that he should be beyond the reach of punishment; it was plain that he could be reached only by a bill of pains and penalties; and it could not be denied, either that many such bills had pa.s.sed, or that no such bill had ever pa.s.sed in a clearer case of guilt or after a fairer hearing.
All these propositions the Whigs seem to have fully established.
They had also a decided advantage in the dispute about the rule which requires two witnesses in cases of high treason. The truth is that the rule is absurd. It is impossible to understand why the evidence which would be sufficient to prove that a man has fired at one of his fellow subjects should not be sufficient to prove that he has fired at his Sovereign. It can by no means be laid down as a general maxim that the a.s.sertion of two witnesses is more convincing to the mind than the a.s.sertion of one witness. The story told by one witness may be in itself probable. The story told by two witnesses may be extravagant. The story told by one witness may be uncontradicted. The story told by two witnesses may be contradicted by four witnesses. The story told by one witness may be corroborated by a crowd of circ.u.mstances. The story told by two witnesses may have no such corroboration. The one witness may be Tillotson or Ken. The two witnesses may be Oates and Bedloe.
The chiefs of the Tory party, however, vehemently maintained that the law which required two witnesses was of universal and eternal obligation, part of the law of nature, part of the law of G.o.d. Seymour quoted the book of Numbers and the book of Deuteronomy to prove that no man ought to be condemned to death by the mouth of a single witness.
"Caiaphas and his Sanhedrim," said Harley, "were ready enough to set up the plea of expediency for a violation of justice; they said,--and we have heard such things said,--"We must slay this man, or the Romans will come and take away our place and nation." Yet even Caiaphas and his Sanhedrim, in that foulest act of judicial murder, did not venture to set aside the sacred law which required two witnesses." "Even Jezebel,"