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 circumstance.  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 multitude, 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 Godfrey 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  On inquiry however it seemed certain that Goodman had designedly withdrawn himself.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.”