The twelve, from the moment at which they are invested with their short magistracy, till the moment when they lay it down, are kept separate from the rest of the community.  Every precaution is taken to prevent any agent of power from soliciting or corrupting them.  Every one of them must hear every word of the evidence and every argument used on either side.  The case is then summed up by a judge who knows that, if he is guilty of partiality, he may be called to account by the great inquest of the nation.  In the trial of Fenwick at the bar of the House of Commons all these securities were wanting.  Some hundreds of gentlemen, every one of whom had much more than half made up his mind before the case was opened, performed the functions both of judge and jury.  They were not restrained, as a judge is restrained, by the sense of responsibility; for who was to punish a Parliament?  They were not selected, as a jury is selected, in a manner which enables the culprit to exclude his personal and political enemies.  The arbiters of his fate came in and went out as they chose.  They heard a fragment here and there of what was said against him, and a fragment here and there of what was said in his favour.  During the progress of the bill they were exposed to every species of influence.  One member was threatened by the electors of his borough with the loss of his seat; another might obtain a frigate for his brother from Russell; the vote of a third might be secured by the caresses and Burgundy of Wharton.  In the debates arts were practised and passions excited which are unknown to well constituted tribunals, but from which no great popular assembly divided into parties ever was or ever will be free.  The rhetoric of one orator called forth loud cries of “Hear him.”  Another was coughed and scraped down.  A third spoke against time in order that his friends who were supping might come in to divide.761 If the life of the most worthless man could be sported with thus, was the life of the most virtuous man secure?

The opponents of the bill did not, indeed, venture to say that there could be no public danger sufficient to justify an Act of Attainder.  They admitted that there might be cases in which the general rule must bend to an overpowering necessity.  But was this such a case?  Even if it were granted, for the sake of argument, that Strafford and Monmouth were justly attainted, was Fenwick, like Strafford, a great minister who had long ruled England north of Trent, and all Ireland, with absolute power, who was high in the royal favour, and whose capacity, eloquence and resolution made him an object of dread even in his fall?  Or was Fenwick, like Monmouth, a pretender to the Crown and the idol of the common people?  Were all the finest youths of three counties crowding to enlist under his banners?  What was he but a subordinate plotter?  He had indeed once had good employments; but he had long lost them.  He had once had a good estate; but he had wasted it.