[242] State Trials, xii. 646.—See 668 and 799.
[243] State Trials, xii. 1245; Ralph, 420; Somers Tracts, x. 472. The Jacobites took a very frivolous objection to the conviction of Anderton, that printing could not be treason within the statute of Edward III., because it was not invented for a century afterwards. According to this rule, it could not be treason to shoot the king with a pistol or poison him with an American drug.
[244] Parl. Hist. v. 698.
[245] Id. v. 675.
[246] Parl. Hist. 712, 737; Commons' Journals, Feb. 8, 1695.
[247] Id. 965; Journal, 17th Feb. 1696; Stat. 7, W. 3 c. 3. Though the court opposed this bill, it was certainly favoured by the zealous whigs as much as by the opposite party.
[248] When several persons of distinction were arrested on account of a jacobite conspiracy in 1690, there was but one witness against some of them. The judges were consulted whether they could be indicted for a high misdemeanour on this single testimony, as Hampden had been in 1685; the attorney-general Treby maintaining this to be lawful. Four of the judges were positively against this, two more doubtfully the same way, one altogether doubtful, and three in favour of it. The scheme was very properly abandoned; and at present, I suppose, nothing can be more established than the negative. Dalrymple, Append. 186.
[249] State Trials, xii. 1051.
[250] The dexterity with which Lord Shaftesbury (the author of the Characteristics), at that time in the House of Commons, turned a momentary confusion which came upon him while speaking on this bill, into an argument for extending the aid of counsel to those who might so much more naturally be embarrassed on a trial for their lives, is well known. All well-informed writers ascribe this to Shaftesbury. But Johnson, in the Lives of the Poets, has, through inadvertence, as I believe, given Lord Halifax (Montagu) the credit of it; and some have since followed him. As a complete refutation of this mistake, it is sufficient to say that Mr. Montagu opposed the bill. His name appears as a teller on two divisions, 31st Dec. 1691, and 18th Nov. 1692.
[251] It was said by Scroggs and Jefferies, that if one witness prove that A. bought a knife, and another that he intended to kill the king with it, these are two witnesses within the statute of Edward VI. But this has been justly reprobated.