The second article attaints persons who had absented themselves "since or shortly before" the 5th November, 1688, unless they return before the 1st of September, that is, in about ten weeks. Staying in England certainly looked like adhesion to the invader, yet the mere difficulty of coming over during the war should surely have been considered.
The third attaint is of persons absent before (some time probably before) 5th November, 1688, unless they return before the 1st October, that is, within about fourteen weeks.
Moreover, a certain number of the persons named in this conditional attaint are excepted from it specially, by a following clause, unless the king should go to England (their usual residence) before 1st October, 1689, and that after his arrival they should neglect to signify their loyalty to the satisfaction of his Majesty.
Yet Harris and "The List" licensed 26th March, 1690, have the audacity to add these English residents and make another list of attainted persons, instead of deducting them from the list under clause 3.
With similar want of faith, both these writers make out a fifth list of attaints of the persons explicitly not attainted, but whose rents are forfeited by sec. 8, so long as they continue absentees. Thus, two out of the five lists, by adding which Harris makes up his 2,461 attaints, are not lists of attainders at all, and one of them should be rather deducted from one of the three lists of real attaints. Harris has under this exception for English residents 547 names (though printed 647 in totting), and were we to deduct these and the fifth list of 85 persons, his number of attaints would fall to 1,829; though he himself confesses that there must be some small drawback for persons attainted twice under different descriptions; and though his own totting, without removing either the fourth or fifth list, is only 2,461, yet in his text he says, "about 2,600" were attainted.
Yet Harris and "The List" pamphlet, which give the names in schedules, were more likely to misplace the lists than King, and he certainly did so in reference to the fourth list.
| Names. | |
| King's first list, like the rest, contains | 1,280 |
| His second | 455 |
| And his third | 197 |
| 1,932 | |
| And deducting the names in list 4 | 59 |
| King's list falls to | 1,873 |
Yet even in this many are attainted twice over.
Harris's second list and "The List's" third list, each of 79 names, should be under title 4, namely, English residents, containing 59 in King. Harris's third list of 454 names should be second, namely, Absentees since 5th November, containing in King 455, and in "The List" 480 names. Harris's fourth list of 547, and "The List's" fourth list of 528 names, should go to No. 3 in King, containing only 197 names, viz., of persons absent before 5th November. Without making these corrections, we would have the conditional attaints, under clauses 1, 2, and 3, amount in "The List" to 1,311, in Harris to 1,282, and in King to 1,873. But if we make these corrections, King's will remain at 1,873, Harris's rise to 2,218, and "The List" to 2,209.
It would, we think, puzzle La Place to calculate the probability of any particular name being authentic amid this wilderness of inaccuracies.