persecution made them at first
give into the snare; but when, upon reflection, it occurred that the
involving of the Catholics in one common danger with the Protestant
dissenters must be displeasing to the king, they drew back without delay,
and passed the most comprehensive vote of confidence which James could
desire.

Further to manifest their servility to the king, as well as their
hostility to every principle that could by implication be supposed to be
connected with Monmouth or his cause, the House of Commons passed a bill
for the preservation of his majesty's person, in which, after enacting
that a written or verbal declaration of a treasonable intention should be
tantamount to a treasonable act, they inserted two remarkable clauses, by
one of which to assert the legitimacy of Monmouth's birth, by the other,
to propose in parliament any alteration in the succession of the crown,
were made likewise high treason. We learn from Burnet, that the first
part of this bill was strenuously and warmly debated, and that it was
chiefly opposed by Serjeant Maynard, whose arguments made some impression
even at that time; but whether the serjeant was supported in his
opposition, as the word _chiefly_ would lead us to imagine, or if
supported, by whom, that historian does not mention; and, unfortunately,
neither of Maynard's speech itself, nor indeed of any opposition whatever
to the bill, is there any other trace to be found. The crying injustice
of the clause which subjected a man to the pains of treason merely for
delivering his opinion upon a controverted fact, though he should do no
act in consequence of such opinion, was not, as far as we are informed,
objected to or at all noticed, unless indeed the speech above alluded to,
in which the speaker is said to have descanted upon the general danger of
making words treasonable, be supposed to have been applied to this clause
as well as to the former part of the bill. That the other clause should
have passed without opposition or even observation, must appear still
more extraordinary, when we advert, not only to the nature of the clause
itself, but to the circumstances of there being actually in the House no
inconsiderable number of members who had in the former reign repeatedly
voted for the Exclusion Bill.

It is worthy of notice, however, that while every principle of criminal
jurisprudence, and every regard to the fundamental rights of the
deliberative assemblies, which m