n, 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designedly withdrawn himself.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 p