ere discussed at great
length and with great animation, the Whigs had a decided superiority in
argument, but that on the main question the Tories were in the right.

It was true that the crime of high treason was brought home to Fenwick
by proofs which could leave no doubt on the mind of any man of common
sense, and would have been brought home to him according to the strict
rules of law, if he had not, by committing another crime, eluded the
justice of the ordinary tribunals. It was true that he had, in the very
act of professing repentance and imploring mercy, added a new offence
to his former offences, that, while pretending to make a perfectly
ingenuous confession, he had, with cunning malice, concealed every thing
which it was for the interest of the government that he should divulge,
and proclaimed every thing which it was for the interest of the
government to bury in silence. It was a great evil that he should be
beyond the reach of punishment; it was plain that he could be reached
only by a bill of pains and penalties; and it could not be denied,
either that many such bills had passed, or that no such bill had ever
passed in a clearer case of guilt or after a fairer hearing.

All these propositions the Whigs seem to have fully established.
They had also a decided advantage in the dispute about the rule which
requires two witnesses in cases of high treason. The truth is that the
rule is absurd. It is impossible to understand why the evidence which
would be sufficient to prove that a man has fired at one of his fellow
subjects should not be sufficient to prove that he has fired at his
Sovereign. It can by no means be laid down as a general maxim that
the assertion of two witnesses is more convincing to the mind than the
assertion of one witness. The story told by one witness may be in itself
probable. The story told by two witnesses may be extravagant. The
story told by one witness may be uncontradicted. The story told by two
witnesses may be contradicted by four witnesses. The story told by one
witness may be corroborated by a crowd of circumstances. The story told
by two witnesses may have no such corroboration. The one witness may be
Tillotson or Ken. The two witnesses may be Oates and Bedloe.

The chiefs of the Tory party, however, vehemently maintained that
the law which required two witnesses was of universal and eternal
obligation, part of the law of nature, part of the law of God. Seymour
quoted the book