ot help. But it is utterly false that I have
had any such dealings with the Court of Saint Germains as are described
in the paper which Your Lordships have heard read." [764]

Fenwick was then brought in, and asked whether he had any further
confession to make. Several peers interrogated him, but to no purpose.
Monmouth, who could not believe that the papers which he had sent to
Newgate had produced no effect, put, in a friendly and encouraging
manner, several questions intended to bring out answers which would have
been by no means agreeable to the accused Lords. No such answer however
was to be extracted from Fenwick. Monmouth saw that his ingenious
machinations had failed. Enraged and disappointed, he suddenly turned
round, and became more zealous for the bill than any other peer in the
House. Every body noticed the rapid change in his temper and manner; but
that change was at first imputed merely to his well known levity.

On the eighth of December the bill was again taken into consideration;
and on that day Fenwick, accompanied by his counsel, was in attendance.
But, before he was called in, a previous question was raised. Several
distinguished Tories, particularly Nottingham, Rochester, Normanby and
Leeds, said that, in their opinion, it was idle to inquire whether the
prisoner was guilty or not guilty, unless the House was of opinion that
he was a person so formidable that, if guilty, he ought to be attainted
by Act of Parliament. They did not wish, they said, to hear any
evidence. For, even on the supposition that the evidence left no doubt
of his criminality, they should still think it better to leave him
unpunished than to make a law for punishing him. The general sense,
however, was decidedly for proceeding. [765] The prisoner and his
counsel were allowed another week to prepare themselves; and, at length,
on the fifteenth of December, the struggle commenced in earnest.

The debates were the longest and the hottest, the divisions were the
largest, the protests were the most numerously signed that had ever been
known in the whole history of the House of Peers. Repeatedly the benches
continued to be filled from ten in the morning till past midnight. [766]
The health of many lords suffered severely; for the winter was bitterly
cold; but the majority was not disposed to be indulgent. One evening
Devonshire was unwell; he stole away and went to bed; but Black Rod was
soon sent to bring him back. Leeds, whose cons