The parliament of England thought it incumbent upon them not only to raise supplies for the maintenance of the war in which the nation was involved, but also to do justice with respect to those who had been injured by illegal or oppressive sentences in the late reigns. The attainders of lord Russel, Algernon Sidney, alderman Cornish, and lady Lisle, were now reversed. A committee of privileges was appointed by the lords to examine the case of the earl of Devonshire, who in the late reign had been fined thirty thousand pounds for assaulting colonel Culpepper in the presence-chamber. They reported that the court of king’s bench, in overruling the earl’s plea of privilege of parliament, had committed a manifest breach of privilege; that the fine was excessive and exhorbitant, against the great charter, the common right of the subject, and the law of the realm. The sentence pronounced upon Samuel Johnson, chaplain to lord Russel, in consequence of which he had been degraded, fined, scourged, and set in the pillory, was now annulled, and the commons recommended him to his majesty for some ecclesiastical preferment. He received one thousand pounds in money, with a pension of three hundred pounds for his own life and that of his son, who was moreover gratified with a place of one hundred pounds a year; but the father never obtained any ecclesiastical benefice. Titus Oates seized this opportunity of petitioning the house of lords for a reversal of the judgments given against him on his being convicted of perjury. The opinions of all the judges and counsel at the bar were heard on this subject, and a bill of reversal passed the commons; but the peers having inserted some amendments and a proviso, a conference was demanded, and violent heats ensued. Oates, however, was released from confinement, and the lords, with the consent of the commons, recommended him to his majesty for a pardon, which he obtained, together with a comfortable pension. The committee appointed to inquire into the cases of the state-prisoners, found sir Robert Wright, late lord chief justice, to have been concerned in the cruelties committed in the west after the insurrection of Monmouth; as also one of the ecclesiastical commissioners, and guilty of manifold enormities. Death had by this time delivered Jefferies from the resentment of the nation. Graham and Burton had acted as solicitors in the illegal prosecutions carried on against those who opposed the court in the reign of Charles II.; these were now reported guilty of having been instrumental in taking away the lives and estates of those who had suffered the loss of either under colour of law for eight years last past; of having, by malicious indictments, informations, and prosecutions of quo warranto, endeavoured the subversion of the protestant religion, and the government of the realm; and of having wasted many thousand pounds of the public revenue in the course of their infamous practices.