But however laudable may be the end proposed by the commons, I cannot,
my lords, be so far dazzled by the prospect of obtaining it, as not to
examine the means to which we are invited to concur, and inquire with
that attention which the honour of sitting in this house has made my
duty, whether they are such as have been practised by our ancestors,
such as are prescribed by the law, or warranted by prudence.
The caution, my lords, with which our ancestors have always proceeded in
inquiries by which life or death, property or reputation, was
endangered; the certainty, or at least the high degree of probability,
which they required in evidence, to make it a sufficient ground of
conviction, is universally known; nor is it necessary to show their
opinion by particular examples, because, being no less solicitous for
the welfare of their posterity than for their own, they were careful to
record their sentiments in laws and statutes, and to prescribe, with the
strongest sanctions, to succeeding governments, what they had discovered
by their own reflections, or been taught by their predecessors.
They considered, my lords, not only how great was the hardship of being
unjustly condemned, but likewise how much a man might suffer by being
falsely accused; how much he might be harassed by a prosecution, and how
sensibly he might feel the disgrace of a trial.
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