They knew that to be
charged with guilt implied some degree of reproach, and that it gave
room, at least, for an inference that the known conduct of the person
accused was such as made it probable that he was still more wicked than
he appeared; they knew that the credulity of some might admit the charge
upon evidence that was rejected by the court, and that difference of
party, or private quarrels, might provoke others to propagate reports
once published, even when in their own opinion they were sufficiently
confuted; and that, therefore, an innocent man might languish in infamy
by a groundless charge, though he should escape any legal penalty.
It has, therefore, my lords, been immemorially established in this
nation, that no man can be apprehended, or called into question for any
crime till there shall be proof.
First, that there is a _corpus delicti_, a crime really and visibly
committed; thus before a process can be issued out for inquiring after a
murderer, it must be apparent that a murder has been perpetrated, the
dead body must be exposed to a jury, and it must appear to them that he
died by violence. It is not sufficient that a man is lost, and that it
is probable that he is murdered, because no other reason of his absence
can be assigned; he must be found with the marks of force upon him, or
some circumstances that may make it credible, that he did not perish by
accident, or his own hand.
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