Let any of your lordships suppose himself by some accident exposed to
the temporary malice of the populace, let him imagine his enemies
inflaming them to a demand of a prosecution, and then proposing that he
should be deprived of the common methods of defence, and that evidence
should be hired against him, lest the publick should be disappointed,
and he will quickly discover the unreasonableness of this bill.
I suppose no man will deny, that methods of prosecution introduced on
one occasion, may be practised on another; and that in the natural
rotations of power, the same means may be used for very different ends.
Nothing is more probable, my lords, if a bill of this kind should be
ever passed, in compliance with the clamours of the people, to punish
ministers, and to awe the court, than that it may in time, if a wicked
minister should arise, be made a precedent for measures by which the
court may intimidate the champions of the people; by which those may be
pursued to destruction, who have been guilty of no other crime than that
of serving their country in a manner which those who are ignorant of the
circumstances of affairs, happen to disapprove.
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