But in the present case, my lords, every circumstance requires a
different conduct. By the crimes which this bill is intended to detect,
not single persons, or private families, but whole nations, and all
orders of men have long been injured and oppressed; and oppressed with
such success, that the criminal has no temptation to renew his
practices; nor is there any danger of an erroneous sentence, because the
trial will be heard by this house, by persons whose integrity sets them
above corruption, and whose wisdom will not be deceived by false
appearances.
This consideration, my lords, affords an unanswerable reply to those who
represent the bill as ill-concerted, because the evidence to be procured
by it, is the testimony of men, partners, by their own confession, in
the crimes which they reveal.
Every court, my lords, examines the credibility of a witness; and the
known corruption of these men may be properly pleaded at the trial,
where your lordships will balance every circumstance with your known
impartiality, and examine how far every assertion is invalidated by the
character of the witness, and how far it is confirmed by a corroboratory
concurrence of known events, or supported by other testimonies not
liable to the same exception.
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