The particular clauses of this bill have been already examined with
great acuteness and penetration, and have all been shown to be absurd or
useless. I shall, therefore, only add this observation, that the
indemnification, however liberally offered, will be wholly, at the
disposal of those who shall receive the examinations, by whom, when such
discoveries are not made as they may happen to expect, the witnesses may
be charged with reserve and insincerity, and be prosecuted for those
crimes which could never have been known but by their own confession.
It is not impossible, but that if the bait of indemnification shall be
found insufficient to produce testimonies against the noble person, a
bill of pains and penalties may be attempted, to terrify those who are
too wise to be ensnared by specious promises; for what may not be
expected from those who have already sent their fellow-subjects to
prison, only for refusing to accuse themselves?
Nor can I discover, my lords, how the most abandoned villains will be
hindered from procuring indemnity by perjury, or what shall exclude a
conspirator against the life and government of his majesty from pardon,
if he swears, that in a plot for setting the pretender on the throne, he
was assisted by the counsels of the earl of ORFORD.
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