It is apparent, my lords, that they by whom this bill is proposed, act upon the supposition that the noble person mentioned in it, is guilty of all those crimes of which he is suspected; a supposition, my lords, which it is unjust to make, and to which neither reason, nor the laws of our country, will give countenance or support.
I, my lords, will much more equitably suppose him innocent; I will suppose that he has, throughout all the years of his administration, steadily prosecuted the best ends, by the best means; that if he has sometimes been mistaken or disappointed, it has been neither by his negligence nor ignorance, but by false intelligence, or accidents not to be foreseen; and that he has never either sacrificed his country to private interest, or procured, by any illegal methods, the assistance and support of the legislature; and I will ask your lordships, whether, if this character be just, the bill ought to be passed, and doubt not but every man's conscience will inform him, that it ought to be rejected with the utmost indignation.
The reason, my lords, for which it ought to be rejected, is evidently this, that it may bring innocence into danger. But, my lords, every man before his trial is to be supposed innocent, and, therefore, no man ought to be exposed to the hazards of a trial, by which virtue and wickedness are reduced to a level. A bill like this ought to be marked out as the utmost effort of malice, as a species of cruelty never known before, and as a method of prosecution which this house has censured.
I did not, indeed, expect from those who have so long clamoured with incessant vehemence against the measures of the ministry, such an open confession of their own weakness. Nothing, my lords, was so frequently urged, or so warmly exaggerated, as the impossibility of procuring evidence against a man in power; nothing was more confidently asserted, than that his guilt would be easily proved when his authority was at an end; and that even his own agents would readily detect him, when they were no longer dependant upon his favour.
The time, my lords, so long expected, and so ardently desired, is at length come; this noble person whom they have so long pursued with declamations, invectives, and general reproaches, has at length resigned those offices which set him above punishment or trial; he is now without any other security than that by which every other man is sheltered from oppression, the publick protection of the laws of his country; but he is yet found impregnable, he is yet able to set his enemies at defiance; and they have, therefore, now, with great sagacity, contrived a method by which he may be divested of the common privileges of a social being, and may be hunted like a wild beast, without defence, and without pity.
Where, my lords, can it be expected that malice like this will find an end? Is it not reasonable to imagine that if they should be gratified in this demand, and should find even this expedient baffled by the abilities which they have so often encountered without success, they would proceed to measures yet more atrocious, and punish him without evidence, whom they call to a trial without a crime.
It has been observed by the noble lord who spoke last, that there are crimes mentioned in the report of the secret committee of the house of commons, or that at least such facts are asserted in it, that an accusation may, by easy deductions, be formed from them. The report of that committee, my lords, with whatever veneration it may be mentioned, by those whose purposes it happens to favour, or of whatever importance it may be in the other house, is here nothing but a pamphlet, not to be regarded as an evidence, or quoted as a writing of authority. It is only an account of facts of which we know not how they were collected, and which every one may admit or reject at his own choice, till they are ascertained by proper evidence at our own bar, and which, therefore, ought not to influence our opinion in the present debate.
Nor is the bill, my lords, only founded upon principles inconsistent with the constitution of this nation, apparently tending to the introduction of a new species of oppression, but is in itself such as cannot be ratified without injury to the honour of this great assembly.
In examining the bill, my lords, I think it not necessary to dwell upon the more minute and trivial defects of the orthography and expression, though they are such as might justly give occasion for suspecting that they by whom it was written, were no less strangers to our language than to our constitution. There are errours or falsehoods which it more nearly concerns us to detect, and to which we cannot give any sanction, without an evident diminution of our own authority.
It declares, my lords, that there is now an inquiry depending before the senate, an assertion evidently false, for the inquiry is only before the commons. Whether this was inserted by mistake or design, whether it was intended to insinuate that the whole senatorial power was comprised in the house of commons, or to persuade the nation that your lordships concurred with them in this inquiry, it is not possible to determine; but since it is false in either sense, it ought not to receive our confirmation.