But to this, my lords, it may be answered with equal reason, that every process of law is likewise, in some degree, defective; that the complications of circumstances are variable without end, and, therefore, cannot be comprised in any certain rule; and that we must have no established method of justice, if we cannot be content with such as may possibly be sometimes eluded.
And, my lords, it may be observed farther, that scarcely any practice can be conceived, however generally unreasonable and unjust, which may not be sometimes equitable and proper; and that if we are to lay aside all regard to futurity, and act merely with regard to the present exigence, it may be often proper to violate every part of our constitution. This house may sometimes have rejected bills beneficial to the nation; and if this reasoning be allowed, it might have been wise and just in the commons and the emperour to have suspended our authority by force, to have voted us useless on that occasion, and have passed the law without our concurrence.
With regard to the establishment of criminal prosecutions, as well as to our civil rights, we are, my lords, to consider what is, upon the whole, most for the advantage of the publick; we are not to admit practices which may be sometimes useful, but may be often pernicious, and which suppose men better or wiser than they are. We do not grant absolute power to a wise and moderate prince, because his successours may inherit his power without his virtues; we are not to trust or allow new methods of prosecution upon an occasion on which they may seem useful, because they may be employed to purposes very different from those for which they were introduced.
Thus, my lords, I have shown the impropriety of the bill now before us, upon the most favourable supposition that can possibly be made; a supposition of the guilt of the noble person against whom it is contrived. And surely, my lords, what cannot even in that case be approved, must, if we suppose him innocent, be detested.
That he is really innocent, my lords, that he is only blackened by calumny, and pursued by resentment, cannot be more strongly proved than by the necessity to which his enemies are reduced, of using expedients never heard of in this nation before, to procure accusations against him; expedients which they cannot show to have been at any time necessary for the punishment of a man really wicked, and which, by bringing guilt and innocence into the same danger, leave us at liberty to imagine, that he is clear from the crimes imputed to him, even in the opinion of those who pursue him with the fiercest resentment, and the loudest clamours.
It may well be imagined, my lords, that those whom he has so long defeated by his abilities, see themselves now baffled by his innocence; and that they only now persecute his character, to hide the true reason for which they formerly attacked his power.
I hope, my lords, I shall be easily forgiven for observing, that this is a testimony of uncorrupted greatness, more illustrious than any former minister has ever obtained; for when was it known, my lords, that after a continuance of power for twenty years, any man, when his conduct became the subject of publick examination, was without accusers?
I cannot, for my part, but congratulate the noble person upon his triumph over malice; malice assisted by subtilty and experience, by wealth and power, which is at length obliged to confess its impotence, to call upon us to assist it with new laws, to enable it to offer a reward for evidence against him, and throw down the boundaries of natural justice, that he may be harassed, censured, and oppressed, upon whom it cannot be proved that he ever deviated from the law, or employed his power for any other end than the promotion of the publick happiness.
Had the officers of the crown, my lords, when his influence was represented so great, and his dominion so absolute, projected any such measures for his defence; had they proposed to silence his opponents by calling them to a trial, and offered a stated price for accusations against them, how loudly would they have been charged with the most flagrant violation of the laws, and the most open disregard of the rights of nature; with how much vehemence would it have been urged, that they were intoxicated with their success, and that in the full security of power they thought themselves entitled to neglect the great distinctions of right and wrong, and determined to employ the law for the completion of those purposes, in which justice would give them no assistance.
I doubt not that your lordships will easily perceive, that this censure is equally just in either case; that you will not allow any man to be prosecuted by methods which he ought not to have used in his own case; that you will not expose any man to hardships, from which every other member of the community is exempt; that you will not suffer any man to be tried by hired evidence; and that you will not condemn him whom the law acquits.