The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. | Page 7

have produced this solemn judgment of the Peers, contrary
to the practice of the courts below, as declared by all the Judges, it is
probable that the Lords were unwilling to take a step which might
admit that anything in that practice should be received as their rule. It
must be observed, however, that the reasons against the article alleged
in the protest were by no means solely bottomed in the practice of the
courts below, as if the main reliance of the protesters was upon that
usage. The protesting minority maintained that it was not agreeable to
several precedents in Parliament; of which they cited many in favor of
their opinion. It appears by the Journals, that the clerks were ordered to
search for precedents, and a committee of peers was appointed to
inspect the said precedents, and to report upon them,--and that they did
inspect and report accordingly. But the report is not entered on the
Journals. It is, however, to be presumed that the greater number and the
better precedents supported the judgment. Allowing, however, their
utmost force to the precedents there cited, they could serve only to
prove, that, in the case of words, (to which alone, and not the case of a
written libel, the precedents extended,) such a special averment,
according to the tenor of the words, had been used; but not that it was
necessary, or that ever any plea had been rejected upon such an
objection. As to the course of Parliament, resorted to for authority in
this part of the protest, the argument seems rather to affirm than to deny
the general proposition, that its own course, and not that of the inferior
courts, had been the rule and law of Parliament.

As to the objection, taken in the protest, drawn from natural right, the
Lords knew, and it appears in the course of the proceeding, that the
whole of the libel had been read at length, as appears from p. 655 to p.
666.[10] So that Dr. Sacheverell had substantially the same benefit of
anything which could be alleged in the extenuation or exculpation as if
his libellous sermons had been entered verbatim upon the recorded
impeachment. It was adjudged sufficient to state the crime generally in
the impeachment. The libels were given in evidence; and it was not
then thought of, that nothing should be given in evidence which was
not specially charged in the impeachment.
But whatever their reasons were, (great and grave they were, no doubt,)
such as your Committee has stated it is the judgment of the Peers on the
Law of Parliament, as a part of the law of the land. It is the more
forcible as concurring with the judgment in the 11th of Richard II., and
with the total silence of the Rolls and Journals concerning any
objection to pleading ever being suffered to vitiate an impeachment, or
to prevent evidence being given upon it, on account of its generality, or
any other failure.
Your Committee do not think it probable, that, even before this
adjudication, the rules of pleading below could ever have been adopted
in a Parliamentary proceeding, when it is considered that the several
statutes of Jeofails, not less than twelve in number,[11] have been made
for the correction of an over-strictness in pleading, to the prejudice of
substantial justice: yet in no one of these is to be discovered the least
mention of any proceeding in Parliament. There is no doubt that the
legislature would have applied its remedy to that grievance in
Parliamentary proceedings, if it had found those proceedings
embarrassed with what Lord Mansfield, from the bench, and speaking
of the matter of these statutes, very justly calls "disgraceful subtilties."
What is still more strong to the point, your Committee finds that in the
7th of William III. an act was made for the regulating of trials for
treason and misprision of treason, containing several regulations for
reformation of proceedings at law, both as to matters of form and
substance, as well as relative to evidence. It is an act thought most

essential to the liberty of the subject; yet in this high and critical matter,
so deeply affecting the lives, properties, honors, and even the
inheritable blood of the subject, the legislature was so tender of the
high powers of this high court, deemed so necessary for the attainment
of the great objects of its justice, so fearful of enervating any of its
means or circumscribing any of its capacities, even by rules and
restraints the most necessary for the inferior courts, that they guarded
against it by an express proviso, "that neither this act, nor anything
therein contained, shall any ways extend to _any impeachment or other
proceedings in Parliament, in any land whatsoever_."[12]
CONDUCT OF THE