hat they cannot
abandon him without exposing themselves to the same censures.

These securities, my lords, the fortifications of the last retreat of
wickedness, remain now to be broken, and the nation expects its fate
from our determinations, which will either secure the liberties of our
posterity from violation, by showing that no degree of power can shelter
those who shall invade them, or that our constitution is arrived at this
period, and that all struggles for its continuance will be vain.

Let us not, my lords, combine with the publick enemies, let us not give
the nation reason to believe that this house is infected with the
contagion of venality, that our honour is become an empty name, and that
the examples of our ancestors have no other effect upon us than to raise
the price of perfidy, and enable us to sell our country at a higher
rate.

Let us remember, my lords, that power is supported by opinion, and that
the reverence of the publick cannot be preserved but by rigid justice
and active beneficence.

For this reason, I am far from granting that we ought to be cautious of
charging those with crimes who have the honour of a seat amongst us. In
my opinion, my lords, we ought to be watchful against the least
suspicion of wickedness in our own body, we ought to eject pollution
from our walls, and preserve that power for which some appear so
anxious, by keeping our reputation pure and untainted.

It is, therefore, to little purpose objected, that there is no _corpus
delicti;_ for even, though it were true, yet while there is a _corpus
suspicionis,_ then inquiry ought to be made for our own honour, nor can
either law or reason be pleaded against it.

I cannot, therefore, doubt, that your lordships will endeavour to do
justice; that you will facilitate the production of oral evidence, lest
all written proofs should be destroyed; that you will not despise the
united petition of the whole people, of which I dread the consequence;
nor reject the only expedient by which their fears may be dissipated,
and their happiness secured.

Lord HARDWICKE spoke next, in the following manner:--My lords, after
having, with an intention uninterrupted by any foreign considerations,
and a mind intent only on the discovery of truth, examined every
argument which has been urged on either side, I think it my duty to
declare, that I have yet discovered no reason, which, in my opinion,
ought to prevail upon us to ratify the bill that