e
improved. Our laws, however wise, are yet the contrivance of human
policy; and why should we despair of adding somewhat to that which we
inherit from our ancestors? Why should we imagine, that they anticipated
every contingency, and left nothing for succeeding ages?

I think, my lords, with the highest regard both of our laws, and those
by whom they were enacted, but I look with no less veneration on this
illustrious assembly; I believe your lordships equal to your progenitors
in abilities; and therefore, since you cannot but outgo them in
experience, am confident that you may make improvements in the fabrick
which they have erected; that you may adorn it with new beauties, or
strengthen it with new supports.

It cannot, at least, be denied, that your lordships have all the power
of your ancestors; and since every law was once new, it is certain they
were far from imagining that there was always a necessity of inquiring
after precedents. If the argument drawn from the want of precedents be
now of any force, let it be proved that its force was less in any former
reign; and let it be considered how our government could have attained
its present excellence, had this house, instead of applying to every
grievance its proper remedy, been amused with turning over journals, and
looking upon every new emergence for precedents, of which it is certain
that there must have been a time in which they were not to be found.

In all regulations established by the legislature, it is sufficient that
they do not produce confusion by being inconsistent with former laws,
that they unite easily with our constitution, and do not tend to the
embarrassment of the machine of government. This consideration, my
lords, has been in a very remarkable manner regarded by those who drew
up the bill before us; a bill of which the noble duke has proved, that
it will be so far from perplexing our judicial proceedings, that it will
reconcile the law to itself, and free us from the necessity of obeying
one precept by the neglect of another.

The arguments of the noble duke are such as, in my opinion, cannot be
answered, or heard impartially without conviction. The maxims quoted by
him are each of them incontestably true; they are, on this occasion,
incompatible; and this is the only method by which they can be
reconciled.

Nor has he only shown the propriety of the bill by irrefragable reasons,
but has proved, likewise, that it is consistent, not only