But, my lords, whenever virtue is to be persecuted, whenever false accusations are to be promoted, this method is incontestably useful; for no reward can so efficaciously prevail upon men who languish in daily fear of publick justice, as a grant of impunity.

It may be urged, my lords, I own, that all inquiries into futurity are idle speculations; that the expedient proposed is proper on the present occasion, and that no methods of justice are to be allowed, if the possibility of applying them to bad purposes, is a sufficient reason for rejecting them.

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.