HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



95 



privileges in the kingdom, even 

 the highest, were circumscribed 

 by the Jaws, and had their limits. 

 In thecourts of Westminster, they 

 said, the law was determined by 

 ene party, and the fact ascertained 

 by another. But in the jurisdiction 

 assumed by the lords, in the pre- 

 sent case, the fact would be ascer- 

 tained, and the law determined by 

 the same party ; and, if they should 

 be punished by the lords, that 

 would not prevent their being 

 called to answer again in the courts 

 of Westminster-hall, or be used 

 below as a recovery, or acquittal : 

 so that they might be punished 

 twice for the same offence. — \ 

 Court of Record only had a power 

 of commitment: that House was 

 not a Court of Record ; therefore 

 that House did not possess the 

 right of commitment. Let the 

 House then, said sir Francis Bur- 

 dett, apply this reasoning to the 

 case before them. In that case the 

 common law, magna charta, and 

 the trial by jury, had been violat- 

 ed. They found Mr. Jones im- 

 prisonedfor an act, the illegality of 

 which had not been proved— the 

 facts not ascertained. A great va- 

 riety of cases could be adduced 

 where the House had interposed, 

 but not one in which it had gone 

 to the extent to which it had pro- 

 ceeded in the present instance. It 

 was unnecessary to multiply cases. 

 They must all be acquainted with 

 the case of the Middlesex Jour- 

 nal, in 1771, when the messenger 

 of the House of Commons was 

 sent by their order to arrest the 

 printer: instead of which, theprin- 

 ter took up the messenger, and 

 brought him before Crosby, and 

 the aldermen Wilkes and Oliver. 

 -^Notwithstanding this outrage, 



the House did not presume to 

 touch any of the offending parties, 

 except its own members, the lord 

 Mayor and Alderman Oliver ; 

 passing over the printer, the jour- 

 nalist, and Alderman Wilkes, who 

 was, at that time, not a member 

 of the House : than which dis- 

 affirmance of its power a stronger 

 proof could not be conceived. 



The warrant of commitment, 

 too, he contended, was illegal in 

 all its parts, but eminently so in 

 its conclusion. A warrant must 

 conclude with the words, "till the 

 party be delivered by the due 

 course of the law." The warrant 

 for committing Jones ended with 

 the words " during the pleasure 

 of the House." — Lord Coke laid 

 it down explicitly, that no man 

 could be sent to prison without 

 trial and judgment. The privi- 

 ledge talked of would make the 

 House as great as king, lords, and 

 commons. He might be told this 

 was a privilege of parliament. He 

 answered. No. It was a privilege 

 assumed only by one branch of 

 the legislature. It resembled the 

 by-laws of a corporation, suffi- 

 cient to bind themselves, but not 

 to overturn the law of the land. 

 If gentlemen should show resolu- 

 tions favourable to the exercise of 

 that right as a privilege of the 

 House, he could show others of a 

 contrary principle. Sir Fletcher 

 Norton had said, that he would 

 pay no more attention to a resolu- 

 tion of the House of Commons 

 than that of a set of drunken por- 

 ters at an ale-house. The obser- 

 vation was coarse, but just. If 

 the members were of opinion that 

 a resolution of that House was 

 equal to that of all the branches 

 of the constitution, they would 



