power, which prevents us from pointing out the particular cirBumstances which indicated the prevalence of a party-spirit during the inquiry into the conduct of the commander-in-chief. To prevent, however, all misconception of our meaning, it is necesary for us to declare that, in the observations which we have made, we do not at all allude to the conduct of the member who boldly stood. forward as the prosecutor. It is but an act of common justice to him, to observe, that, after every inquiry which we have instituted, we are enabled to state, that he is a gentleman of independent fortune, and of hitherto unimpeached character, and that he obtained his seat in parliament in the most honourable way--by the spontaneous offers of his constituents.

One of the strange inconsistencies, or rather anomalies, in the administration of justice, arising out of the extraordinary powers claimed by the House of Commons, is the curious mode of examination which the members adopt. Whenever they exercise a judicial power, it is evident they sit in a judicial capacity, and every member is in fact a judge: yet have we seen these judges not only examining each other as evidence, but examining and cross-examining the prosecutor!! This mode of proceeding is surely equally absurd, whether the House choose to consider themselves as judges or as jurors; whether the object of their inquiry be to decide, like a grand jury, whether the defendant should be put on his trial; or to try him, en dernier resort, and to punish him, according to their pleasure, by address to the King to dismiss him from his office, by declaring him incapable of holding any office of trust in the state, or otherwise.

The very extensive powers thus exercised, and the exemption from being bound by the ordinary rules and maxims of our courts of law thus claimed, can be supposed to arise solely from a notion, that the ends of public justice will be better promoted thereby, than by the usual modes of proceeding. If tried, however, by this test, the most ingenious advocates for parliamentary privilege will, it is apprehended, find themselves woefully deficient in arguments to support their pretensions. In the first place, nobody can maintain this position without denying the efficacy of our law of evidence (which has been the theme of so much applause to many of the best-informed writers on the subject) to answer the purpose for which it was framed. If the advocates in question be not prepared to deny this, but, on the contrary, be compelled to admit the efficacy of that law, on what plea can they defend the violation of it by the House of

Commons? In theory, we have a right to assume, it is indefensible; and it will then remain to prove its excellence by specific instances of practical utility and advantage. Within our own recollection, only two instances have occurred which can be referred to as precedents; the impeachment of Mr. Hastings, and that of Lord Melville. The former, after a protracted persecution, disgraceful to the country, terminated in a rejection of every charge preferred by the House of Commons. The latter, still more disgraceful, by the scandalous disregard of every principle of justice manifested by that House which preferred the impeachment; who condemned without evidence, and who punished without trial: as it originated exclusively in party-spirit, so it ended with still greater shame to the accusers. It is needless to enter into a detail of circumstances, when the prominent features of these cases are sufficient to demonstrate the validity of the point for which we contend. We have thus far argued chiefly on general principles, leaving their application to the particular subject to our readers.

But though we do not feel ourselves at liberty, as well for the reasons which have been alleged, as from the consideration that the case is still sub judice, to comment on the inquiry itself which gave birth to these animadversions, there are certain parts of it which it would be a breach of our duty to the public to pass over without notice. We have already pointed out, or rather alluded to, some of the inconsistencies which have marked the progress of the business. We shall now indicate another of a nature so striking, that it is astonishing to us that it should have escaped the observation of every member of the House. It will be recollected, that so much earnestness was displayed by one side of the House, in the examination of the prosecutor and of other persons, to ascertain whether any, and what, communication had taken place between the prosecutor and the witnesses, and between the different witnesses themselves, as to show that great importance was attached to the circumstance. It was not, therefore, without extreme surprise, that we heard the chancellor of the exchequer anticipate the nature of the defence, that we read an account, in the newspapers, of a conference which implied an immediate communication with the defendant; and which he held during the inquiry, not only with the defendant, but with two of the witnesses - Colonel Gordon and Mr. Adam. We shall not here examine the validity of the objection to similar communications; but, merely, if they be valid, they must apply

generally, and that cannot be right on the one side which is wrong on the other. Indeed, when the House sits in a judicial capacity, the public can acknowledge in it neither ministers nor opposition--nothing but judges or jurors. And for either a judge or a juryman to communicate pendente lite with any of the parties or witnesses, is, to say the least of it, a mode of proceeding that could not be tolerated in any court of justice recognised by the British Constitution. Nor can we conceive how the ends of justice or the public good, which, we shall ever contend, constitute the only defensible ground on which any parliamentary privilege or exemption can be maintained, can be promoted by such a deviation. from the established usage of every other tribunal. We cite this instance, in order to place the incongruity of such a proceeding in a stronger point of view; for Mr. Perceval is not only a lawyer, but a man of the strictest integrity, and of the utmost purity of moral character: it is clear, therefore, that he would do nothing, in this business, which was not perfectly conformable with the law and custom of Parliament. But it is with a view to the correction of a practice which we conceive to be highly prejudicial, in its tendency and effects, that we point out its glaring inconsistencies.

After the House had adopted the established law of evidence, they should, in no instance, have departed from it; yet, in their examination of witnesses, they put a variety of questions which no judge would have allowed to be put in any other court; or which, if asked, he would have protected the witness in his refusal to answer. What are termed leading questions, were put in numberless instances; and, in not a few, questions were asked calculated to produce answers which would criminate the witness. The cross-examination of one of the witnesses, Dowler, in the way in which it was conducted, ought not to have been tolerated any where. Its tendency was not so much to throw a light on the subject of inquiry, as to expose the young man's foibles and frailties (which he was laudably anxious to conceal) to his friends and the world, and to inflict an irreparable injury on his character. As to the contradiction which it was attempted to fix on him, with a view to invalidate the whole of his testimony, which was as full, clear, and explicit, with respect to the facts of the case, as any evidence which was ever delivered in a court of justice, to what did it amount but to a reluctant ac No. 128. Vol. 32. Feb. 1809. P

knowledgement of an indiscretion, which from the most praiseworthy motive (spontaneous homage which vice not unfrequently pays to virtue) he had previously concealed. The questions to which we allude ought not, in our opinion, to have been put, and ought not to have been answered. We should protest against them on moral grounds, as well as for their tendency to produce that selfcrimination which is repugnant to the mild spirit of British juris- prudence.

But, of all the examinations which have met our eye, the cross questions of Mr. Attorney-General appear to have been the most curious. They were urged with that suavity of manner, and that pleasing amenity of speech, which so peculiarly distinguish all his legal exertions. He seems, indeed, to have forgotten that he was a member of Parliament, and to have imagined himself in the Court of King's Bench. His questions, however, as is sometimes the case elsewhere, not only failed to produce the effect for which they were evidently put, but, unfortunately, injured the very cause which they were intended to serve. Indeed, the first serious facts stated to the House were extorted from a witness by a cross-examination of Mr. Attorney-General. It gave us pleasure, however, to see him once more in his place, as it sanctions the hope that his collegues in office will have no further reason to deplore the want.of his powerful assistance, in the support of those political measures which the exigency of the times calls upon them to adopt.

Hitherto, we have not allowed ourselves to offer an opinion on the merits of the case; nor shall we be guilty of the indecorum of stating how far, in our apprehension, the charges have been made good, before the tribunal to which they have been submitted have delivered their judgment upon them. We wait, we confess, with anxious solicitude, for the decision of the House, convinced, as we are, that on the impartiality and justice which it shall manifest on the present occasion, the degree of confidence which the public will be disposed to repose in it, and the estimation in which it will be holden by all the respectable part of the community, will essentially depend.

On the moral part of the question, we conceive there cannot be. two opinions in the country. It is, indeed, most lamentable to see the son of the most virtuous prince of which Europe can boast, of a prince who discharges with conscientious scrupulosity all the duties

of a sovereign, a Christian, and a man, held up at the bar of the public as a determined and systematic votary of vice! If neither the admonitions of conscience, nor the dictates of self-interest - if neither the positive precepts of a divine legislator, nor the awful lessons which the desolation of a neighbouring country has suppliedcan suffice to produce a moral reformation, and a corresponding change of conduct, it is time that the effect of public censure and of public shame should be tried. How long will princes be deaf to the voice of Reason, which instructs them, that to the possession of their peculiar privileges which their birth confers, is attached, as a moral condition, the discharge of peculiar duties? How long will they be deaf to the accents of Truth, which declares it to be their imperative duty to set an example of religious and moral conduct to those whom Providence has placed lower in the scale of society; and which informs them of the importance of rank to shield them from the dreadful penalties of transgression. "Unto whom much is given, of him much shall be required," is the language of Him, who will weigh in the same balance the merits of the prince and those of the peasant, and who will deal out to each according to his deserts. With the private vices of a prince of the blood a public writer has no concern; they are matters which should be left to his own conscience: but his public vices, from the fatal influence of their example, are objects of public importance, on which it becomes his duty to comment with all the severity of truth; not for the low purpose of wounding the feelings of the individual, but in order to produce a reformation in his' conduct, and to impress an important lesson on his mind that while virtue dignifies rank, rank only serves'to make vice more conspicuous and more odicus. There is one other circumstance of an afflicting nature, which has marked this disgraceful transaction. Not only has not one of the six hundred and fifty members of which the House of Commons is composed, felt it to be his duty to fix the seal of his reprobation on the profligate immorality which has been established, by evidence before them; but some of them have even indicated a disposition to mirth and levity, whenever a perverse mind could attach an indelicate meaning to a question or an answer, as little suited to the solemnity of a judicial proceeding, as to that coolness of mind which ought invariably to stamp the legislative character.