My Lords,
Our All is at Stake, and therefore You must give me leave to speak freely before We part with it. My Lord Bishop of Salisbury is of Opinion, that we should rather appoint a day to consider what to do upon the Petition; than to appoint a day of hearing: And my Lord Keeper, for I may name them at a Committee of the whole House tells Us in very Eloquent and Studied Language, That he will Propose Us a way far less liable to Exception, and much less Offensive and Injurious to our own Priviledges, than that of appointing a day of Hearing. And I beseech Your Lordships, did you not after all these fine Words expect some Admirable Proposal! But it ended in this. That Your Lordships should appoint a day, nay very long day to Consider what You would do in it. And my Lord hath undertaken to convince you, that this is Your only Course by several undeniable Reasons; the first of which is: That ’tis against your Judicature to heer this Cause which is not proper before Us, nor ought to be relieved by Us. To this my Lords give me leave to Answer, that I did not expect from a man Professing the Law; that after an Answer by Orders of the Court was put in, and a day had been appointed for Hearing, which by some Accident was set aside, and the Plaintiffe moving for a second day to be assigned that ever without hearing Counsel on both sides; the Court did enter into the Merits of the Cause. And if your Lordships should do it here in a Cause attended with the Circumstances this is, it would not only be an apparent Injustice, but a plain Subterfuge to avoid a Point you durst not maintain.
But my Lord’s second Reason speaks the Matter more clearly, for that is: Because ’tis a doubtful case, whether the Commons have not Priviledge, and therefore my Lord would have You, To appoint a farther and a very long day to consider of it, which in plain English is, that Your Lordships should confess upon Your Books, that you conceive it on second Thoughts a doubtful Case, for so Your Appointing a day to Consider will do, and that for no other Reason, but because my Lord Keeper thinks it so, which I hope will not be a Reason to prevail with Your Lordships; since we cannot yet by experience tell that his Lordship is capable of thinking Your Lordships in the Right, in any Matter against the Judgement of the House of Commons; ’tis so hard a thing even for the ablest of men to change ill Habits.