No such thing ever (except in one instance, to which we shall
hereafter speak) was produced at the bar, nor (that we know of) produced
by the Lords in their debates, or by the Judges in the opinions by them
delivered. Therefore, for anything which as yet appears to your
Committee to the contrary, these responses and decisions were, in many
of the points, not the determinations of any law whatsoever, but mere
arbitrary decrees, to which we could not without solemn protestation,
submit.
Your Committee, at an early period, and frequently since the
commencement of this trial, have neglected no means of research which
might afford them information concerning these supposed strict and
inflexible rules of proceeding and of evidence, which, appeared to them,
destructive of all the means and ends of justice: and, first, they
examined carefully the Rolls and Journals of the House of Lords, as also
the printed trials of cases before that court.
Your Committee finds but one instance, in the whole course of
Parliamentary impeachments, in which evidence offered by the Commons has
been rejected on the plea of inadmissibility or incompetence. This was
in the case of Lord Strafford's trial; when the copy of a warrant (the
same not having any attestation to authenticate it as a true copy) was,
on deliberation, not admitted,--and your Committee thinks, as the case
stood, with reason.
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