The Commons of Great Britain, following these examples and fortified by
them, abhor all compromise with guilt either in act or in language.
They will not disclaim any one word that they have spoken, because, my
Lords, they have said nothing abusive or illiberal. It has been, said
that we have used such language as was used to Sir Walter Raleigh, when
he was called, not by the Commons, but by a certain person of a learned
profession, "a spider of hell." My Lords, Sir Walter was a great
soldier, a great mariner, and one of the first scholars of his age. To
call him a spider of hell was not only indecent in itself, but perfectly
foolish, from the term being totally inapplicable to the object, and fit
only for the very pedantic eloquence of the person who used it. But if
Sir Walter Raleigh had been guilty of numberless frauds and
prevarications, if he had clandestinely picked up other men's money,
concealed his peculation by false bonds, and afterwards attempted to
cover it by the cobwebs of the law, then my Lord Coke would have
trespassed a great deal more against decorum than against propriety of
similitude and metaphor.
My Lords, the Managers for the Commons have not used any _inapplicable_
language. We have indeed used, and will again use, such expressions as
are proper to portray guilt.
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