Parliament being _a part of the law of the land_, and that usage not
requiring that words should be exactly specified in impeachments, the
answer of the Judges, which related only to the course of _indictments
and informations_, does not in the least affect your case."[8]

On this solemn judgment concerning the law and usage of Parliament, it
is to be remarked: First, that the impeachment itself is not to be
presumed inartificially drawn. It appears to have been the work of some
of the greatest lawyers of the time, who were perfectly versed in the
manner of pleading in the courts below, and would naturally have
imitated their course, if they had not been justly fearful of setting an
example which might hereafter subject the plainness and simplicity of a
Parliamentary proceeding to the technical subtilties of the inferior
courts. Secondly, that the question put to the Judges, and their answer,
were strictly confined to the law and practice below; and that nothing
in either had a tendency to their delivering an opinion concerning
Parliament, its laws, its usages, its course of proceeding, or its
powers. Thirdly, that the motion in arrest of judgment, grounded on the
opinion of the Judges, was made only by Dr. Sacheverell himself, and not
by his counsel, men of great skill and learning, who, if they thought
the objections had any weight, would undoubtedly have made and argued
them.

Here, as in the case of the 11th King Richard II., the Judges declared
unanimously, that such an objection would be fatal to such a pleading in
any indictment or information; but the Lords, as on the former occasion,
overruled this objection, and held the article to be good and valid,
notwithstanding the report of the Judges concerning the mode of
proceeding in the courts below.