CONDUCT OF THE COMMONS IN PLEADING.

This point being thus solemnly adjudged in the case of Dr. Sacheverell,
and the principles of the judgment being in agreement with the whole
course of Parliamentary proceedings, the Managers for this House have
ever since considered it as an indispensable duty to assert the same
principle, in all its latitude, upon all occasions on which it could
come in question,--and to assert it with an energy, zeal, and
earnestness proportioned to the magnitude and importance of the interest
of the Commons of Great Britain in the religious observation of the
rule, _that the Law of Parliament, and the Law of Parliament only,
should prevail in the trial of their impeachments_.

In the year 1715 (1 Geo. I.) the Commons thought proper to impeach of
high treason the lords who had entered into the rebellion of that
period. This was about six years after the decision in the case of
Sacheverell. On the trial of one of these lords, (the Lord Wintoun,[13])
after verdict, the prisoner moved in arrest of judgment, and excepted
against the impeachment for error, on account of the treason therein
laid "not being described with sufficient certainty,--the day on which
the treason was committed not having been alleged." His counsel was
heard to this point. They contended, "that the forfeitures in cases of
treason are very great, and therefore they humbly conceived that the
accusation ought to contain all the certainty it is capable of, that the
prisoner may not by _general allegations_ be rendered incapable to
defend himself in a case which may prove fatal to him: that they would
not trouble their Lordships with citing authorities; for they believed
there is not one gentleman of the long robe but will agree that an