indictment for any capital offence to be erroneous, if the offence be
not alleged to be committed on a certain day: that this impeachment set
forth only that in or about the months of September, October, or
November, 1715, the offence charged in the impeachment had been
committed." The counsel argued, "that a proceeding by impeachment is a
proceeding at the Common Law, for _Lex Parliamentaria_ is a part of
Common Law, and they submitted whether there is not the same certainty
required in one method of proceeding at Common Law as in another."

The matter was argued elaborately and learnedly, not only on the general
principles of the proceedings below, but on the inconvenience and
possible hardships attending this uncertainty. They quoted Sacheverell's
case, in whose impeachment "the precise days were laid when the Doctor
preached each of these two sermons; and that by a like reason a certain
day ought to be laid in the impeachment when this treason was committed;
and that the authority of Dr. Sacheverell's case seemed so much stronger
than the case in question as the crime of treason is higher than that of
a misdemeanor."

Here the Managers for the Commons brought the point a second time to an
issue, and that on the highest of capital cases: an issue, the event of
which was to determine forever whether their impeachments were to be
regulated by the law as understood and observed in the inferior courts.
Upon the usage below there was no doubt; the indictment would
unquestionably have been quashed. But the Managers for the Commons stood
forth upon this occasion with a determined resolution, and no less than
four of them _seriatim_ rejected the doctrine contended for by Lord
Wintoun's counsel. They were all eminent members of Parliament, and
three of them great and eminent lawyers, namely, the then
Attorney-General, Sir William Thomson, and Mr. Cowper.