Lord High Steward, and not in trials where the Peers were Judges,--and
that the Lord High Steward not having it in his power to retire with the
juror Peers, the Judges' opinions, from necessity, not from equity to
the parties, were given before that magistrate.

Your Committee thinks it scarcely possible that the Lords could be
influenced by such a feeble argument. For, admitting the fact to have
been as supposed, there is no sort of reason why so uniform a course of
precedents, in a legal court composed of a peer for judge and peers for
triers, a course so favorable to all parties and to equal justice, a
course in concurrence with the procedure of all our other courts, should
not have the greatest authority over their practice in every trial
before _the whole body_ of the peerage.

The Earl of Nottingham, who acted as High Steward in one of these
commissions, certainly knew what he was saying. He gave no such reason.
His argument for the publicity of the Judges' opinions did not turn at
all on the nature of his court, or of his office in that court. It
rested on the equity of the principle, and on the fair dealing due to
the prisoner.

Lord Somers was in no such court; yet his declaration is full as strong.
He does not, indeed, argue the point, as the Earl of Nottingham did,
when he considered it as a new case. Lord Somers considers it as a
point quite settled, and no longer standing in need of being supported
by reason or precedent.

But it is a mistake that the precedents stated in this Report are wholly
drawn from proceedings in that kind of court. Only two are cited which
are furnished from a court constituted in the manner supposed. The rest