Prisoner; my Liberty, which is next to Life it self, is now concerned:
You are many Mouths and Ears against me, and if I must not be allowed to
make the best of my Case, it is hard. I say again, unless you shew me, and
the People, the Law you ground your Indictment upon, I shall take it for
granted your Proceedings are meerly Arbitrary.

REC. The Question is, whether you are guilty of this Indictment?

PEN. The Question is not whether I am guilty of this Indictment, but
whether this Indictment be legal. It is too general and imperfect an
Answer, to say it is the Common Law, unless we knew both where, and what
it is: For where there is no Law, there is no Transgression; and that Law
which is not in being, is so far from being Common, that it is no Law at
all.

REC. You are an impertinent Fellow, will you teach the Court what Law is?
It's _Lex non scripta_, that which many have studied thirty or forty Years
to know, and would you have me to tell you in a Moment?

PEN. Certainly, if the Common Law be so hard to be understood, it's far
from being very Common; but if the Lord _Cook_, in his _Institutes_, be of
any Consideration, he tells us, That Common Law is Common Right, and that
Common Right is the Great Charter-Privileges: Confirmed 9 _Hen_. 3. 29. 25
_Edw_. I. i. 2 _Edw_. 3. 8. _Cook Instit_. 2 p. 56.

REC. Sir, you are a troublesome Fellow, and it is not for the Honour of the
Court to suffer you to go on.

PEN. I have asked but one Question, and you have not answer'd me; tho' the
Rights and Privileges of every _Englishman_ be concerned in it.