heard your lordship affirm, and therefore I do affirm it,
That the great ends for which grand juries were instituted, were the
support of the government, the safety of every man's life and fortune,
it being necessary some should be trusted to inquire after all
disturbers of the peace, that they might be prosecuted and brought to
condign punishment; and it is no less needful for every man's quiet and
safety, that the trust of such inquisitions should be put into the hands
of persons of understanding and integrity, that will suffer no man to be
falsely accused or defamed; nor the lives of any to be put in jeopardy,
by the malicious conspiracies of great or small, or the perjuries of any
profligate wretches.

So material a part of our constitution are grand juries, so much does
the security of every subject depend upon them, that though anciently
the sheriff was by express law, chosen annually by the people of the
county, and trusted with the power of the county, yet the law left not
the election of grand juries to the will of the sheriff, but has
described their qualifications, which if they have, and the sheriff
return them, no man, nay no judge, can object to their being sworn, much
less may they to their serving when sworn: And to prevent the
discretionary power (a new-fashioned term) of these judges over juries,
you used to say was made the statute of the 11th of Hen. 4.

Pardon me my lord if I venture to affirm, That a dissolving power is a
breach of that law, or at least an evasion, as every citizen in Dublin
in Sir Constantine Phipps's time perfectly understood, that disapproving
the aldermen lawfully returned to the Privy-council was in effect
assuming the power of choosing and returning----But your lordship and
I know dissolving and disapproving are different terms.

I always understood from your Lordship the trust and power of grand
juries is or ought to be accounted amongst the greatest and of most
concern, next to the legislative: The honour, reputations, fortunes and
lives of every man being subject to their censure; the kings of England
have an undoubted power of dissolving parliaments, but dissolving 'till
one was returned to their or their ministers' liking, has never been
thought very righteous, and Heaven be praised never very successful.

I am entirely of your lordship's opinion, the oath of a grand juryman is
not always sufficiently considered by the jurors, which is as follows.

"You shall diligen