ns, the questions were determined by
the Lords alone, without any resort to the opinions of the Judges. In
the impeachments of Lord Stafford, Dr. Sacheverell, and Lord Wintoun, no
objection to evidence appears in the Lords' Journals to have been
pressed, and not above one taken, which was on the part of the Managers.

Several objections were, indeed, taken to evidence in Lord
Macclesfield's trial.[38] They were made on the part of the Managers,
except in two instances, where the objections were made by the witnesses
themselves. They were all determined (those started by the Managers in
their favor) by the Lords themselves, without any reference to the
Judges. In the discussion of one of them, a question was stated for the
Judges concerning the law in a similar case upon an information in the
court below; but it was set aside by the previous question.[39]

On the impeachment of Lord Lovat, no more than one objection to evidence
was taken by the Managers, against which Lord Lovat's counsel were not
permitted to argue. Three objections on the part of the prisoner were
made to the evidence offered by the Managers, but all without
success.[40] The instances of similar objections in Parliamentary trials
of peers on indictments are too few and too unimportant to require being
particularized;--one, that in the case of Lord Warwick, has been
already stated.

The principles of these precedents do not in the least affect any case
of evidence which your Managers had to support. The paucity and
inapplicability of instances of this kind convince your Committee that
the Lords have ever used some latitude and liberality in all the means
of bringing information before them: nor is it easy to conceive, that,
as the Lords are, and of right ought to be, judges of law and fact, many
cases should occur (except those where a personal _viva voce_ witness is
denied to be competent) in which a judge, possessing an entire judicial
capacity, can determine by anticipation what is good evidence, and what
not, before he has heard it. When he has heard it, of course he will
judge what weight it is to have upon his mind, or whether it ought not
entirely to be struck out of the proceedings.

Your Committee, always protesting, as before, against the admission of
any law, foreign or domestic, as of authority in Parliament, further
than as written reason and the opinion of wise and informed men, has
examined into the writers on the Civil Law, ancient an