sue, 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.

Mr. Walpole said,--"Those learned gentlemen [Lord Wintoun's counsel]
_seem to forget in what court they are_. They have taken up so much of
your Lordships' time in quoting of authorities, and using arguments to
show your Lordships what would quash an indictment in _the courts
below_, that they seemed to forget they are now in _a Court of
Parliament, and on an impeachment of the Commons of Great Britain_. For,
should the Commons admit all that they have offered, it will not follow
that the impeachment of the Commons is insufficient; and I must observe
to your Lordships, that neither of the learned gentlemen have offered to
produce one instance relative to an impeachment. I mean to show that the
sufficiency of an impeachment was never called in question for the
generality of the charge, or that any instance of that nature was
offered at before. The Commons don't conceive, that, if this exception
would quash an indictment, it would therefore make the impeachment
insufficient. I hope it never will be allowed here as a reason, that
what quashes an indictment in the courts below will make insufficient an
impeachment brought by the Commons of Great Britain."

The Attorney-General supported Mr. Walpole in affirmance of this
principle. He said,--"I would follow the steps of the learned gentleman
who spoke before me, and I think he has given a good answer to these
objections. I would take notice that we are upon an impeachment, not
upon an indictment. The courts below have set forms to themselves, which
have prevailed for a long course of time, and thereby are become the
forms by which those courts are to govern themselves; but it never was
thought that the forms of those courts had any influence on the
proceedings of Parliament. In Richard II.'s time, it is said in the
rec