nd the most proper time for
business; that it has been owing to one adjournment made in consequence
of a complaint of the prisoner against one of your Managers, which took
up a space of ten days; that two days' adjournments were made on account
of the illness of certain of the Managers; and, as far as your Committee
can judge, two sitting days were prevented by the sudden and unexpected
dereliction of the defence of the prisoner at the close of the last
session, your Managers not having been then ready to produce their
evidence in reply, nor to make their observations on the evidence
produced by the prisoner's counsel, as they expected the whole to have
been gone through before they were called on for their reply. In this
session your Committee computes that the trial was delayed about a week
or ten days. The Lords waited for the recovery of the Marquis
Cornwallis, the prisoner wishing to avail himself of the testimony of
that noble person.

With regard to the one hundred and eighteen days employed in actual
sitting, the distribution of the business was in the manner following.

There were spent,--

Days
In reading the articles of impeachment, and the
defendant's answer, and in debate on the mode
of proceeding 3

Opening speeches, and summing up by the Managers 19

Documentary and oral evidence by the Managers 51

Opening speeches and summing up by the defendant's
counsel, and defendant's addresses
to the Court 22

Documentary and oral evidence on the part of the
defendant 23
----
118

The other head, namely, that the trial has occupied one hundred and
eighteen days, or nearly one third of a year. This your Committee
conceives to have arisen from the following immediate causes. First, the
nature and extent of the matter to be tried. Secondly, the general
nature and quality of the evidence produced: it was principally
documentary evidence, contained in papers of great length, the whole of
which was often required to be read when brought to prove a single short
fact. Under the head of evidence must be taken into consideration the
number and description of the witnesses examined and cross-examined.
Thirdly, and principall