tted, must suspect him to be the
criminal; for he is not to take an opportunity, afforded him by the
commission of an illegal act, to gratify any secret malice, or wanton
curiosity; or to drag to a solemn examination, those against whom he
cannot support an accusation.

And, my lords, that suspicion may not ravage the reputation of Britons
without control; that men may not give way to the mere suggestions of
malevolence, and load the characters of those with atrocious wickedness,
whom, perhaps, they have no real reason to believe more depraved than
the bulk of mankind, and whose failings may have been exaggerated in
their eyes by contrariety of opinion, or accidental competition, it is
required in the third place, my lords, that whoever apprehends or
molests another on suspicion of a crime, shall be able to give the
reasons of his suspicion, and to prove them by competent evidence.

These, my lords, are three essentials which the wisdom of our ancestors
has made indispensable previous to the arrest or imprisonment of the
meanest Briton; it must appear, that there is a crime committed, that
the person to be seized is suspected of having committed it, and that
the suspicion is founded upon probability. Requisites so reasonable in
their own nature, so necessary to the protection of every man's quiet
and reputation, and, by consequence, so useful to the security and
happiness of society, that, I suppose, they will need no support or
vindication. Every man is interested in the continuance of this method
of proceeding, because no man is secure from suffering by the
interruption or abolition of it.

Such, my lords, is the care and caution which the law directs in the
first part of any criminal process, the detainment of the person
supposed guilty; nor is the method of trial prescribed with less regard
to the security of innocence.

It is an established maxim, that no man can be obliged to accuse
himself, or to answer any questions which may have any tendency to
discover what the nature of his defence requires to be concealed. His
guilt must appear either by a voluntary and unconstrained confession,
which the terrours of conscience have sometimes extorted, and the
notoriety of the crime has at other times produced, or by the deposition
of such witnesses as the jury shall think worthy of belief.

To the credibility of any witness it is always requisite that he be
disinterested, that his own cause be not involved in that of