first laid before us, and which have
rather been strengthened than invalidated by the subsequent debate.

It appears, my lords, evident to me, that every man has a right to be
tried by the known laws of his country; that no man can be justly
punished by a law made after the commission of a fact, because he then
suffers by a law, against which he never transgressed; nor is any man to
be prosecuted by methods invented only to facilitate his condemnation,
because he ought to be acquitted, however guilty he may be supposed,
whom the established rules of justice cannot convict. The law, my lords,
is the measure of political, as conscience of moral right; and he that
breaks no law, may indeed be criminal, but is not punishable. The law
likewise prescribes the method of prosecuting guilt; and as we, by
omitting any crime in our laws, disable ourselves from punishing it,
however publick or flagrant, so by regulating the process in our courts
of justice, we give security to that guilt, which by that process cannot
be detected.

The truth of this assertion, my lords, however paradoxical it may
perhaps appear, will become evident, if we suppose a man brought to the
bar whose guilt was unquestionable, though it could not be legally
proved, because all those were dead who might have appeared against him.
It is certain that his good fortune would give him no claim to pardon,
and yet he could not be convicted, unless we suppose him weak enough to
accuse himself. In this case, my lords, it is not impossible, that some
might be prompted by their zeal to propose, that the foreign methods of
justice might be introduced, and the rack employed to extort, from his
own mouth, a confession of those crimes of which every one believed him
guilty.

With what horrour, my lords, such a proposal would be heard, how loudly
it would be censured, and how universally rejected, I need not say; but
must observe, that, in my opinion, the detestation would arise
principally from a sense of the injustice of exposing any man to
peculiar hardships, and distinguishing him to his disadvantage from the
rest of the community.

It will, my lords, not be easy to prove, that it is less agreeable to
justice to oblige a man to accuse himself, than to make use of
extraordinary methods of procuring evidence against him; because the
barriers of security which the law has fixed are equally broken in
either case, and the accused is exposed to dangers, from which he had