reason to believe himself sheltered by the constitution of his country.

This argument, my lords, I have mentioned, without endeavouring to
evince the innocence of the person whom this bill immediately regards;
because the intent of it is to show, that no man is to be deprived of
the common benefits of the constitution, and that the guilty have a
right to all the advantages which the law allows them. For guilt is
never to be supposed till it is proved, and it is therefore never to be
proved by new methods, merely because it is supposed.

That the method of procuring evidence now proposed, is new, my lords, I
think it no temerity to conclude; because the noble lords who have
endeavoured to defend it, have produced no instance of a parallel
practice, and their knowledge and acuteness is such, that they can only
have failed to discover them, because they are indeed nowhere to be
found.

In the case of bribery, my lords, the person accused has the privilege,
if he be innocent, of prosecuting his accuser for perjury, and is
therefore in less danger of being harassed by a false indictment. But,
my lords, this is not the only difference between the two cases; for he
that discovers a bribe received by himself, has no motives of interest
to prompt his evidence; he is only secured from suffering by his own
discovery, and might have been equally safe by silence and secrecy;
since the law supposes the crime out of the reach of detection,
otherwise than by the confession of the criminal.

But far different, my lords, are the circumstances of those who are now
invited to throng the courts of justice, and stun us with depositions
and discoveries. They are men supposed criminal by the indemnity which
is offered them; and by the nature of their crimes it is made at least
probable, that they are in daily hazard of discovery and punishment;
from which they are summoned to set themselves free for ever, by
accusing a man of whom it has not been yet proved that he can legally be
called to a trial.

Thus, my lords, in the law which the noble duke has mentioned as a
precedent for this bill, the accuser is only placed in a kind of
equilibrium, equally secure from punishment, by silence or by
information, in hope that the love of truth and justice will turn the
balance; in the bill now before us the witness is in continual danger by
withholding his evidence, and is restored to perfect safety by becoming
an accuser, and from making discover