ies, whether true or false, has
every thing to hope and nothing to fear.

The necessity of punishing wickedness has been urged with great
strength; it has been unanswerably shown, by the advocates for this
bill, that vindictive justice is of the highest importance to the
happiness of the publick, and that those who may be injured with
impunity, are, in reality, denied the benefits of society, and can be
said to live in the state of uncivilized nature, in which the strong
must prey upon the weak.

This, my lords, has been urged with all the appearance of conviction and
sincerity, and yet has been urged by those who are providing a shelter
for the most enormous villanies, and enabling men who have violated
every precept of law and virtue, to bid defiance to justice, and to sit
at ease in the enjoyment of their acquisitions.

And what, my lords, is the condition, upon which wickedness is to be set
free from terrour, upon which national justice is to be disarmed, and
the betrayers of publick counsels, or the plunderers of publick
treasure, qualified for new trusts, and set on a level with untainted
fidelity? A condition, my lords, which wretches like these will very
readily accept, the easy terms of information and of perjury. They are
required only to give evidence against a man marked out for destruction,
and the guilt of partaking in his crimes is to be effaced by the merit
of concurring in his ruin.

It has, indeed, been a method of detection, frequently employed against
housebreakers and highwaymen, to proclaim a pardon for him that shall
convict his accomplices; but surely, my lords, this practice will not,
in the present question, be mentioned as a precedent. Surely it will not
be thought equitable to level with felons, and with thieves, a person
distinguished by his rank, his employments, his abilities, and his
services; a person, whose loyalty to his sovereign has never been called
in question, and whose fidelity to his country has at least never been
disproved.

These are measures, my lords, which I hope your lordships will never
concur to promote; measures not supported either by law or justice, or
enforced by any exigence of affairs, but dictated by persecution,
malice, and revenge; measures by which the guilty and the innocent may
be destroyed with equal facility, and which must, therefore, tend to
encourage wickedness as they destroy the security of virtue.

Lord CARTERET then rose, and spoke to the fol