e asked, _touching or
concerning the said inquiry, or relative thereto_. What is to be
understood by this last sentence, I would willingly be informed; I would
hear how far the _relation_ to the inquiry is designed to be extended,
with what other _inquiries_ it is to be complicated, and where the chain
of interrogatories is to have an end.

When an evidence appears before the committee, how can he be certain
that the questions asked are _relative to the inquiry?_ How can he be
certain that they are such as he may procure an indemnity by resolving?
Or whether they are not unconnected with the principal question, and
therefore insidious and dangerous? And to what power must he appeal, if
he should be prosecuted afterwards upon his own confession, on pretence
that it was not _relative to the inquiry?_

Expressions like these, my lords, if they are not the effects of
malicious hurry, and negligent animosity, must be intended to vest the
committee with absolute authority, with the award of life and death, by
leaving to them the liberty to explain the statute at their own
pleasure, to contract or enlarge the relation to the controversy, to
inquire without bounds, and judge without control.

Thus, my lords, I have laid before you my opinion of this bill without
any partial regard, without exaggerating the ill consequences that may
be feared from it, or endeavouring to elude any reasoning by which it
has been defended. I have endeavoured to pursue the arguments of the
noble lord who spoke first, and to show that it is founded upon false
notions of criminal justice, that it proposes irrational and illegal
methods of trial, that it will produce consequences fatal to our
constitution, and establish a precedent of oppression.

I have endeavoured, in examining the arguments by which the bill has
been defended, to show that the rights of the publick are ascertained,
and that the power of the majority is to be limited by moral
considerations; and to prove, in discussing its particular parts, that
it is inaccurate, indeterminate, and unintelligible.

What effects my inquiry may have had upon your lordships, yourselves
only can tell; for my part, the necessity of dwelling so long upon the
question, has added new strength to my conviction; and so clearly do I
now see the danger and injustice of a law like this, that though I do
not imagine myself indued with any peculiar degree of heroism, I
believe, that if I were condemned to a ch