House without being suffered to expose its injustice--when I call
to mind my dismissal from a service in which I have spent the fairest
portion of my life, at least without reproach, and my illegal and
unmerited deprivation of the order of the Bath--it is impossible
to speak without emotion. I have but one course now left to pursue,
namely, to show that the charge of the Lord Chief Justice, on which he
directed the jury to decide, was not only unsupported by, but was
in direct contradiction to, the evidence on which it professed to
be founded. This is the best course to pursue both in justice to the
learned judge and to myself. Either I am unfit to sit in this House,
or the judge has no right to his place on the bench. I have courted
investigation in every shape; and I trust that the learned lord will
not shrink from it or suffer his friends on the opposite side to evade
the consideration of these charges by 'the previous question.'"

Lord Cochrane thereupon tendered to the House thirteen charges against
Lord Ellenborough, in which every point of importance in the Stock
Exchange trial was minutely detailed and discussed; and these charges
being read, therein occupying nearly three hours, were ordered to be
printed. A fourteenth charge, bearing upon Lord Ellenborough's conduct
subsequent to the trial, was introduced on the 29th of March; but
this, as it included aspersions upon the character of another judge,
Sir Simon Le Blanc, was objected to and withdrawn. There was further
discussion on the subject on the 1st and the 29th of April; but not
much was done until the 30th of April.

On that evening, Lord Cochrane formally moved that his charges against
Lord Ellenborough should be referred to a Committee of the whole
House, and that evidence in support of them should be heard at the
bar. A lengthy discussion then ensued, the most notable speeches
being made by the Solicitor-General, Sir Francis Burdett, and the
Attorney-General.

The Solicitor-General of course opposed the motion. "As the House, on
the one hand," he said, "should jealously watch over the conduct of
judges, so, on the other, it should protect them when deserving of
protection, not only as a debt of justice due to the judges, but as
a debt due to justice herself, in order that the public confidence in
the purity of the administration of our laws may not be disappointed,
and that the course of that administration may continue the admiration
of the world;