crimes and misdemeanors; or, should they see
occasion, to mix both in the same accusation. The house of lords
insisted on their former resolution; and, in another conference,
delivered a paper wherein they asserted it to be a right inherent in
every court of justice, to order and direct such methods of proceeding
as it should think fit to be observed in all causes that fell under its
cognizance. The commons demanded a free conference, which was refused.
The dispute grew more and more warm. The lords sent a message to the
lower house, importing that they intended presently to proceed on
the trial of the earl of Oxford. The commons paid no regard to this
intimation; but adjourned to the third day of July. The lords, repairing
to Westminster-hall, took their places, ordered the earl to be brought
to the bar, and made proclamation for his accusers to appear. Having
waited a quarter of an hour, they adjourned to their own house,
where, after some debate, the earl was acquitted upon a division; then
returning to the hall, they voted that he should be set at liberty.
Oxford owed his safety to the dissensions among the ministers, and to
the late change in the administration. In consequence of this, he
was delivered from the persecution of Walpole; and numbered among his
friends the dukes of Devonshire and Argyle, the earls of Nottingham and
Hay, and lord Townshend. The commons, in order to express their sense
of his demerit, presented an address to the king, desiring he might be
excepted out of the intended act of grace. The king promised to comply
with their request; and in the meantime forbade the earl to appear at
court. On the fifteenth day of July, the earl of Sunderland delivered
in the house of peers the act of grace, which passed through both houses
with great expedition. From this indulgence were excepted the earl of
Oxford, Mr. Prior, Mr. Thomas Harley, Mr. Arthur Moore; Crisp, Nodes,
O'Bryan, Redmarne the printer, and Thompson; as also the assassinators
in Newgate, and the clan of Macgregor in Scotland. By virtue of this
act, the earl of Carnwath, the lords Widrington and Nairn, were
immediately discharged; together with all the gentlemen under sentence
of death in Newgate, and those that were confined on account of the
rebellion in the Fleet, the Marshalsea, and other prisons of the
kingdom. The act of grace being prepared for the royal assent, the king
went to the house of peers on the fifteenth day of July, and havi