[After many questions, Mr. Henry Archer desired that he might be asked, whether on the Friday before he was in the gallery; at which some of the members expressed their disapprobation, and the man being ordered to withdraw, the following debate ensued upon the propriety of the question.]

Mr. Sandys spoke first, in substance as follows:—­Sir, those who are intrusted by their country with the authority of making laws, ought, undoubtedly, to observe them with the utmost circumspection, lest they should defeat their own endeavours, and invalidate, by their example, their own decrees.

There is no part, sir, of our civil constitution more sacred, none that has been more revered by those that have trampled upon other forms of justice, and wantoned in oppression without restraint, than that privilege by which every Briton is exempted from the necessity of accusing himself, and by which he is entitled to refuse an answer to any question which may be asked, with a view to draw from him a confession of an offence which cannot be proved.

Whether this great privilege, sir, is not violated; whether the unalienable right of a free subject is not infringed, by the question put to the person at our bar, the house must decide.  The punishment to which intruders are subject by the orders of this house, proves that his presence in the house is considered as a crime, of which, as we have no proof of it, a confession ought not to be extorted by an artful and insidious question, of which he may not discover the intention or the consequence.  Such treatment, sir, is rather to be expected by slaves in the inquisition of Spain, than a Briton at the bar of this house; a house instituted to preserve liberty, and to restrain injustice and oppression.

Mr. Campbell spoke next, to this effect:—­Sir, I cannot but concur with the opinion of the honourable gentleman, that, in requiring an answer to this question, we shall expose a man to a punishment against whom we have no evidence, but what is extorted from himself; and, consequently, no knowledge of his crime upon which we can proceed to inflict censures or penalties, without the manifest infraction of our constitution.

It cannot be imagined, sir, that he intends to confess himself guilty of a crime of which no proof has been brought, or that he will voluntarily subject himself to punishments.  It must, therefore, follow, that he is entrapped in his examination, by an artifice, which, I hope, will never find any countenance in this house.

Mr. Winnington answered to the following purpose:—­Sir, it is not impossible that the honourable gentlemen, having not lately looked into the orders of the house, may mistake the tendency of the question; I, therefore, move that the order may be read.

[The order being read by the clerk, he proceeded.]