It is evident, sir, that by the order now read, the serjeant at arms attending on this house, may take into custody all strangers that shall be found in the house or gallery while we are assembled; and that this order is not always put in practice, must be attributed to the lenity of the house.  But that this order extends to past offences, and subjects any man to imprisonment for having been present in some former day, cannot be conceived.  For how far may such a retrospect be extended? or at what time, after having intruded into the house, can any man presume to consider himself as exempt from the danger of imprisonment?

Our order, sir, only decrees present punishment for present offences, and, therefore, the question asked by the honourable gentleman, may be insisted on without scruple, and answered without hazard.  Let then the honourable gentlemen reserve their laudable zeal for our constitution till it shall be invaded by more important occasions.

Mr. Sandys replied:—­Sir, what victory the honourable gentleman imagines himself to have gained, or whence proceeds all his wantonness of exultation, I am not able to discover.  The question only relates to the interpretation of one of our own orders, and is, therefore, not of the highest importance; nor can his success, in so trivial a debate, entitle him to great applause from others, or produce, in a person of his abilities, any uncommon satisfaction to himself.

But, whatever may be the pleasure of the victory, it must, at least, be gained before it can be celebrated; and it is by no means evident, that he has yet any reason to assure himself of conquest.

His interpretation, sir, of the order, which he has so confidently laid before the house, seems to me to have no foundation in reason or justice; for if it be an offence against the house to be present at our consultations, and that offence be justly punishable, why should any man be exempt from a just censure by an accidental escape? or what makes the difference between this crime and any other, that this alone must be immediately punished, or immediately obliterated, and that a lucky flight is equivalent to innocence?

It is surely, sir, more rational to believe, that the house may punish any breach of its orders at a distant time, that if our censure is once eluded, it may be afterwards enforced; and, therefore, that the question put to the person at the bar ought not to be asked, because it cannot safely be answered.

Mr. Pulteney spoke next, in words to this effect:—­Sir, I cannot but conceive that our order may extend its influence beyond the present moment, and that intrusions may be punished by the house on another day than that on which they were committed.

I am so far, sir, from being of opinion, that, to make the execution of this order valid, the house must sit, without interruption, from the time of the offence to that of the punishment, that if the gentlemen in the gallery were to be taken into custody, I should advise the serjeant to wait till the house should break up, and seize them as they should come out.