It may likewise be observed, that this bill wants one of the most essential properties of a law, perspicuity and determinate meaning; here is an indemnity promised to those who shall discover all that they know, remember, or believe.  A very extensive demand, and which may, therefore, be liable to more fallacies and evasions than can be immediately enumerated or detected.  For how can any one prove that he has a claim to the indemnity?  He may, indeed, make some discoveries, but whether he does not conceal something, who can determine?  May not such reserves be suspected, when his answers shall not satisfy the expectations of his interrogators?  And may not that suspicion deprive him of the benefit of the act?  May not a man, from want of memory, or presence of mind, omit something at his examination which he may appear afterwards to have known?  And since no human being has the power of distinguishing exactly between faults and frailties, may not the defect of his memory be charged on him as a criminal suppression of a known fact?  And may not he be left to suffer the consequences of his own confession?  Will not the bill give an apparent opportunity for partiality?  And will not life and death, liberty and imprisonment, be placed in the hands of a committee of the commons?  May they not be easily satisfied with informations of one man, and incessantly press another to farther discoveries?  May they not call some men, notoriously criminal, to examination, only to secure them from punishment, and set them out of the reach of justice; and extort from others such answers as may best promote their views, by declaring themselves unsatisfied with the extent of their testimony?  And will not this be an extortion of evidence equivalent to the methods practised in the most despotick governments, and the most barbarous nations?

It has always been the praise of this house to pay an equal regard to justice and to mercy, and to follow, without partiality, the direction of reason, and the light of truth; and how consistently with this character, which it ought to be our highest ambition to maintain, we can ratify the present bill, your lordships are this day to consider.  It is to be inquired, whether to suppose a man guilty, only because some guilt is suspected, be agreeable to justice; and whether it be rational before there is any proof of a crime, to point out the criminal.

We are to consider, my lords, whether it is not unjust to hear, against any man, an evidence who is hired to accuse him, and hired with a reward which he cannot receive without confessing himself a man unworthy of belief.  It is to be inquired, whether the evidence of a man who declares only what he believes, ought to be admitted, when the nature of the crimes allows stronger proof; and whether any man ought to be examined where he cannot be punished if he be found perjured.

A natural and just regard to our own rights, on the preservation of which the continuance of the constitution must depend, ought to, alarm us at the appearance of any attempt to invade them; and the necessity of known forms of justice, ought to incite us to the prevention of any innovation in the methods of prosecuting offenders.