House of Lords to sit to hear the case a few days
in a year, and, when sitting, being converted from
a court of justice into a theatre for rhetorical display,
insisted that it should sit, like every other criminal
tribunal,
de die in diem, till the verdict
was delivered. And he enforced both upon the managers
of the House of Commons and on the counsel for the
defendant the wholesome rules of procedure established
for the detection of crime and the protection of innocence."[152]
It is well known that on the trial of Hastings the
managers of that impeachment, and most especially Burke,
claimed a right of giving evidence such as no court
of law would have admitted, and set up what they entitled
“a usage of Parliament independent of and contradistinguished
from the common law."[153] But on that occasion Lord
Thurlow, then Chancellor, utterly denied the existence
of any such usage—a usage which, “in
times of barbarism, when to impeach a man was to ruin
him by the strong hand of power, was quoted in order
to justify the most arbitrary proceedings.”
He instanced the trial of Lord Stafford, as one which
“was from beginning to end marked by violence
and injustice,” and expressed a “hope that
in these enlightened days no man would be tried but
by the law of the land.” We may fairly
agree with Lord Campbell, that it is to be hoped that
the course adopted by Lord Erskine in this case has
settled the principle and mode of procedure for all
future time; since certainly the importance of an
impeachment, both as to the state interests involved
in it, and the high position and authority of the
defendant, ought to be considered as reasons for adhering
with the greatest closeness to the strict rules of
law, rather than for relaxing them in any particular.
But, as was natural, the public could spare little
attention for anything except the war, and the arrangements
made by the minister for engaging in it with effect;
the interest which such a state of things always kindles
being in this instance greatly inflamed by Napoleon’s
avowal of a design to invade the kingdom, though it
is now known that the preparations of which he made
such a parade were merely a feint to throw Austria
off her guard.[154] During Addington’s administration
Pitt had spoken warmly in favor of giving every possible
encouragement to the Volunteer movement, and also
in support of a proposal made by an independent member,
Colonel Crawford, to fortify London; and one of his
first measures after his resumption of office was a
measure, known as the Additional Force Bill, to transfer
a large portion of the militia to the regular army.
It was so purely a measure of detail, that it would
hardly have been necessary to mention it, had it not
been for an objection made to it by the Prime-minister’s
former colleague, Lord Grenville, and for the reply
with which that objection was encountered by the Chief-justice,
Lord Ellenborough; the former denouncing it as unconstitutional,
since, he declared, it tended to establish a large
standing army in time of peace; and Lord Ellenborough,
on the other hand, declaring the right of the crown
to call out the whole population in arms for the defence
of the realm to be so “radical, essential, and
hitherto never questioned part of the royal prerogative,
that, even in such an age of adventurous propositions,
he had not expected that any lord would have ventured
to question it."[155]