I always understood from your Lordship the trust and power of grand juries is or ought to be accounted amongst the greatest and of most concern, next to the legislative:  The honour, reputations, fortunes and lives of every man being subject to their censure; the kings of England have an undoubted power of dissolving parliaments, but dissolving ’till one was returned to their or their ministers’ liking, has never been thought very righteous, and Heaven be praised never very successful.

I am entirely of your lordship’s opinion, the oath of a grand juryman is not always sufficiently considered by the jurors, which is as follows.

“You shall diligently enquire, and true presentment make of all such articles, matters and things as shall be given you in charge; And of all other matters and things as shall come to your own knowledge, touching this present service.  The King’s counsel your fellows’ and your own you shall keep secret,” &c.—­And from some other men’s behaviour, I fear oaths are not always as sacredly observed as they ought to be:  “The King’s counsel, your fellows’ and your own you shall keep secret”—­Though our grandmothers my lord might have thought there was a dispensing power in the Pope, you and I profess no power upon earth can dispense with this oath, so that to force a man to discover the counsel he is sworn to keep, is to force him into direct perjury.

Suppose upon information taken before your Lordship of a rape committed, a bill of indictment were sent to a grand jury, and the grand jury return ignoramus on it, application is made to the Court to recommend it to them to reconsider it, and they return as before ignoramus—­Suppose a judge with more than decent passion should ask them their reasons (which is their counsel) for so doing, nay should be so particular as to demand of them whether they thought the woman a whore.  Must not all the world conclude somebody had forgot the oath of a grand juryman?  Yes sure, or his own, or worse.—­But suppose they should ask a juror a question might criminate himself?  My Lord, you know I put not bare possibilities, it is generally believed these things have been done within an oak of this town—­And if I am rightly informed, the restraint a juror is under by his oath, is so well understood, that a certain person desired the clerk of the Crown to change the form of it by adding this exception:  “unless by leave or order of the Court.”

These things, my Lord, would seem strange in Westminster-hall, and would be severely noted in St. Stephen’s Chapel.  The honour of the Crown would be thought a very false as well as weak plea for such proceedings there, as indeed it is an infamous one everywhere, for ’tis a scandal upon a king, if he is represented in a court of justice, as if he were partially concerned or rather inclined to desire, that a party should be found guilty, than that he should be declared innocent.