The King’s interest and honour is more concerned in the protection of the innocent, than in the punishment of the guilty, as in all the immediate actions of his Majesty we find that maxim pursued, a maxim can never run a prince into excesses.  We do not only find those princes represented in history under odious characters, who have basely betrayed the innocent, but such as by their spies and informers were too inquisitive after the guilty, whereas none was ever blamed for clemency, or for being too gentle interpreters of the law.  Though Trajan was an excellent prince, endowed with all heroical virtues; yet the most eloquent writers, and his best friends, found nothing more to be praised in his government, than that in his time, all men might think what they pleased, and every man speak what he thought, this I say, that if any amongst us by violent measures, and a dictatorial behaviour have raised jealousies in the minds of His Majesty’s faithful subjects, the blame may lie at their door.

I know it has been said for His Majesty’s service, grand juries may be forced to discover their counsels:  But you will confess a king can do nothing against law, nor will any honest man judge that for his service, which is not warranted by law.  If a constant uninterrupted usage, can give the force of a law, then the grand jurymen are bound by law, as well as by their oaths, to keep the King’s, their fellows’ and their own counsel secret.  Bracton and Britton in their several generations bear witness, that it was then practised; and greater proof of it needs not be sought, than the disputes that appear by the law-books to have been amongst the ancient lawyers, Whether it was treason or felony for a grand juryman to discover their counsels—­The trust of grand juries was in those days thought so sacred, and their secrecy of so great concern to the kingdom, that whosoever should break their oaths, was by all thought worthy to die, only some would have them suffer as traitors, others as felons.

If a king’s commands should come to the judges of a court of justice or to a jury, desiring them to vary from the direction of the law, (which it is criminal to say, and no man ought to be believed therein) they are bound by their oaths not to regard them.  The statute of 2 of E. 3. 8. and 20 E. 3.  I. are express; and the substance of these and other statutes is inserted into the oaths taken by every judge; and if they be under the most solemn and sacred tie in the execution of justice to hold for nothing the commands of the King under the great seal, then surely political views and schemes, the pleasure or displeasure of a minister, in the like case ought to be less than nothing.

It is a strange doctrine that men must sacrifice the law to secure their properties, if the law is to be fashioned for every occasion, if grand jurymen contrary to their oaths must discover their fellows’ and their own counsels, and betray the trust the law has reposed in them, if they must subject the reasons of their verdicts to the censure of the judges, whom the law did never design to trust with the liberty, property, or good name of their fellow-subjects.  No man can say he has any security for his life or fortune, and they who do not themselves, may however see their best friends and nearest relations suffer the utmost violences and oppressions.