Sir William Thomson.—­“We must refer to the forms and proceedings in the Court of Parliament, and which must be owned to be part of the law of the land.  It has been mentioned already to your Lordships, that the precedents in impeachments are not so nice and precise in form as in the inferior courts; and we presume your Lordships will be governed by the forms of your own court, (especially forms that are not essential to justice,) as the courts below are by theirs:  which courts differ one from the other in many respects as to their forms of proceedings, and the practice of each court is esteemed as the law of that court.”

The Attorney-General in reply maintained his first doctrine.  “There is no uncertainty; in it that can be to the prejudice of the prisoner:  we insist, it is according to the forms of Parliament:  he has pleaded to it, and your Lordships have found him guilty.”

The opinions of the Judges were taken in the House of Lords, on the 19th of March, 1715, upon two questions which had been argued in arrest of judgment, grounded chiefly on the practice of the courts below.  To the first the Judges answered,—­“It is necessary that there be a certain day laid in such indictments, on which the fact is alleged to be committed; and that alleging in such indictments that the fact was committed at or about a certain day would not be sufficient.”  To the second they answered, “that, although a day certain, when the fact is supposed to be done, be alleged in such indictments, yet it is not necessary upon the trial to prove the fact to be committed upon that day; but it is sufficient, if proved to be done on any other day before the indictment found.”

Then it was “agreed by the House, and ordered, that the Lord High Steward be directed to acquaint the prisoner at the bar in Westminster Hall, ’that the Lords have considered of the matters moved in arrest of judgment, and are of opinion that they are not sufficient to arrest the same, but that the impeachment is sufficiently certain in point of time according to the form of impeachments in Parliament.’"[14]

On this final adjudication, (given after solemn argument, and after taking the opinion of the Judges,) in affirmance of the Law of Parliament against the undisputed usage of the courts below, your Committee has to remark,—­1st, The preference of the custom of Parliament to the usage below.  By the very latitude of the charge, the Parliamentary accusation gives the prisoner fair notice to prepare himself upon all points:  whereas there seems something insnaring in the proceedings upon indictment, which, fixing the specification of a day certain for the treason or felony as absolutely necessary in the charge, gives notice for preparation only on that day, whilst the prosecutor has the whole range of time antecedent to the indictment to allege and give evidence of facts against the prisoner.