constantly refer.  This appears in Coke’s Institutes, in Comyns’s Digest, and in all books of that nature.  To give judgment privately is to put an end to reports; and to put an end to reports is to put an end to the law of England.  It was fortunate for the Constitution of this kingdom, that, in the judicial proceedings in the case of ship-money, the Judges did not then venture to depart from the ancient course.  They gave and they argued their judgment in open court.[30] Their reasons were publicly given, and the reasons assigned for their judgment took away all its authority.  The great historian, Lord Clarendon, at that period a young lawyer, has told us that the Judges gave as law from the bench what every man in the hall knew not to be law.

This publicity, and this mode of attending the decision with its grounds, is observed not only in the tribunals where the Judges preside in a judicial capacity, individually or collectively, but where they are consulted by the Peers on the law in all writs of error brought from below.  In the opinion they give of the matter assigned as error, one at least of the Judges argues the questions at large.  He argues them publicly, though in the Chamber of Parliament,—­and in such a manner, that every professor, practitioner, or student of the law, as well as the parties to the suit, may learn the opinions of all the Judges of all the courts upon those points in which the Judges in one court might be mistaken.

Your Committee is of opinion that nothing better could be devised by human wisdom than argued judgments publicly delivered for preserving unbroken the great traditionary body of the law, and for marking, whilst that great body remained unaltered, every variation in the application and the construction of particular parts, for pointing out the ground of each variation, and for enabling the learned of the bar and all intelligent laymen to distinguish those changes made for the advancement of a more solid, equitable, and substantial justice, according to the variable nature of human affairs, a progressive experience, and the improvement of moral philosophy, from those hazardous changes in any of the ancient opinions and decisions which may arise from ignorance, from levity, from false refinement, from a spirit of innovation, or from other motives, of a nature not more justifiable.

Your Committee, finding this course of proceeding to be concordant with the character and spirit of our judicial proceeding, continued from time immemorial, supported by arguments of sound theory, and confirmed by effects highly beneficial, could not see without uneasiness, in this great trial for Indian offences, a marked innovation.  Against their reiterated requests, remonstrances, and protestations, the opinions of the Judges were always taken secretly.  Not only the constitutional publicity for which we contend was refused to the request and entreaty of your Committee, but when a noble peer, on the 24th day of June, 1789,