The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume XI Part 5

[1] 4 Inst. p. 4.

[2] Rol. Parl. Vol. III. p. 244, -- 7.

[3] 4 Inst. p. 15.

[4] 16 Ch. I. 1640.

[5] Lords' Journals, Vol. IV. p. 133.

[6] Id. Vol. XIX. p. 98.

[7] Lords' Journals, Vol. XIX. p. 116.

[8] Lords' Journals, Vol. XIX. p. 121.

[9] Lords' Journals, Vol. XIX. p. 108.

[10] State Trials, Vol. V.

[11] Statutes at Large, from 12 Ed. I. to 16 and 17 Ch. II.

[12] 7 W. III. ch. 3, sect. 12.

[13] State Trials, Vol. VI. p. 17.

[14] Lords' Journals, Vol. XX. p. 316.

[15] Discourse IV. p. 389.

[16] Parl. Rolls, Vol. II. p. 57. 4 Ed. III. A.D. 1330.

[17] c.o.ke, 4 Inst. p. 3.

[18] State Trials, Vol. II. p. 725. A.D. 1678.

[19] State Trials, Vol. III. p. 212.

[20] State Trials, Vol. V. p. 169.

[21] State Trials, Vol. IV. from p. 538 to 552.

[22] State Trials, Vol. IX. p. 606*. Die Lunae, 28 Julii 1746

[23] Id., Vol. XI. p. 262.

[24] Kelyng's Reports, p. 54.

[25] Rushworth, Vol. II. pp. 93, 94, 95, 100.

[26] Foster's Crown Law, p. 145.

[27] See the Appendix, No. 1.

[28] Rushworth, Vol. II. p. 475, et pa.s.sim.

[29] c.o.ke, 4 Inst. p. 5.

[30] This is confined to the judicial opinions in Hampden's case. It does not take in all the extra-judicial opinions.

[31] "_Dissentient._

"1st. Because, by consulting the Judges out of court, in the absence of the parties, and with shut doors, we have deviated from the most approved and almost uninterrupted practice of above a century and a half, and established a precedent not only destructive of the justice due to the parties at our bar, but materially injurious to the rights of the community at large, who in cases of impeachments are more peculiarly interested that all proceedings of this High Court of Parliament should be open and exposed, like all other courts of justice, to public observation and comment, in order that no covert and private practices should defeat the great ends of public justice.

"2dly. Because, from private opinions of the Judges, upon private statements, which the parties have neither heard nor seen, grounds of a decision will be obtained which must inevitably affect the cause at issue at our bar; this mode of proceeding seems to be a violation of the first principle of justice, inasmuch as we thereby force and confine the opinions of the Judges to our private statement; and through the medium of our subsequent decision we transfer the effect of those opinions to the parties, who have been deprived of the right and advantage of being heard by such, private, though unintended, trans.m.u.tation of the point at issue.

"3dly. Because the prisoners who may hereafter have the misfortune to stand at our bar will be deprived of that consolation which the Lord High Steward Nottingham conveyed to the prisoner, Lord Cornwallis, viz., 'That the Lords have that tender regard of a prisoner at the bar, that they will not suffer a case to be put in his absence, lest it should prejudice him by being wrong stated.'

"4thly. Because unusual mystery and secrecy in our judicial proceedings must tend either to discredit the acquittal of the prisoner, or render the justice of his condemnation doubtful.

"PORCHESTER. SUFFOLK AND BERKs.h.i.+RE. LOUGHBOROUGH."

[32] See the Lord High Steward's speech on that head, 1st James II.

[33] All the resolutions of the Judges, to the time of the reference to the Committee, are in the Appendix, No. 2.

[34] Atkyns, Vol. I. p. 445.

[35] Blackstone's Commentaries, Book IV. p. 258.

[36] Lords' Journals, Vol. IV. p. 204. An. 1641. Rush. Trial of Lord Strafford, p. 430.

[37] Lords' Journals, Vol. IV. p. 210.

[38] Id. Vol. XXII. p. 536 to 546. An. 1725.

[39] Lords' Journals, Vol. XXII. p. 541.

[40] Id. Vol. XXVII. p. 63, 65. An. 1746

[41] Gilbert's Law of Evidence, p. 23.

[42] Gravina, 84, 85.

[43] Id. 90 usque ad 100.

[44] Atkyns, Rep. Vol. I p. 37, Omichund _versus_ Barker.