1)2

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

chap, during the long trial of Warren Hastings. It was then neces-" 1685 . sary to determine whether the rule laid down in 1679, or theopposite rule laid down in 1685, was to be accounted the lawof the land. The point was long debated in both Houses;and the best legal and parliamentary abilities which an agepreeminently fertile both in legal and in parliamentary abilitycould supply were employed in the discussion. The lawyerswere not unequally divided. Thurlow, Kenyon, Scott, andErskine maintained that the dissolution had put an end to theimpeachment. The contrary doctrine was held by Mansfield,Camden, Loughborough, and Grant. But among thosestatesmen who grounded their arguments, not on precedentsand technical analogies, but on deep and broad constitutionalprinciples, there was little difference of opinion. Pitt andGrenville, as well as Burke and Fox, held that the impeach-ment was still pending. Both Houses by great majorities setaside the decision of 1685, and pronounced the decision of1679 to be in conformity with the law of Parliament,reversing Of tlic national crimes which had been committed duringtainderof ^* e P an ' c excited by the fictions of Oates, the most signal hadStafford, been the judicial murder of Stafford. The sentence of thatunhappy nobleman was now regarded by all impartial persons' as unjust. The principal witness for the prosecution hadbeen convicted of a series of foul perjuries. It was the dutyof the legislature, under such circumstances, to do justiceto the memory of a guiltless sufferer, and to efface an un-merited stain from a name long illustrious in our annals. Abill for reversing the attainder of Stafford was passed by theUpper House, in spite of the murmurs of a few peers whowere unwilling to admit that they had shed innocent blood.The Commons read the bill twice without a division, andordered it to be committed. But, on the day appointed forthe committee, arrived news that a formidable rebellion hadbroken out in the West of England. It was consequently