Thus we have it unanimously decided by the judges, whose decision was acquiesced in by the House of Lords, that there were two bad counts, (the 6th and 7th,) on which there were good findings by the jury, and, with the exception of Mr Justice Patteson, four good counts, (the 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th,) on which there were bad findings. The effect of this twofold error was thus tersely stated by Mr Baron Gurney, and adopted by the Lord Chancellor.[10] "I cannot distinguish between a bad finding on a good count, and a good finding on a bad count. They appear to me to amount to precisely the same thing--namely, that upon which no judgment can be pronounced. The judgment must be taken to have proceeded upon _the concurrence of good counts and good findings_, and upon nothing else." Here, then, at length, it seems that we have hit upon a _blot_--a petty, circumscribed blot to be sure, upon a vast surface of otherwise unsullied legal sufficiency; but still--in the opinion of the judges--a blot. What was to be held the effect of it? Or had it _any_ effect? The traversers' counsel, at the bar of the House of Lords, took by surprise every one whom they addressed--all their opponents, all the judges, all the law lords, and all the legal profession, as soon as they had heard of it--by boldly affirming, that if this blot really existed, it would invalidate and utterly nullify the whole proceedings from the beginning to the end! They hammered away at this point accordingly, hour after hour--day after day--with desperate pertinacity; being compelled from time to time, during their hopeful argument, to admit, that up to that moment the rule or custom which they were seeking to impeach had been universally acted upon from time immemorial, to the contrary of that for which they were contending. This strange and novel point of theirs gave rise to the third and eleventh questions put to the judges. These questions are substantially identical, viz., whether a single bad count in an indictment on which there has been a general verdict of guilty, with judgment accordingly, will entitle the fortunate defendant to a reversal of that judgment?