“The House allowing of this Bill to be committed are, in my opinion, to _disallow_ any that will be against the Body of the Bill for being Committees.” Sir Edward Hobby followed:-- “And for my own opinion, I think that he that is against the Body of the Bill can be no Committee.” The report then proceeds:-- “Then the Speaker stood up and said, ‘… All that will have a man that hath been against the Body of the Bill to be a Committee, let them show their opinions by saying _Yea_.’ And not one said _Yea_. ‘All that will not, say _No_.’ And all said _No_.” I take this important precedent from Townshend’s “Historical Collections: or, An Exact Account of the Proceedings of the Four Last Parliaments of Q. Elizabeth,” pp. 208, 209. The same account is found also in D’Ewes’s “Journals of all the Parliaments during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth,” pp. 634-35. Thus, on submission of the question by the Speaker, the House unanimously decided that they would “not have a man that hath been against the Body of the Bill to be a Committee.” According to the report, “All said _No_”; and that unanimous “No” is the voice of Parliamentary Law, repeated ever since. The phrase “against the Body of the Bill” is strong and suggestive, showing the purpose to exclude those who were unfriendly to the measure. Following the history of the rule, we meet it again, as stated by Hakewel in his “Modus tenendi Parliamentum,” published in 1671:-- “He that speaketh directly against the body of the bill may not be named a committee; for he that would totally destroy will not amend.”[31] Here again is the declared purpose to save the measure from the hands of enemies. Then follows a case remarkable for words which have become familiar in Parliamentary Law. It was that of Colonel Birch, who, February 11, 1677, brought into Parliament a Bill for Settling a Public Register for Lands in the several Counties, and in his remarks said:-- “I begged you formerly _not to put the child to a nurse that cared not for it_. For it was formerly committed to two lawyers, and the thing was lost.”[32] Here the commitment of a bill for reform in law to “two lawyers” was condemned, because they were a nurse that did not care for it; and the casual remark of the author of the bill has become historical. There is good law as well as sense in his saying, that a child is not put to a nurse that cares not for it. Parliamentary Law, in the creation of special committees, always seeks those who care for the business, whatever it may be. One against an inquiry, or believing that there is no occasion for it, is repudiated by this rule, so just and benign, and also so venerable with years.