But, with all deference be it spoken, I do not conceive that a Report of a Committee of the Council in England is hitherto a law in either kingdom; and, until any point is determined to be a law, it remains disputable by every subject. This, may it please your lords and worships, may seem a strange way of discoursing in an illiterate shopkeeper. I have endeavoured (although without the help of books) to improve that small portion of reason God has been pleased to give me; and when reason plainly appears before me, I cannot turn away my head from it. Thus, for instance, if any lawyer should tell me that such a point were law, from which many gross palpable absurdities must follow, I could not believe him. If Sir Edward Coke should positively assert (which he nowhere does, but the direct contrary) "that a limited prince could, by his prerogative, oblige his subjects to take half an ounce of lead, stamped with his image, for twenty shillings in gold," I should swear he was deceived, or a deceiver; because a power like that would leave the whole lives and fortunes of the people entirely at the mercy of the monarch; yet this in effect is what Wood has advanced in some of his papers, and what suspicious people may possibly apprehend from some passages in what is called the Report. That paper mentions such persons to have been examined, who were desirous and willing to be heard upon this subject. I am told they were four in all--Coleby, Brown, Mr. Finley the banker, and one more, whose name I know not. The first of these was tried for robbing the Treasury in Ireland; and, though he was acquited for want of legal proof, yet every person in the Court believed him to be guilty. The second stands recorded in the votes of the House of Commons, for endeavouring, by perjury and subornation, to take away the life of John Bingham, Esq.