accusation false and malicious; it pronounces the accused innocent; it justifies Lord Ravensworth, the accuser! how many powers assumed! Fawcett, though a lawyer, was terrified at such a court! “It was their proceedings,” the Duke said, he blamed; he had great regard for more than half of the Lords concerned, yet he must say they had erred greatly, if their proceedings were anything more than preparatory. However, these transactions did not strike him more than the high rank of the accused. Mr. Stone stands in as public a light as any man in Britain--there are other points in which the public should be satisfied too--for his part he had never conferred with the reverend and noble Lords,[225] who had lately retired from that important turbulent scene, yet he owned their resignations had already filled him with suspicions. They had been dismissed for no misbehaviour: he hoped they would vouchsafe to lay their motives before the House, that, _in this acquitting age_, they too may be disculpated--nay, the Council too should be disculpated; it should be manifest that they were not biased, and that their report is fit to see the light. Seen to be sure it will be; it cannot be meant to be secreted. Till it is produced, the world is left to perplexity, to argue in the dark--till more is known, one is apt to dwell on the uniformity of Fawcett’s behaviour for four different times--no deviation, no inconsistence in his narrative, till after his interviews with Bishop Johnson and Mr. Murray--then it grew retrograde--then he faltered in his evidence--this gives suspicion; this calls for the whole system of the Council’s procedure--how to produce that properly he did not know.