The Chancellor, with acrimonious tenderness, began with protesting, that he should have taken this for a factious motion, had it not come from a Lord of so unsuspected a character--but he would enter at once into the matter. Lord Ravensworth had applied to have the affair examined, and his Majesty had ordered his Council to inquire into it. Mr. Stone had made the deepest asseverations of his innocence; nay, he went so far as to beg that the distance of time might be thrown out of the question, and that if the least tittle of the accusation could be proved against him, his guilt might be considered as but of yesterday. That the term _Cabinet_ Council, said to be borrowed from France, was no novelty; that it was to be found in the Journals of Parliament. That the Duke of Devonshire being added by his Majesty’s particular order on this occasion, was not unprecedented. That it had been called by our ancestors, sometimes the Cabinet for Foreign Affairs; sometimes the Cabinet for Private. How they corresponded as a Council in Queen Elizabeth’s time might be seen in Forbes’s State Papers. That they had not proceeded by compulsory summons: that it had been determined in Westminster-hall, that a Secretary of State may administer oaths. That Magistrates indeed might not accept the oath of an accused person: here in truth their oaths had been accepted now by an act of grace, which was the more excusable, as they were subject to no punishment from the Council that examined them. That this had been an inquiry for satisfaction, not for prosecution: that their oaths was the only satisfaction to be obtained: Vernon was dead; nobody else was present at these pretended treasonable meetings, (this was false, for he presently afterwards urged in their favour, that Mr. Cayley, who is living, and used to be present, had been examined, and could remember no such passages;) that the oaths had not been administered by authority, but admitted at their own desire. He commended the great solemnity of the proceedings, and added, we have all of us the King’s leave to answer any questions.