The Court having carried this point, Norton impudently confessed this was what he had aimed at; and as there were so many causes connected with this depending in the Courts below, he should move to put off the question for four months. The Ministers did not doubt but the legality of the warrants would be condemned in Westminster Hall; yet a previous censure in Parliament might not only ensure that decision, but produce arraignment of the Administration. They feared, from what had passed in the foregoing day, that they should never be able to carry an approbation of the warrants,--and if they could, into what confusion must the nation have fallen, if such warrants were upheld by Parliament, and anathematized in the other courts? Their plan, therefore, was to jockey: and the Opposition had fallen into the snare. It had been proposed that Lord Granby should move the adjournment; he refused, and yet spoke for it,--and was immediately rewarded with the Lieutenancy of Derbyshire, which the Duke of Devonshire had resigned, and wished, from the rivalship between their families in that county, to see in any other hands. Norton, continuing to triumph in the arts of attorneyship, asked to what end the House should decide on the point which was to be determined elsewhere? Let, he said, a Committee be appointed to draw up a bill. The practice of a court does make law. For Secretaries of State he demanded more power than for a common justice of peace. The House sits to make laws, not to expound them. He then dropped this sentence, so decent, yet so worthy of the mouth it fell from, and so often flung in his teeth,--_If I was a Judge, I should pay no more regard to this resolution than to that of a drunken porter_;--a sentence that would have made old Onslow[439] thunder forth indignation! Norton then moved to adjourn the debate for four months, as so many causes were depending on the illegality. Charles Yorke made a very long speech against postponing a present decision, as against the dignity of the House: and he scrupled not to pronounce the warrant illegal, which he protested he had never seen till Wilkes was taken up; nor had any question been asked of the Attorney or Solicitor Generals by the Administration. Warrants dated from the Star Chamber. Himself had always been for taking this matter up in Parliament, notwithstanding its pendency below. Previous questions, to avoid debates, may be useful during foreign treaties, but never in cases of privilege. In questions of this sort the House ought to hold the balance between King and people. It was a question in point of law impossible to be denied. Were he a Judge, he should pay regard to the decision of the House of Commons. The question ought to be determined for the sake of the Secretaries of State. He must be for some law.