On the 12th of March six more printers were denounced to the House of Commons for printing their debates; and two more were committed to the Black Rod by the peers, for reflections on the Lords of the Bedchamber, by whose votes Lord Pomfret had carried a cause on an appeal. It was for a considerable estate which had been given against him in Yorkshire by a jury of the most unbiassed and reputable gentlemen of the county, who had transported themselves to the spot, and examined all circumstances with scrupulous exactness. The Earl, who was in truth little better than a lunatic, had treated their decision with the utmost indecency and violence, and trusting to his favour with the King, for whom he was a kind of Don Quixote, had brought an appeal to the House of Lords. That judicature was of signal reputation in cases of property, though almost always led by the two or three law Lords of their own body: yet in Lord Pomfret’s case, though the Ministers said not a word, and though Lord Camden spoke against him, the cause was given for the Earl by the notorious partiality of the Court Lords. The badness of the cause was so flagrant, that Dunning, who pleaded for Lord Pomfret, having persuaded the Duke of Manchester, a peer in Opposition, and one or two more, to decree for the Earl, confessed he was shocked at having convinced them.[163] The Earl himself treated the lawyers with great virulence; and as if his intellects recommended him, or the hardship of his case called for still farther protection, the King, during the litigation, made him a Privy Councillor. The Lords committed Woodfall, the printer, to Newgate, and fined him 100_l._ The House of Commons was more refractory, and sat till five in the morning on the commitment of the printers, the Opposition battling on every individual, and moving after every question to adjourn; so that, after three and twenty divisions, they wearied out the patience of the Ministers, who at last yielded to order the printers to attend on the 14th. This perseverance was the work of Charles Turner[164] of Yorkshire, the two Burkes, the Aldermen Townshend and Oliver, and five more of the Opposition, who alone remained in the House against seventy courtiers. But delay was not the only defensive weapon used by the offenders. John Wheble, one of the printers, had been ordered to attend the House of Commons by a messenger sent to his house. He paid no obedience to the summons, but taking counsel of Robert Morris, a lawyer and warm member of the Bill of Rights, who alleged many informalities and invalidity against the warrant, which was not even signed by the Speaker, Wheble sent a contemptuous answer to the Speaker, both on the warrant, and on a proclamation for apprehending him, which by strange negligence had appeared for three days in the Gazette without being signed, which, in the opinion of the generality of the law, made it to be deemed of no force.