They considered, my lords, not only how great was the hardship of being unjustly condemned, but likewise how much a man might suffer by being falsely accused; how much he might be harassed by a prosecution, and how sensibly he might feel the disgrace of a trial. They knew that to be charged with guilt implied some degree of reproach, and that it gave room, at least, for an inference that the known conduct of the person accused was such as made it probable that he was still more wicked than he appeared; they knew that the credulity of some might admit the charge upon evidence that was rejected by the court, and that difference of party, or private quarrels, might provoke others to propagate reports once published, even when in their own opinion they were sufficiently confuted; and that, therefore, an innocent man might languish in infamy by a groundless charge, though he should escape any legal penalty. It has, therefore, my lords, been immemorially established in this nation, that no man can be apprehended, or called into question for any crime till there shall be proof. First, that there is a _corpus delicti_, a crime really and visibly committed; thus before a process can be issued out for inquiring after a murderer, it must be apparent that a murder has been perpetrated, the dead body must be exposed to a jury, and it must appear to them that he died by violence. It is not sufficient that a man is lost, and that it is probable that he is murdered, because no other reason of his absence can be assigned; he must be found with the marks of force upon him, or some circumstances that may make it credible, that he did not perish by accident, or his own hand. It is required, secondly, my lords, that he who apprehends any person as guilty of the fact thus apparently committed, must suspect him to be the criminal; for he is not to take an opportunity, afforded him by the commission of an illegal act, to gratify any secret malice, or wanton curiosity; or to drag to a solemn examination, those against whom he cannot support an accusation. And, my lords, that suspicion may not ravage the reputation of Britons without control; that men may not give way to the mere suggestions of malevolence, and load the characters of those with atrocious wickedness, whom, perhaps, they have no real reason to believe more depraved than the bulk of mankind, and whose failings may have been exaggerated in their eyes by contrariety of opinion, or accidental competition, it is required in the third place, my lords, that whoever apprehends or molests another on suspicion of a crime, shall be able to give the reasons of his suspicion, and to prove them by competent evidence.