the cases of a peer tried in full Parliament and by a special commission, in this manner:--"Upon the whole matter, my Lords, whether the Peers being judges in the one and not in the other instance alters the case, or whether the reason of the law in inferior courts why the jury are not permitted to separate until they have discharged themselves of their verdict may have any influence on this case, _where that reason seems to fail_, the prisoner being to be tried by men of unquestionable honor, _we cannot presume so far as to make any determination, in a case which is both new to us and of great consequence in itself_; but think it the proper way for _us_, having laid matters as we conceive them before your Grace and my Lords, _to submit the jurisdiction of your own court to your own determination_." It appears to your Committee, that the Lords, who stood against submitting the course of their high court to the inferior Judges, and that the Judges, who, with a legal and constitutional discretion, declined giving any opinion in this matter, acted as became them; and your Committee sees no reason why the Peers at this day should be less attentive to the rights of their court with regard to an exclusive judgment on their own proceedings or to the rights of the Commons acting as accusers for the whole commons of Great Britain in that court, or why the Judges should be less reserved in deciding upon any of these points of high Parliamentary privilege, than the Judges of that and the preceding periods. This present case is a proceeding in full Parliament, and not like the case under the commission in the time of James II., and still more evidently out of the province of Judges in the inferior courts. All the precedents previous to the trial of Warren Hastings, Esquire, seem to your Committee to be uniform. The Judges had constantly refused to give an opinion on any of the powers, privileges, or competencies of either House. But in the present instance your Committee has found, with great concern, a further matter of innovation. Hitherto the constant practice has been to put questions to the Judges but in the three following ways: as, 1st, A question of pure abstract law, without reference to any case, or merely upon an A.B. case stated to them; 2dly, To the legal construction of some act of Parliament; 3dly, To report the course of proceeding in the courts below upon an abstract case. Besides these three, your Committee knows not of a single example of any sort, during the course of any judicial proceeding at the bar of the House of Lords, whether the prosecution has been by indictment, by information from the Attorney-General, or by impeachment of the House of Commons. In the present trial, the Judges appear to your Committee not to have given their judgment on points of law, stated as such, but to have in effect tried the cause, in the whole course of it,--with one instance to the contrary.