But the matter does not end here. My Lords, supposing that His Majesty really had this incomprehensible prerogative of changing, by a sheet of parchment, a corrupt and dishonest heart, and cleansing it from all its impurities, I still maintain that it has not been exercised. Where is the clause in this pardon restoring Brown to his character and integrity? You have heard the pardon read, and there is no clause in it to that effect. He is screened against punishment and every effect of a prosecution; but it would have required a very express clause indeed to give the pardon the additional force of removing the infamy of his sentence, and surely the warmest advocates for prerogative cannot be offended at its being said that the King must exercise that prerogative before its power can be felt. My Lords, I shall trouble you with nothing farther upon this subject, which appears to me very clear. The sentence of the English Court is no more foreign than those to which the Courts of Scotland give effect every day. It is such a sentence as your Lordships would have pronounced had the crime been committed in this country. His Majesty’s pardon cannot, by our law, restore this man from the infamy annexed to this sentence, and common reason tells us that it is beyond the power of kings, because it is beyond the power of man, to reinstate a man in his original integrity by their fiat. Lord HAILES--My Lords, the Dean of Faculty has done more for Sir George Mackenzie than I was ever able to do, though I studied him before the Dean of Faculty was born. Sir George Mackenzie’s work on the criminal law is a medley of opinions formed from the civilians, with what occurred in his own practice, and desultory observations upon them. He is exceedingly inaccurate. He mentions, for instance, an Act of Sederunt which has no existence, and in many other instances talks equally loosely. With regard to the present objection, my Lords, it is clear that the decree is foreign. By the articles of the Union, our own laws and forms of procedure are secured to us, and we have as little connection with those of England as with the laws of Japan, being as little bound to obey them. At the same time there is always a _comitas_ to foreign decrees, where not inconsistent with our own law. Here, however, there is no necessity to enter into this question, as the sentence in this case is superseded by the pardon. The sentence of the Justices of Peace weighs nothing with me. No such sentence ought ever to render a witness inadmissible, for Justices of Peace are always ready enough to banish a man who is accused from their own territory. I am therefore for repelling the objection. Lord ESKGROVE--My Lords, I think this a matter of very great importance. I am clearly of opinion that it is beyond the prerogative of the Crown to render a person capable of being a witness by granting him a pardon. I know no such prerogative.