The Attorney-General then addressed their lordships as follows:—“I have the honour to attend your lordships on this occasion as Attorney-General for her Majesty, to lay before you the circumstances of the case upon which you will be called to pronounce judgment, without any object or wish on my part, except that I may humbly assist your lordships in coming to a right conclusion upon it, according to its merits. An indictment has been found against a peer of the realm by a grand jury of the country, charging him with a felony, the punishment of which is transportation or imprisonment. That indictment has been removed before your lordships, at the request of the noble prisoner; and, I must say, most properly removed; for an inferior court had no jurisdiction to try him. The charge is, upon the face of it, of a most serious character, and it would not have been satisfactory if it had gone off without any inquiry. The policeman, however, who was bound over to prosecute, fulfilled his recognizances by appearing at the Central Criminal Court, and preferring the indictment.—It is possible, my Lords, that in the course of this trial, questions of great magnitude on the construction of acts of parliament, or respecting the privileges of the peerage, may arise, which it is of great importance to this House, to the Crown, and to the community, should be deliberately discussed. According to all the precedents that can be found, whenever a peer has been tried in parliament, the prosecution has been conducted by the law-officers of the Crown. Fortunately, we have no living memory on this subject. It is now sixty-four years since any proceeding of this sort has taken place; and I am rejoiced to think, that on the present occasion the charge against the noble prisoner at the bar does not imply any degree of moral turpitude, and that, if he should be found guilty, his conviction will reflect no discredit on the illustrious order to which he belongs. At the same time, my Lords, it clearly appears to me, that he has been guilty of infringing the statute law of the realm, which this and all other courts of justice are bound to respect and enforce. Your lordships are not sitting as a court of honour, or as a branch of the legislature: your lordships are sitting here as a court bound by the rules of law, and under a sanction as sacred as that of an oath.