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"The liberties of England cannot but subsist, so long as this palladium remains sacred and inviolate; not only from all open attacks (which none will be so hardy as to make) but also from all secret machinations, which may sap and undermine it, by introducing new and arbitrary methods of trial;— by Justices of the Peace, Commissioners of Revenue, and Courts of Conscience. [Why did he not mention the Court of King's Bench?] These inroads upon this sacred bulwark of the nation, are fundamentally opposite to the spirit of our Constitution; and that, though begun in trifles, the precedent may gradually increase and spread, to the utter disuse of juries in questions of the most momentous concern."
Those quotations, my Lord, will undoubtedly prove to the whole nation, the singular benefit which is derived from the trial by jury; and that our freedom will no longer exist, than the forms and spirit of this trial is preserved in its utmost purity[1].
- ↑ But Sir William Blackstone explains all this on the subject of libels and informations ex officio, in contradiction, of himself.
