a land-mark to direct us through a troubled sea of controversy, conspicuous and unremoved.
I have dwelt the longer upon the discussion of this point, because, in my opinion, it comprehends the whole question. The rest is unworthy of notice. We are enquiring whether incapacity be, or be not, created by expulsion. In the cases of Bedford and Malden, the incapacity of the persons returned was matter of public notoriety, for it was created by act of parliament. But really, Sir, my honest friend's suppositions are as unfavourable to him as his facts. He well knows that the clergy, besides that they are represented in common with their fellow-subjects, have also a separate parliament of their own?—that their incapacity to sit in the house of commons has been confirmed by repeated decisions of the house, and that the law of parliament, declared by those decisions, has been, for above two centuries, notorious and undisputed. The author is certainly at liberty to fancy cases, and make whatever comparisons he thinks proper; his suppositions still continue as distant from fact,
