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of Parliament been applied to any matter provided for by an Act of
Parliament and it would be the greatest Absurdity to suppose it since
an Act of Parliament binds each House and the whole Nation and
therefore whatever It was before yet it becomes by making the Act
the Law of the Kingdom which binds every Individual and not the
Law of Parliament, besides you have not shewed one Instance where
even the Law of A Parliament in your Sense of the Words have con-
strued the words in the manner you insist upon. In the next place
you admit that a Legal Construction may be proper in such matters
as come under the Determination of a Court of Law, yet you say
the present is not such and the reason you seem to give (for really I
cannot Comprehend the meaning of applying the words Prohibition
to Act and power to Act) is, That the Courts of Law have no Right
To Construe this Act of Parliament because it relates to a Matter of
Privilege of which the House of Commons are the soul ludges: If
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' L. H. J.
, Liber No. 46
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this by your meaning (and I Cannot find out any other) I must you
are not less mistaken in this then your other Positions; for Lord
Clarendon lays it down, " That there can no Privilege of which
the Law doth not take notice and which is not pleadable by and at
Law, and he puts these Instances, As upon an Arrest of a Member
of Parliament, He may plead that he was a Member of Parliament
and that his person ought to be free from Arrests. " Also " on an
Information or Action on the Case for Words spoken by a member
He may plead that it was for Words spoken by him in Parliament
and that he ought not to be Impleaded in any other Place for words
spoke there ": And in Consequence of such pleas if the ludges are
satisfied what is insisted on are Privileges the Court allows the
Plea and dismisses the Defendants, Agreeable to these Rules several
Proceedings have been in Westminster Hall; and that the Courts of
Law have a Right to take notice and adjudge in matters which the
House of Commons have claimed the peculiar lurisdiction of to
themselves in Point of Privilege even where there was no Statute
Provision the brave Resolution of Lord Chief Justice Holt and the
noble stand of the House of Lords in the gre'at Case of the Ailesbury
men against the Attempted Encroachments of the then House of
Commons on the Rights and Liberties of the Subject have hitherto
been and always will remain a lasting monument of Glory to their
memories and an incontestable Proof of Your Misapprehension of
this Point, as the rest of your Paragraph runs on a Reasoning in-
tirely built on Your mistaken notions of the words Legal and Law
of Parliament That must fall with the Foundation which I hope
you now see is not capable of supporting it
The next Meterial Thing I meet with in your Paper is an Attempt
to give some Account why you Added particular Words to those in
the Statute and here I may retort that a Confession and Excuse are
often better made then a Justification especially when that Justifica-
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[Insist is
omitted
after must]
p. 651
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