TRIAL OF THE EARL OF OXFORD.

The earl of Oxford, who had now remained almost two years a prisoner in the Tower, presented a petition to the house of lords, praying that his imprisonment might not be indefinite. Some of the tory lords affirmed that the impeachment was destroyed and determined by the prorogation of parliament, which superseded the whole proceedings; but the contrary was voted by a considerable majority. The thirteenth day of June was fixed for the trial; and the house of commons made acquainted with this determination. The commons appointed a committee to inquire into the state of the earl’s impeachment; and, in consequence of their report, sent a message to the lords demanding longer time to prepare for trial. Accordingly the day was prolonged to the twenty-fourth of June; and the commons appointed the committee, with four other members, to be managers for making good the articles of impeachment. At the appointed time the peers repaired to the court in Westminster-hall, where lord Cowper presided as lord steward. The commons were assembled as a committee of the whole house; the king, the rest of the royal family, and the foreign ministers, assisted at the solemnity; the earl of Oxford was brought from the Tower; the articles of impeachment were read, with his answers, and the replication of the commons. Sir Joseph Jekyll standing up to make good the first article, lord Har-court signified to their lordships that he had a motion to make, and they adjourned to their own house. There he represented that a great deal of time would be unnecessarily consumed in going through all the articles of the impeachment; that if the commons would make good the two articles for high treason, the earl of Oxford would forfeit both life and estate, and there would be an end of the matter; whereas to proceed on the method proposed by the commons, would draw the trial on to a prodigious length. He therefore moved that the commons might not be permitted to proceed until judgment should be first given upon the articles of high treason. He was supported by the earls of Anglesea and Nottingham, the lord Trevor, and a considerable number of both parties; and though opposed by the earl of Sunderland, the lords Coningsby and Parker, the motion was carried in the affirmative. It produced a dispute between the two houses. The commons, at a conference, delivered a paper containing their reasons for asserting it as their undoubted right to impeach a peer either for treason, or for high crimes and misdemeanors; or, should they see occasion, to mix both in the same accusation. The house of lords insisted on their former resolution; and, in another conference, delivered a paper wherein they asserted it to be a right inherent in every court of justice, to order and direct such methods of proceeding as it should think fit to be observed in all causes that fell under its cognizance. The commons demanded a free conference, which was refused. The dispute grew more and more warm. The lords sent a message to the lower house, importing that they intended presently to proceed on the trial of the earl of Oxford. The commons paid no regard to this intimation; but adjourned to the third day of July. The lords, repairing to Westminster-hall, took their places, ordered the earl to be brought to the bar, and made proclamation for his accusers to appear. Having waited a quarter of an hour, they adjourned to their own house, where, after some debate, the earl was acquitted upon a division; then returning to the hall, they voted that he should be set at liberty. Oxford owed his safety to the dissensions among the ministers, and to the late change in the administration. In consequence of this, he was delivered from the persecution of Walpole; and numbered among his friends the dukes of Devonshire and Argyle, the earls of Nottingham and Hay, and lord Townshend. The commons, in order to express their sense of his demerit, presented an address to the king, desiring he might be excepted out of the intended act of grace. The king promised to comply with their request; and in the meantime forbade the earl to appear at court. On the fifteenth day of July, the earl of Sunderland delivered in the house of peers the act of grace, which passed through both houses with great expedition. From this indulgence were excepted the earl of Oxford, Mr. Prior, Mr. Thomas Harley, Mr. Arthur Moore; Crisp, Nodes, O’Bryan, Redmarne the printer, and Thompson; as also the assassinators in Newgate, and the clan of Macgregor in Scotland. By virtue of this act, the earl of Carnwath, the lords Widrington and Nairn, were immediately discharged; together with all the gentlemen under sentence of death in Newgate, and those that were confined on account of the rebellion in the Fleet, the Marshalsea, and other prisons of the kingdom. The act of grace being prepared for the royal assent, the king went to the house of peers on the fifteenth day of July, and having given his sanction to all the bills that were ready, closed the session with a speech on the usual topics.