Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/170

160 upon usurpation. The constitutional duties of a house of commons are not very complicated nor mysterious. They are to propose or assent to wholesome laws, for the benefit of the nation. They are to grant the necessary aids to the King;—petition for the redress of grievances; and prosecute treason or high crimes against the state. If unlimited privilege be necessary to the performance of these duties, we have reason to conclude, that, for many centuries after the institution of the house of commons, they were never performed. I am not bound to prove a negative: but I appeal to the English history, when I affirm, that, with the exceptions already stated, which yet I might safely relinquish, there is no precedent, from the year 1265, to the death of Queen Elizabeth, of the house of commons having imprisoned any man (not a member of their house) for contempt or breach of privilege. In the most flagrant cases, and when their acknowledged privileges were most grossly violated, the poor Commons, as they then styled themselves, never took the power of punishment into their own hands. They either sought redress, by petition to the King, or, what is more remarkable, applied for justice to the house of lords;