Page:Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons (4th ed, 1818, vol I).djvu/225

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CHAP. V.

CONCLUSION.

thus given at large the several Cases, that have any reference to the Privileges of the Members of the House of Commons, and their servants, from the earliest times to the end of the Parliament of 1628, with such observations as occurred upon them.—We have seen in what manner the Commons were, at different periods, obliged to make new claims of Privilege, and to exert new modes of maintaining and defending those claims, in proportion as the lengthening the duration of the Session made other avocations inconvenient and incompatible with their first duty; and as the increase of their consequence in the state, and their influence in the management of public affairs, rendered them more an object of the attention of the Ministers of the Crown.—The principal view, which the House of Commons seem always to have had in the several declarations of their Privileges, was this, 'of securing to themselves, (1.) their right of attendance in Parliament, unmolested by threats or insults from private persons; (2.) their thoughts and attention undisturbed by any concern for their goods or estate; (3.) their personal presence in the House, not to be withdrawn, either by the summons of inferior Courts; by the arrest of their bodies in civil causes; or, which was of more Rh