The Lords acquainted the Commons with the difficulty which had arisen.

A conference was held in the Painted Chamber; and there Hartington, who appeared for the Commons, declared that he was authorized, by those who had sent him, to assure the Lords that Duncombe had, in his place in Parliament, owned the misdeeds which he now challenged his accusers to bring home to him.
The Lords, however, rightly thought that it would be a strange and a dangerous thing to receive a declaration of the House of Commons in its collective character as conclusive evidence of the fact that a man had committed a crime.

The House of Commons was under none of those restraints which were thought necessary in ordinary cases to protect innocent defendants against false witnesses.

The House of Commons could not be sworn, could not be cross-examined, could not be indicted, imprisoned, pilloried, mutilated, for perjury.

Indeed the testimony of the House of Commons in its collective character was of less value than the uncontradicted testimony of a single member.