For it was only the testimony of the majority of the House.

There might be a large respectable minority whose recollections might materially differ from the recollections of the majority.

This indeed was actually the case.
For there had been a dispute among those who had heard Duncombe's confession as to the precise extent of what he had confessed; and there had been a division; and the statement which the Upper House was expected to receive as decisive on the point of fact had been at last carried only by ninety votes to sixty-eight.

It should seem therefore that, whatever moral conviction the Lords might feel of Duncombe's guilt, they were bound, as righteous judges, to absolve him.
After much animated debate, they divided; and the bill was lost by forty-eight votes to forty-seven.

It was proposed by some of the minority that proxies should be called; but this scandalous proposition was strenuously resisted; and the House, to its great honour, resolved that on questions which were substantially judicial, though they might be in form legislative, no peer who was absent should be allowed to have a voice.
Many of the Whig Lords protested.