text:  Was any such evidence offered in the argument at the Bar of the House of Lords of persons who had suffered either a kind or a degree of punishment not warranted by law? None: but several cases were put in which--in spite of past experience to the contrary--inconvenience and injustice _might possibly_ be conceived to occur hereafter! What then led to this error--for error we must call it? Let us candidly express our opinion that the three peers were fairly "_overpowered_"--to adopt the frank acknowledgment of one of the most distinguished among them--by the plausible fallacies urged upon them with such unprecedented pertinacity and ingenuity by the traversers' counsel