The first was, that "he had never heard of such a thing as the cabinet council becoming the subject of a debate in that House.

He had never known of the exercise of the King's prerogative in the appointment of his ministers being brought into question on such grounds as had now been alleged." The second, that "in point of fact there is nothing in the constitution that recognizes any such institution as a cabinet council; that it is a body unknown to the law, and one which has in no instance whatever been recognized by Parliament." He farther urged that as Lord Ellenborough was a privy councillor, and as the cabinet is only a select committee of the Privy Council, he was, "in fact, as liable to be summoned to attend the cabinet, as a privy councillor, as he was in his present situation." The last argument was beneath the speaker to use, since not one of his hearers was ignorant that no member of the Privy Council unconnected with the government ever is summoned to the deliberations of the cabinet; and though, as he correctly stated, "there is no legal record of the members comprising any cabinet," it may safely be affirmed that since July, 1714, when the Duke of Argyll and the Duke of Somerset claimed admission to the deliberations of the ministers, on account of the danger in which the Queen lay, though they admitted that they had received no summons to attend,[156] there has been no instance of any privy councillor attending without a summons; nor, except at the accession of a new sovereign, of summonses being sent to any members of the council except the actual ministers.

The second argument was even worse, as being still more sophistical.

It might be true that no law nor statute recognized the cabinet as a body distinct from the Privy Council, but it was at least equally true that there was no one who was ignorant of the distinction; that it was, in truth, one without which it would be difficult to understand the organization or working of any ministry.

The indispensable function and privilege of a ministry is, to deliberate in concert and in private on the measures to be taken for the welfare of the state; but there could be little chance of concert, and certainly none of privacy, if every one who has ever been sworn a member of the Privy Council had a right to attend all its deliberations.