can take off. This gentleman's quere therefore, must appear to every body to be highly improper and indecent; it is difrefpectful to judges of the most eminent abilities and greatest worth; and derogatory to the honour which the person who is the author of it, I dare fay, meant to do to the gentlemen who have the honour, very defervedly, to serve the crown in those high ftations. It is not neceffary, and I rather chufe to avoid faying any thing as to the manner in which the gentleman introduces his account of the attorney and folicitorgeneral's opinion; which is not, I think, very delicate, in regard to the fecretaries of state. But one thing I cannot help observing: he says, no step relative to Mr. Wilkes's commitment was taken without the advice of the attorney and folicitorgeneral. But was every step relative to the apprebenfion of Mr. Wilkes regulated by fuch able advice? I am fure not. For, to be moderate, if the warrant and circumftances which have been publifhed, and not contradicted, under which he was first seized, be as represented, they are fuch that I, for one, shall not believe any lawyer capable of advising fuch proceedings. The fecretaries of ftate can, I doubt not, anfwer for themfelves. They need not, it is true, be lawyers, and it is not impoffible for them to err in a point of law; but they may be supposed to have other advantages fufficient to guard them against very egregious errors; or fuch as are not eafily to be reconciled with the most fimple rules of regular procedure. All, however, that the public have to do with is, that the law fhould have its fair courfe, and if that is allowed, the iffue will be juft. And the public, if it don't hurt its own caufe, as it has as good a right, fo it has no lefs chance of getting juftice, than any private perfon has. I hope power will never protect oppreffion;

oppreffion; and I truft the paffions whether of 11 many or few never will pervert juftice.

General Obfervations

PHILO THEMIS.

THOSE who have any love and refpect for his majefty perfonally, and are influenced by affect tion and duty to him, as their fovereign, cannot but be uneafy when they obferve any thing that malice itfelf could conftrue into a resemblance, though not a paralel of the practice of bad times. Not a few have, on that account, felt a good deal of pain from fome very indecent (as they think) hints in the papers, as to the opinions of certain great judges, which one may be confident have no authority, though they are published with great affurance, but are the work of ill-defigning, or illjudging perfons of a low character, and tend to bring a reflection upon his majefty's fervice, very contrary to the true character of those refpectable perfons who have the honour to be, or to have been employed in it. There is a paragraph or two in an excellent book of a moft eminent and worthy judge, lately published, which is much commended by those who do not belong to the profeffion, as a collection of good principles; and if any thing could be a warning to the intemperate zeal of party writers, perhaps fome advantage might redound from laying the words of that able and honeft judge before the authors of fome late paragraphs that have been fent to the papers. Mr. juftice Fofter, in his dif courfe upon high treafon, has the following paffage, which may be usefully read by any perfon, and at any time, without regard to the particular fubject and occafion of it. P. 199, This cafe therefore weigheth very little, and no great regard hath been paid to it ever fince.'

· And

And perhaps ftill lefs regard will be paid to it, if it be confidered that the king, who appeareth to have had the fuccefs of the profecution much 'at heart, and took a part in it unbecom'ing the majefty of the crown, condefcended to inftruct his attorney-general with regard to the proper measures to be taken in the examination of the defendant. That the attorney, at his ma'jesty's command, fubmitted to the drudgery of SOUNDING THE OPINIONS OF THE JUDGES, Upon the point of law, before it was thought advife' able to rifque it at an open trial. That the judges < were to be fifted feparately and foon, before they ⚫ could have an opporiunity of conferring together. And that for this purpofe four gentlemen of the profeffion, in the fervice of the crown, were im'mediately dispatched, one to each of the judges; Mr. Attorney himself undertaking to practice upon the chief juftice, of whom fome doubt was then entertained.

Is it poffible that a gentleman of Bacon's great 'talents could fubmit to a fervice fo much below 'his rank and character! But he did fubmit to it, ' and acquitted himfelf notably in it.

'AVARICE, I think, was not his ruling paffion. 'But whenever a falfe ambition, ever reftlefs and craving, overheated in purfuit of the honours which the crown alone can confer, happeneth to • ftimulate an heart otherwife formed for great and 'noble pursuits, it hath frequently betrayed it into 'measures, full as mean as avarice itfelf could have 'fuggefted to the wretched animals who live and 'die under her dominion. For these paffions, how'ever they may feem to be at variance, have ordinarily produced the fame effects. Both degrade 'the man; both contract his views into the little point of self-intereft, and equally steel the heart

against

against the rebukes of confcience, or the fense of 'true honour.

BACON having undertaken the fervice, in' formeth his majesty, in a letter addreffed to him, 'that with regard to three of the judges whom he nameth, he had fmall doubt of their concurrence. "Neither, fayeth he, am I wholly out of hope that "my lord Coke himself, when I have in fome dark "manner put him in doubt that he fhall be left " alone, will not continue fingular." These are plain, naked facts; they need no comment*. Every • reader will make his own reflections upon them. I have but one to make in this place. This method of FORESTALLING THE JUDGMENT OF A COURT in a cafe of blood, THEN DEPENDING, at a time too when the judges were removable at the pleafure of the crown, doth no honour to the memory of the perfons concerned in a transaction fo infidious and unconftitutional; and at the fame time greatly weakeneth the authority of the 'judgment.'

On Privileges of Parliament.

THE privilege of parliament, which a late affair has brought into difpute, is in itself a matter of great moment; and as it is really no lefs fo, than that the people in general should not be misled to reckon that either an invidious diftinction, or a

See Bacon's letters in the 4to edition of his works 1740, Lett. 111, 112, 114, 116, 117. Others of his letters fhew that the fame kind of intercourfe was kept up between the king and his attorney-general with regard to many cafes then depending in judgment; particularly in the cafe of one Owen executed for treasonable words: in that of Mr. Oliver St. John touching the benevolence, in the difputes between the courts of king's bench and chancery in the cafe of the pramunire: and in the proceedings against the countefs of Somerfet.'

dangerous

dangerous licence, which the wisdom of the con ftitution has judged, and experience has proved to be in truth one of the greateft fecurities they have of their valuable right and liberties; I think it may be worth while to add this one obfervation upon the fubject. Treason, and all other capital offences, exclude the privilege of parliament in common cases; fubject to the remedy by forcing a trial, which the Habeas Corpus act gives. But fo jealous has the legislature always been of a power, which, if abused, might prove a terrible engine to garble parliament, that when it has been thought neceffary to fufpend the Habeas Corpus act, which is never done but in fo far as concerns imprisonments for fufpicion of high treason, or treasonable practices, even in that cafe the measure which the fafety of the state makes neceffary, is fo far tempered with a due regard to the freedom of parliament, that there is a claufe in the act which fufpends the Habeas Corpus act; That nothing 'therein fhall be construed to extend to invalidate ⚫ the ancient rights and privileges of parliament, or to the imprisonment or detaining of any Member ⚫ of either house of parliament, during the fetting ' of fuch parliament, until the matter of which he 'ftands fufpected be first communicated to the 'houfe of which he is a member, and THE CONSENT 'OF THE SAID HOUSE OBTAINED for his commitment or detaining.' This is as ftrong a proof as can be of the legislature's opinion of the importance of the fecurity of the perfons of members of parliament, not on their own account, but as neceffary to the freedom of parliament, and effential to the preservation of the rights of the people. It fhews that it is not the privilege of the members, fo much as it is the right of the people of England; and that the people have a right to the service of the perfons they entruft with their liberties; which VOL. I.

M

they