Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 342, April, 1844
But may not this new conspiracy, which is now mustering and organizing itself, be put down summarily by force? We may judge of that by what has happened to the old conspiracy. Put down by martial violence, or by the police, Repeal would have retired for the moment only to come forward and reconstruct itself in successive shapes of mischief not provided for by law, or not shaped to meet the grasp of an executive so limited as, in these days, any English executive must find itself. On the other hand, once brought under the cognizance of law, it has been crushed in its fraudulent form, and compelled to transmigrate at once into that sincere, substantial, and final form, towards which it was always tending. Whatever of extra peril is connected with a movement so much more intelligible than Repeal, and so much more in alliance with the natural prepossessions of the Irish mind—better it is, after all, that this peril should be forced to show itself in open daylight, than that it should be lurking in ambush or mining underground; ready for a burst when other mischief might be abroad, or evading the clue of our public guardians. Besides that, Repeal also had its own peculiar terrors, notwithstanding that it did not grow up originally upon any stock of popular wishes, but had been an artificial growth propagated by an artificial inoculation. That flame also could burn fiercely when fanned by incendiaries, although it did not supply its own combustibles. And, think as we may of the two evils, valued as mischief against mischief, Repeal against Anti-protestantism, certain it is, that one most important advantage has accrued to Government from the change. Fighting against Repeal, they had to rely upon one sole resource of doubtful issue; for, after all, the law stood on the interpretation of a jury, and therefore too much on the soundness of individual minds; whereas in meeting the assaults of Anti-protestantism, backed as it is by six millions of combatants, ministers will find themselves reposing on the whole strength of two nations, and of that section, even amongst the Irish, which is socially the strongest. An old enemy is thus replaced by a new one many hundred-fold more naturally malignant; true, but immediately the new one will call forth a natural antagonism many thousand-fold more determined. Such is the result; and, though alarming in itself, for ministers it remains an advantage and a trophy. How was this result accomplished? By a Fabian policy of watching, waiting, warding, and assaulting at the right moment. Three times within the last twelve months have the Government been thrown upon their energies of attack and defence; three times have they been summoned to the most trying exercise of skill—vigilantly to parry, and seasonably to strike: first, when their duty was to watch and to arrest agitation; secondly, when their duty was, by process of law, to crush agitation; thirdly, when their duty was to explain and justify before Parliament whatsoever they had done through the two former stages. Now, then, let us rapidly pursue the steps of our ministers through each severally of these three stages; and by seasonable resumé or recapitulation, however brief, let us claim the public praise for what merits praise, and apply our vindication to what has been most misrepresented. The first charge preferred against the Government was, that it did not instantly attack the Repealers on their earliest appearance. We must all recollect this charge, and the bitterness with which it was urged during the whole of last summer; for, in fact, the difference of opinion upon this question led to a schism even amongst the Conservative party and press. The majority, headed by the leading morning paper, have treated it to this day as a ground of suspicion against Government, or at least as an impeachment of their courage, that they should have lingered or hesitated upon the proper policy. Our Journal was amongst the few which, after considerable reflection and perhaps doubt, defended the course adopted; and specifically upon the following suggestion, inter alia, viz. that Peel and the Wellesley were assuredly at that moment watching Mr O'Connell, not at all, therefore, hesitating as to the general character of the policy to be observed, but only waiting for the best mode (best in effect, best in popularity) of enforcing that policy. And we may remind our readers, that on that occasion we applied to the situation of the two parties, as they stood watching and watched, the passage from Wordsworth—
"The vacillating bondsman of the Pope
Shrinks from the verdict of that steadfast eye."
There was no great merit in being right; but it is proper to remind our readers that we were right. And there is considerable merit, more merit than appears, in not having been wrong; for in that we should have followed not only a vast leading majority amongst public authorities, but we should have followed an instinct of impassioned justice, which cannot endure to witness the triumph, though known to be but fugitive, of insolence and hyperbolical audacity. Not as partisans, which was proved by the caution of our manner, but after some deliberation, we expressed our conviction that Government was not slumbering, but surveying its ground, taking up its position, and trying the range of its artillery, in order to strike surely, to strike once, but so that no second blow should be needed. All this has been done; so far our predictions have been realized; and to that extent the Government has vindicated itself. But still it may be asked, to what extent? Doubtless the thing has been done, and done completely. Yet that will not necessarily excuse the Government. To be well done is, in many cases, all that we require; but in questions of civil policy often there is even more importance that it should be soon done, done maturely, (that is, seasonably done with a view to certain evils growing up concurrently with the evil,) done even prematurely with respect to immediate bad consequences open to instant arrest. At this moment amongst the parliamentary opponents of ministers, though some are taxing them with unconstitutional harshness, (or at least with that summum jus which the Roman proverb denounces as summa injuria,) in having ever interfered at all with Mr O'Connell, others of the same faction are roundly imputing to them a system of decoy, a "laying of traps," (that was the word,) in waiting so patiently for the ripening of the Repeal frenzy. Upon the same principle, a criminal may have a right to complain that her Majesty, when extending mercy to a first crime, or a crime palliated by its circumstances, and that a merciful prosecutor who intercedes effectually on his behalf with the court, have both been laying a trap for his future conduct; since, assuredly, there is one motive the less to a base nature for abstaining from evil in the mitigated consequences which the evil drew after it. On the same principle the Repealers, having found Sir R. Peel so anxious, in the first stages of their career, to spare them altogether, were seduced into thinking that surely he never would strike so hard when at length he had made ready to strike. Still, with submission, we think that to found false expectations upon a spirit of lenity, and upon that mistake to found an abuse of goodness that was really sincere, was not the fault of Sir R. Peel, but of the Repealers. Any man's goodness becomes a trap to him who is capable of making it such; since the most noble forbearance, misinterpreted as fear, will probably enough operate as a snare for such a person by tempting him into excesses calculated to rouse that courage with which all genuine forbearance is associated. If the early moderation of Government did really entrap any man, that man has himself, and his own meanness of heart, to thank for his delusion. But were it otherwise, and the Government became properly responsible for any possible misinterpretation of their own lenity—even in that case, it will remain to be enquired whether Government could have acted otherwise than it did. For else, though Government could owe little enough to the conspirator; yet with respect to the ill-educated and misled labouring man, whose honest sensibilities were so grievously played upon by traitors, we do ourselves conceive that Government had a clamorous duty. If such men by thousands believed that the cause of Repeal was patriotic, that we consider a delusion not of a kind or a class to challenge exposure from Government; they have neither such functions assigned to them, nor could they assume any office of teaching without suspicion. But when the credulity of the poor was shown also in anticipating impunity for the leader of Repeal, and upon the ground that ministers feared him, when for this belief there was really much plausible sanction in the behaviour of the Whig ministers—too plainly it became a marked duty of Sir Robert Peel to warn them how matters stood; to let them know that sedition tended to dangerous results, and that his Government was bound by no secret understanding, with sedition for averting its natural penalties. So much, we all agree, was due from the present Government to the poorer classes; and exactly because former governments had practically taken another view of sedition. If, therefore, Sir R. Peel had left unpaid this great debt, he failed grievously in the duties of his high office; but we are of opinion that he did not. We have an obscure remembrance that the Queen's speech uttered a voice on this point—a solemn, a monitory, a parental voice. We seem to recollect also, that in his own parliamentary place he warned the deluded followers of Repeal—that they were engaged in a chase that must be fruitless, and might easily become criminal. What was open to him, therefore, Sir Robert did. He applied motives, such as there were within his power, to lure men away from this seditious service. The "traps" he laid were all in that direction. If more is required of him by people arguing the case at present, it remains to ask whether more was at that time in his power.
The present administration came into power in September 1841. Why the Repealers did not go to work instantly, is more than we can explain; but so it was. In March of 1843, and not sooner, Mr O'Connell opened a new shop of mercenary agitation, and probably for the last time that he will ever do so. The surveillance of Government, it now appears, commenced almost simultaneously; why not the reaction of Government? Upon that it is worth spending a few words. It is now made known to the public, that from the very first Sir R. Peel had taken such measures of precaution as were really open to him. In communicating, officially with any district whatsoever, in any one of the three kingdoms, the proper channel through which the directions travel is the lord-lieutenant of the particular county in which the district lies. He is the direct representative of the sovereign—he stands at the head of the county magistrates, and is officially the organ between the executive and his own rural province. To this officer in every county, Sir R. Peel addressed a letter of instructions; and the principle on which these instructions turned was—that for the present he was to exercise a jealous neutrality; not interfering without further directions in ordinary cases, that is, where simply Repeal was advocated, or individuals were abused; but that, on the first suggestion of local outrages, the first incitement to mischief, arrests and other precautionary measures were to take place. Not much more than twenty years are gone by, since magistrates moved on principles so wholly different, that now, and to the youthful of this generation, they would seem monstrous. In those days, let any man be found to swear that he apprehended danger to his property, or violence to his person, from the assembling of a mob in a place assigned, and the magistrate would have held it his duty to disperse or prevent that meeting. But now on a changé tout cela; and as easily might a magistrate of this day commit Fanny Elssler as a vagabond. Yet even in these days we have heard it mooted—
1. On the mere ground of numerical amount, and as for that reason alone an uncontrollable mass, might not such a meeting have been liable to dispersion? Answer—this allegation of monstrous numbers was uniformly a falsehood; and a falsehood gross and childish. Was it for the dignity of Government to assume, as grounds of action, fables so absurd as these? Not to have assumed them, will never be made an argument of blame against the Executive; and, indeed, it was not possible to do so, since Government had employed qualified persons to estimate the numbers, and in some instances to measure the ground. The only real charge against Government, in connexion with these fables, is (and we grieve to say it) that of having echoed them, in an ambiguous way, at one point of the trials; not exactly assuming them for true, and resting any other truth upon their credit, but repeating them as parts inter alia of current popular hearsay. Now this, though probably the act of some subordinate officer, does a double indignity to Government; it is discreditable to the understanding, if such palpable nursery tales are adopted for any purpose; and openly to adulterate with falsehood, even in those cases where the falsehood is not associated with folly, still more deeply wounds the character of an honourable government. But, besides, had the numerical estimates stood upon any footing of truth, mere numbers could not have been pleaded as an argument for reasonable alarm. The false estimate was not pleaded by the Repealers until after the meetings, and as an inference from facts. But the use of the argument was before the meeting, and to prevent the meeting. And if the experience of past meetings were urged as an argument for presuming that the coming one would be not less numerous, concurrently would be urged this same experience as a demonstration that no danger was to be apprehended. Dangerous the meetings certainly were in another sense; but, in the police sense, so little dangerous, that each successive meeting squared, cubed, &c., in geometrical progression the guarantee in point of safety for all meetings that were to follow.
2. On the ground of sedition, and disaffection to the Government, might not these assemblages have been lawfully dispersed or prevented? Unfortunately, not under our modern atmosphere of political liberality. In time of war, when it may again become necessary, for the very salvation of the land, to suspend the habeas corpus act, sedition would revive into a new meaning. But, at all times, sedition is of too unlimited a nature to form the basis of an affidavit sworn before a police magistrate; and it is an idea which very much sympathizes with the general principles of political rights. When these are unusually licentious, sedition is interpreted liberally and laxly. Where danger tightens the restraints upon popular liberty, the idea of sedition is more narrowly defined. Sedition, besides, very much depends upon overt acts as expounding it. And to take any controversial ground for the basis of restraint upon personal liberty, would probably end in disappointment. At the same time, we must make one remark. Some months ago, in considering what offence was committed by the public avowal of the Repeal doctrine, we contended, that it amounted constructively to treason; and on the following argument—Why had any body supposed it lawful to entertain or to propagate such a doctrine? Simply, on the reflexion that, up to the summer of 1800, there was no union with Ireland: since August of that 1800, this great change had been made. And by what? By an act of Parliament. But could there be any harm in seeking the repeal of a parliamentary act? Is not that done in every session of the two Houses? And as to the more or less importance of an act, that is a matter of opinion. But we contended, that the sanctity of an act is to be deduced from the sanctity of the subjects for which it legislates. And in proof of this, we alleged the Act of Settlement. Were it so, that simply the term Act of Parliament implied a license universally for undoing and canceling it, then how came the Act of Settlement to enjoy so peculiar a consecration? We take upon us to say—that, in any year since the Revolution of 1688-9, to have called a meeting for the purpose of framing a petition against this act, would have been treason. Might not Parliament itself entertain a motion for repealing it, or for modifying it? Certainly; for we have no laws resembling those Athenian laws, which made it capitally punishable to propose their repeal. And secondly,—no body external to the two Houses, however venerable, can have power to take cognizance of words uttered in either of those Houses. Every Parliament, of necessity, must be invested with a discretionary power over every arrangement made by their predecessors. Each several Parliament must have the same power to undo, which former Parliaments had to do. The two Houses have the keys of St Peter—to unloose in the nineteenth century whatever the earliest Parliament in the twelfth century could bind. But this privilege is proper and exclusive to the two Houses acting in conjunction. Outside their walls, no man has power to do more than to propose as a petitioner some lawful change. But how could that be a lawful change which must begin by proposing to shift the allegiance into some other channel than that in which it now flows? The line of succession, as limited in the act, is composed of persons all interested. As against them, merely contingent and reversionary heirs, no treason could exist. But we have supposed the attempt to be against the individual family then occupying the throne. And it is clear that no pretence, drawn from the repealable nature of an English law, can avail to make it less, or other than treason, for a person outside of Parliament to propose the repeal of this act as to any point affecting the existing royal family, or at least, so many of that family as are privileged persons known to the constitution. Now, then, this remark instantly points to two classes of acts; one upon which to all men is open the right of calling for Repeal; another upon which no such right is open. But if this be so, then to urge the legality of calling for a Repeal of the Union, on the ground that this union rests only upon an act of Parliament, is absurd; because that leaves it still doubtful whether this act falls under the one class or the other.
Why do we mention this? Because we think it exceedingly important that the attention of parliament should be called to the subject, and to the necessity of holding certain points in our constitution as absolutely sacred. If a man or party should go about proclaiming the unlawfulness, in a religious sense, of property, and agitating for that doctrine amongst the lower classes by appropriate arguments—it would soon be found necessary to check them, and the sanctity of property would soon be felt to merit civil support. Possibly it will be replied—"Supposing the revolutionary doctrines followed by overt acts, then the true redress is by attacking these acts." Yet every body feels that, if the doctrine and the acts continued to propagate themselves, very soon both would be punished. In the case where missionaries incited negro slaves to outrages on property, or were said to do so, nobody proposed to punish only the overt outrages. So, again, in the event of those doctrines being revived which denounced all differences of rank, and the official distinctions of civil government, it would be too late to punish the results after the bonds of society were generally relaxed. Ministers are placed in a very false position, continually taxing a man with proposing the repeal of a law as if that were an admitted crime, and yet also pronouncing the proposed repeal of any law to be a privilege of every citizen. They will soon find it necessary to make their election for one or other of these incompatible views.
Meantime, in direct opposition to this uncertainty of the ministers, the Irish Attorney-General has drawn the same argument from the Act of Settlement which we have drawn. In February 1844, the Irish Attorney-General pronounced his views; Blackwood's Magazine in August or September 1843. A fact which we mention—not as imputing to that learned gentleman any obligation to ourselves; for, on the contrary, it strengthens the opinion to have been independently adopted by different minds, but in order to acquit ourselves from the natural suspicion of having, in a legal question, derived our own views from a high legal authority.
3. Might not the Repeal Association have been arrested and prosecuted at first, viz. in March 1843, as six months afterwards they were, on a charge of conspiracy? That was a happy thought, by whomsoever suggested; and strange that an idea, so often applied to minor offences as well as to political offences, should not at once have been seen to press with crushing effect upon these disturbers of the public peace. Since the great change in the combination laws, this doctrine of conspiracy is the only means by which masters retain any power at all. Wheresoever there are reciprocal rights, for one of the two antagonist interests to combine in defence of their own, presupposes in very many cases an unfair disturbance of the legal equilibrium. Society, as being an inert body in relation to any separate interests of its own, and chiefly from the obscurity of these interests, cannot be supposed to combine; and therefore cannot combine even to prevent combinations. Government is the perpetual guardian and organ of society in relation to its interests. Government, therefore, prosecutes. This, however, left the original question as to the Repeal of the Irish Union act, whether a lawful attempt or not lawful, untouched. And necessary it was to do so. Had the prosecutor even been satisfied on that point, no jury would have regarded it as other than a delicate question in the casuistry of political metaphysics. But the offence of combining, by means of tumultuous meetings, and by means of connecting with this obscure question rancorous nationalities or personalities, so as to make that a matter of agitating interest to poor men, which else they would have regarded as a pure scholastic abstraction—this was a crime well understood by the jury; and thence flowed the verdict. But could not the same verdict have been obtained in the month of March? Certainly not. For the act of conspiracy must prove itself by collusion between speeches and speeches, between speeches and newspapers, between reporters and newspapers, between newspaper and newspaper. But in the infancy of such a concern, these links of concert and mutual reverberation are few, hard to collect, and unless carelessly diffused, (as in the palmy days of the Repeal Association they were,) difficult to prove.
In short, no indictment could have availed that was not founded on the offence of conspiracy; and that would not have been available with certainty much before the autumn, when in fact the conspirators were held to bail. To have failed would have been ruinous. We have seen how hardly the furious Opposition have submitted to the Government measure, under its present principle of simple confidence in the law as it is: had new laws, or suspension of old ones, been found requisite—the desperate resistance of the Liberals would have reacted contagiously on the excitement in Ireland, so as to cause more mischief in a secondary way, than any measure of restraint upon the Repealers could have healed directly.
It is certain, meantime, that Sir R. Peel did not wish to provoke a struggle with the Repealers. Feeling, probably, considerable doubts upon the issue of any trial, moving upon whatsoever principle—because in any case the composition of the jury must depend a good deal upon chance, and one recusant juror, or one juror falling ill at a critical moment, might have reduced the whole process to a nihility—Sir Robert, like any moderate man, hoped that his warnings might meet with attention. They did not. So far from that, the Repealers kindled into more frenzy through their own violence, irritated no doubt by public sympathy with their worst counsels in America and elsewhere. At length the case indicated in the minister's instructions to the lords-lieutenant of counties, the casus fæderis, actually occurred. One meeting was fixed ostentatiously on the anniversary of the rebellion in 1798; and against the intended meeting at Clontarf, large displays of cavalry and of military discipline were publicly advertised. These things were decisive: the viceroy returned suddenly to Ireland: the Privy Council of Ireland assembled: a proclamation issued from government: the conspirators were arrested: and in the regular course the trials came on.
Such is our account of the first stage in this great political transaction; and this first stage it is which most concerns the reputation of Government. For though the merit of the trials, or second stage, must also belong to Government, so far as regards the resolution to adopt this course, and the general principle of their movement; yet in the particular conduct of their parts, these trials naturally devolved upon the law-officers. In the admirable balance of firmness and forbearance it is hardly possible to imagine the minister exceeded. And here, where chiefly he stood between a double fire of attacks, irreconcilable in themselves, and proceeding not less on friends than foes, it is now found by official exposures that Sir Robert's conduct is not open to a trivial demur. He made his preparations for vindicating the laws in such a spirit of energy, as though he had resolved upon allowing no escape for the enemy; he opened a locus penitentiæ, noiseless and indulgent to the feelings of the offenders, with so constant an overture of placability as if he had resolved upon letting them all escape. The kindness of the manner was as perfect as the brilliancy of the success.
Next, as regards the trials, there is so very much diffused through the speeches or the incidents of what is noticeable on one ground or other—that we shall confine ourselves to those points which are chiefly concerned in the one great factious (let us add fraudulent) attempt within the House of Commons to disparage the justice of the trial. In all history, we remember nothing that ever issued from a baffled and mortified party more audacious than this. As, on the other hand, in all history we remember nothing more anxiously or sublimely conscientious than the whole conduct of the trial. More conspicuously are these qualities displayed, as it was inevitable they should, in the verdict. Never yet has there been a document of this nature more elaborate and fervent in the energy of its distinctions, than this most memorable verdict; and the immortal twelve will send down their names to posterity as the roll-call of those upright citizens, who, in defiance of menaces, purchased peace to their afflicted country at the price of peril to themselves. With partisans, of course, all this goes for nothing; and no cry was more steadily raised in the House of Commons than the revolting falsehood—that the conspirators had not obtained a fair trial. Upon the three pretences by which this monstrous allegation endeavoured to sustain itself, we will say a word. Two quarrels have been raised with incidents occurring at separate stages in the striking of the jury. What happened first of all was supposed to be a mere casual effect of hurry. Good reason there has since appeared, to suspect in this affair no such excusable accident, but a very fraudulent result of a plan for vitiating the whole proceedings. Such things are likely enough to be attempted by obscure partisans. But at all events any trick that may have been practised, is traced decisively to the party of the defendants. But the whole effect of the trick, if such it were, was to diminish the original fund from which the names of the second list were to be drawn, by about one twenty-ninth part. But this inconsiderable loss was as likely to serve the defendants as not; for the object, as we have said, was—simply by vitiating the proceeding to protract the trial, and thus to benefit by a larger range of favourable accidents. But why not cure this irregularity, however caused, by the means open to the court? Simply for these reasons, explained by the Attorney-General:—1st, that such a proceeding would operate injuriously upon many other trials; and 2d, as to this particular trial, that it would delay it until the year 1845. The next incident is still more illustrative of the determination, taken beforehand, to quarrel with the arrangements, on whatever principle conducted. When the list of persons eligible as jurors has been reduced by the unobjectionable process of balloting to forty-eight, from that amount they are further reduced by ultimate challenges; and the necessity resting upon each party to make these challenges is not discretional, but peremptory. It happened that the officer who challenged on behalf of the crown, struck off about ten Roman Catholics. The public are weary of hearing it explained—that these names were not challenged as Catholics, but as Repealers. Some persons have gone so far as to maintain—that even Repealers ought not to have been challenged. This, however, has been found rather too strong a doctrine for the House of Commons—to have asked for a verdict of guilty from men glorying in the very name which expresses the offence. Did any man ever suggest a special jury of smugglers in a suit of our lady the Queen, for the offence of "running" goods? Yet certainly they are well qualified as respects professional knowledge of the case. We on our part maintain, that not merely Repealers were inadmissible on the Dublin jury, but generally Roman Catholics; and we say this without disrespect to that body, as will appear from what follows. It will often happen that men are challenged as labouring under prejudices which disqualify them for an impartial discharge of a juror's duty. But these prejudices may be of two kinds. First, they may be the natural product of a certain birth, education, and connexion; and these are cases in which it will almost be a duty for one so biased to have contracted something of a permanent inability to judge fairly under circumstances which interest his prejudices. But secondly, there are other prejudices, as, for instance, of passions, of blind anger, or of selfish interest. Such cases of prejudice are less honourable; and yet no man scruples to tell another, under circumstances of this nature, that he cannot place confidence in his impartiality. No offence is either meant or taken. A trial is transferred from Radnorshire to Warwickshire in order to secure justice: yet Radnorshire is not offended. And every day a witness is told to stand down, when he is acknowledged to have the slightest pecuniary interest in the case, without feeling himself insulted. Yet the insinuation is a most gross one—that, because he might be ten guineas richer or poorer by the event of the trial, he is not capable of giving a fair testimony. This would be humiliating, were it not seen that keen interests compel men to speak bluntly and plainly: men cannot sacrifice their prospects of justice to ceremony and form. Now, when a Roman Catholic is challenged as a juryman, it is under the first and comparatively inoffensive mode of imputation. It is not said—you are under a cloud of passion, or under a bias of gross self-interest. But simply—you have certain religious opinions: no imputation is made on your integrity. On the contrary, it is honourable to you that you should be alive to the interests of your class. Some think, and so may you, that separation from England would elevate the Catholics; since, in such a case, undoubtedly your religion would become predominant in Ireland. It is but natural, therefore, that you should lean to the cause of those who favour yours. In setting aside a Catholic as a juryman on the trial of Repealers, this is the imputation made upon him. Now, what is there in that to wound any man's feelings? Lastly, it is alleged that the presiding judge summed up in terms unfavourable to the Repealers. Of course he did; and, as an upright judge, how could he have done otherwise? Let us for one moment consider this point also. It is often said that the judge is counsel for the prisoner. But this is a gross misconception. The judge, properly speaking, is counsel for the law, and for every thing which can effect the right understanding of the evidence. Consequently he sometimes appears to be advocating the prisoner's cause, merely because the point which he is clearing up happens to make for the prisoner. But equally he would have appeared to be against the prisoner, if he found it necessary to dissipate perplexities that would have benefited the prisoner. His business is with no personal interest, but generally with the interest of truth and equity—whichever way those may point. Upon this principle, in summing up, it is the judge's duty to appraise the entire evidence; and if any argument lurks obscurely in the evidence, he must strip it of its obscurity, and bring it forward with fuller advantage. That may happen to favour the prisoner, or it may weigh against him. But the judge cannot have any regard to these consequences. His concern is simply with the pressure and incidence of the testimony. If, therefore, a prisoner has brought forward witnesses who were able to depose any thing in his favour, be assured that the judge will not overlook that deposition. But, if no such deposition were made, is it meant that the judge is to invent it? The whole notion has grown out of the original conceit—that a defendant in relation to the judge is in the relation of a client to an advocate. But this is no otherwise true than as it is true of every party and interest connected with the case. All these alike the judge is to uphold in their true equitable position and rights. In summing up, the judge used such facts as had been furnished to him. All these happened to be against the Repealers; and therefore the judge appeared to be against then. But the same impression would have resulted, if he had simply read his notes of the evidence.