whom Lord Campbell says,--"He has been so much abused
that I began my critical examination of his history in the hope and
belief that I should find that his misdeeds had been exaggerated, and
that I might be able to rescue his memory from some portion of the
obloquy under which it labors; but I am sorry to say that in my
matured opinion his cruelty and his political profligacy have not been
sufficiently exposed or reprobated; and that he was not redeemed from
his vices by one single solid virtue."[10] But in consequence of his
having such a character, though not well-grounded in law, he was made
a Judge, a Peer, and a Lord Chancellor! Wright, nearly as infamous,
miraculously stupid and ignorant, "a detected swindler, knighted and
clothed in ermine, took his place among the twelve judges of
England."[11] He also was made Chief Justice successively of the
Common Pleas and the King's Bench! Lord Campbell, himself a judge, at
the end of his history of the reign of Charles and James, complains of
"the irksome task of relating the actions of so many men devoid of
political principle and ready to suggest or to support any measures,
however arbitrary or mischievous, for the purpose of procuring their
own advancement."[12] It was the practice of the Stuarts "to dismiss
judges without seeking any other pretence, who showed any disposition
to thwart government in political prosecutions."[13] Nor was this
dismissal confined to cases where the judge would obey the law in
merely Political trials. In 1686 four of the judges denied that the
king had power to dispense with the laws of the land and change the
form of religion: the next morning they were all driven from their
posts, and four others, more compliant, were appointed and the
judicial "opinion was unanimous." Hereupon Roger Coke says well,--"the
king ... will make the judges in Westminster Hall to murder the common
law, as well as the king and his brother desired to murder the
parliament by itself; and to this end the king, when he would make any
judges would make a bargain with them, that they should declare the
king's power of dispensing with the penal laws and tests made against
recusants, out of parliament."[14]

[Footnote 10: 3 Campbell, 394.]

[Footnote 11: 2 Campbell Chief Justices, 86.]

[Footnote 12: 3 Campbell, 473.]

[Footnote 13: 3 Hallam, 142.]

[Footnote 14: 8 St. Tr. 195, note.]

* * * * *

Here, Gentlemen of the Jury, I