oners manifested on the part of the
law-officers of the crown that is the object of just reprehension.

Trials for offences against the State have happily been almost unknown in
this country, and we therefore find it difficult to conceive of the
dangers to which a prisoner is exposed, when the whole power of the
government is arrayed against him. But to one familiar with the iniquitous
manner in which they were conducted in Great Britain during the
seventeenth, and the earlier part of the eighteenth century, the
proceedings against O'Connell and his associates seem almost models of
judicial fairness and impartiality. To one not thus familiar, it is
difficult to convey an adequate idea of the extent to which legal
tribunals prostituted their functions to purposes of oppression and
revenge. The judges holding their offices by the slight tenure of royal
favor, and generally owing their elevation to the zeal they had shown to
defend the royal prerogatives, were, with a few honorable exceptions,
willing instruments in the hands of power. The interpreters of the law,
who, like the prophets of old, were bound to curse, or to bless, in
obedience to higher impulses than their own wills, became the mere
mouth-pieces of the government; the injustice of the decisions imperfectly
concealed by the sanctity of the office. Justice, and the favor of the
court were identical. The law and the royal pleasure were inseparably
associated in the mind of the judge.

We would not be understood as meaning that the English judges were unjust,
or partial in the trials between private citizens. In these cases it was
not often that there was any obstacle interposed to the administration of
even-handed justice. It was when the government came in as a party; when
political offenders were to be tried, that they too often proved false to
their trust. The temptations of office; the love of ease, wealth, and
distinction; the fear of ministerial enmity, of royal disgrace, were too
powerful for poor Honesty. The hour in which their aid was most needed by
the friendless prisoner, was that in which it was withdrawn; for surely if
men ever need an upright, able, and impartial administration of the law,
it is when they contend single-handed against the influences of flattery,
bribery, and intimidation, which those in authority are ever able to
employ. The odds are fearful in such a contest. The prejudices of juries,
the subservience of lawyers, the servility of