tell him that the way to avoid suspicion in the
settlement of pecuniary transactions, in which great frauds have been
very strongly presumed, is, to attend to these few plain
principles:--First, to hear all parties equally, and not the managers
for the suspected claimants only; not to proceed in the dark, but to act
with as much publicity as possible; not to precipitate decision; to be
religious in following the rules prescribed in the commission under
which we act; and, lastly, and above all, not to be fond of straining
constructions, to force a jurisdiction, and to draw to ourselves the
management of a trust in its nature invidious and obnoxious to
suspicion, where the plainest letter of the law does not compel it. If
these few plain rules are observed, no corruption ought to be suspected;
if any of them are violated, suspicion will attach in proportion; if all
of them are violated, a corrupt motive of some kind or other will not
only be suspected, but must be violently presumed.

The persons in whose favor all these rules have been violated, and the
conduct of ministers towards them, will naturally call for your
consideration, and will serve to lead you through a series and
combination of facts and characters, if I do not mistake, into the very
inmost recesses of this mysterious business. You will then be in
possession of all the materials on which the principles of sound
jurisprudence will found, or will reject, the presumption of corrupt
motives, or, if such motives are indicated, will point out to you of
what particular nature the corruption is.

Our wonderful minister, as you all know, formed a new plan, a plan
_insigne, recens, indictum ore alio_, a plan for supporting the freedom
of our Constitution by court intrigues, and for removing its corruptions
by Indian delinquency. To carry that bold, paradoxical design into
execution, sufficient funds and apt instruments became necessary. You
are perfectly sensible that a Parliamentary reform occupies his
thoughts day and night, as an essential member in this extraordinary
project. In his anxious researches upon this subject, natural instinct,
as well as sound policy, would direct his eyes and settle his choice on
Paul Benfield. Paul Benfield is the grand Parliamentary reformer, the
reformer to whom the whole choir of reformers bow, and to whom even the
right honorable gentleman himself must yield the palm: for what region
in the empire, what city, what borough, what