; if you should
hear from me (and it must be from me alone, and not from any other
member of the Committee) anything that is unworthy of that situation,
that comes feeble, weak, indigested, or ill-prepared, you are to
attribute that to the instrument. Your Lordships' judgment would do this
without my saying it. But whilst I claim it on the part of the Commons
for their dignity, I claim for myself the necessary indulgence that must
be given to all weakness. Your Lordships, then, will impute it where you
would have imputed it without my desire. It is a distinction you would
naturally have made, and the rather because what is alleged by us at the
bar is not the ground upon which you are to give judgment. If not only
I, but the whole body of managers, had made use of any such expressions
as I made use of,--even if the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament
assembled, if the collective body of Parliament, if the voice of Europe,
had used them,--if we had spoken with the tongues of men and angels,
you, in the seat of judicature, are not to regard what we say, but what
we prove; you are to consider whether the charge is well substantiated,
and proof brought out by legal inference and argument. You know, and I
am sure the habits of judging which your Lordships have acquired by
sitting in judgment must better inform you than any other men, that the
duties of life, in order to be well performed, must be methodized,
separated, arranged, and harmonized in such a manner that they shall not
clash with one another, but each have a department assigned and
separated to itself. My Lords, in that manner it is that we, the
prosecutors, have nothing to do with the principles which are to guide
the judgment, that we have nothing to do with the defence of the
prisoner. Your Lordships well know, that, when we come before you, you
hear a party; that, when the accused come before you, you hear a party:
that it is for you to doubt, and wait till you come to the close, before
you decide; that it is for us, the prosecutors, to have decided before
we came here. To act as prosecutors, we ought to have no doubt or
hesitation, nothing trembling or quivering in our minds upon the
occasion. We ought to be fully convinced of guilt, before we come to
you. It is, then, our business to bring forward the proofs,--to enforce
them with all the clearness, illustration, example, that we can bring
forward,--that we are to show the circumstances that can aggravate th