exercise of the power you have, as could hardly be aggravated by that which you have not.
But, my Lord, since you have laboured (and not unsuccessfully) to destroy the substance of the trial, why should you suffer the form of the verdict to remain? Why force twelve honest men, in palpable violation of their oaths, to pronounce their fellow-subject a guilty man, when, almost at the same moment, you forbid their inquiring into the only circumstance which in the eye of law and reason, constitutes guilt—the malignity or innocence of his intentions?—But I understand your Lordship.—If you could succeed in making the trial by jury useless and ridiculous, you might then with greater safety introduce a bill into parliament for enlarging the jurisdiction of the court, and extending your favourite trial by interrogatories to every question, in which the life or liberty of an Englishman is concerned.[1]
- ↑ The philosophical poet, doth notably describe the damnable and damned proceedings of the Judge of Hell,
- "Gnossius haec Rhadamanthus habet durissima regna,
- "Castigatque, auditque dolos, subigitque sateri."
- First he punisheth, and then he heareth: and lastly compelleth to confess, and makes and mars laws at his pleasure; like as the centurion, in the holy history did to St. Paul; for the text faith,
- "Centurio apprehendi Paulum jussit, et se catenis ligari, et tunc interrogabat quis fuisset, et quid fecisset;" but good Judges and Justices abhor those courses. Coke 2. Inst. 55.
