y the facts involved, or to utter an
untruth. He was speaking of his supposed duty to defend his client,
the Queen, against the charges of the King, regardless of the
consequences to himself or to his country through his advocacy of her
cause, which he deemed a just one.

[Footnote 1: Sharswood's _Legal Ethics_, p. 86 f.]

And as to the charge against the eminent advocate, Charles Phillips,
of seeking to fasten the crime on the innocent, when he knew that his
client was guilty, in the trial of Courvoisier for the murder of Lord
Russell, that charge was overwhelmingly refuted by the testimony of
lawyers and judges present at that trial. Mr. Phillips supposed his
client an innocent man until the trial was nearly concluded. Then came
the unexpected confession from the guilty man, accompanied by the
demand that his counsel continue in his case to the end. At first Mr.
Phillips proposed to retire at once from the case; but, on advising
with eminent counsel, he was told that it would be wrong for him to
betray the prisoner's confidence, and practically to testify against
him, by deserting him at that hour. He then continued in the case,
but, as is shown conclusively in his statement of the facts, with its
accompanying proofs, without saying a word or doing a thing that might
properly be deemed in the realm of false assertion or intimations.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Sharswood's _Legal Ethics_, pp. 103-107, 183-196.]

The very prominence given in the public press to the charges against
Mr. Phillips, and to their refutation, are added proof that the moral
sense of the community is against falsehood under any circumstances or
in any profession.

Members of the legal profession are bound by the same ethical
obligations as other men; yet the civil law, in connection with which
they practice their profession, is not in all points identical
with the moral law; although it is not in conflict with any of its
particulars. As Chancellor Kent says: "Human laws are not so perfect
as the dictates of conscience, and the sphere of morality is more
enlarged than the limits of civil jurisdiction. There are many duties
that belong to the class of imperfect obligations, which are binding
on conscience, but which human laws do not and cannot undertake
directly to enforce. But when the aid of a Court of Equity is sought
to carry into execution ... a contract, then the principles of ethics
have a more extensive sway."[1]

[Footnote 1: Kent's _Com