y that can with any colour be stated as acting
independently of the government, is the only one mentioned by him as
blamable. The prosecutor is wholly omitted in his censure, and so is the
court; this last, not from any tenderness for the judge (who, to do this
author justice, is no favourite with him), but lest the odious connection
between that branch of the judicature and the government should strike
the reader too forcibly; for Jeffreys, in this instance, ought to be
regarded as the mere tool and instrument (a fit one, no doubt), of the
prince who had appointed him for the purpose of this and similar
services. Lastly, the king is gravely introduced on the question of
pardon, as if he had had no prior concern in the cause, and were now to
decide upon the propriety of extending mercy to a criminal condemned by a
court of judicature; nor are we once reminded what that judicature was,
by whom appointed, by whom influenced, by whom called upon, to receive
that detestable evidence, the very recollection of which, even at this
distance of time, fires every honest heart with indignation. As well
might we palliate the murders of Tiberius, who seldom put to death his
victims without a previous decree of his senate. The moral of all this
seems to be, that whenever a prince can, by intimidation, corruption,
illegal evidence, or other such means, obtain a verdict against a subject
whom he dislikes, he may cause him to be executed without any breach of
indispensable duty; nay, that it is an act of heroic generosity if he
spares him. I never reflect on Mr. Hume's statement of this matter but
with the deepest regret. Widely as I differ from him upon many other
occasions, this appears to me to be the most reprehensible passage of his
whole work. A spirit of adulation towards deceased princes, though in a
good measure free from the imputation of interested meanness, which is
justly attached to flattery when applied to living monarchs, yet, as it
is less intelligible with respect to its motives than the other, so is it
in its consequences still more pernicious to the general interests of
mankind. Fear of censure from contemporaries will seldom have much
effect upon men in situations of unlimited authority: they will too often
flatter themselves that the same power which enables them to commit the
crime will secure them from reproach. The dread of posthumous infamy,
therefore, being the only restraint, their consciences excepted,