secution, because James Fitz Gibbon Esquire, a
magistrate of this District, begged the amount of the fine from door to
door in this town, and the rioters have so far gone wholly unpunished.
All I ask, please your Lordship, is justice and impartiality, and from
your Lordship's character I doubt not I shall receive them at your
hands."

After a moment's consideration, during which silence reigned supreme in
the Court-room, Judge Willis remarked:--"If the Attorney-General has
acted as you say, he has very much neglected his duty. Go you before the
Grand Jury, and if you meet with any obstruction or difficulty I will
see that the Attorney-General affords you every facility."

This was, beyond doubt, very unbecoming language to be used by a Judge
under such circumstances. It must be understood that Judge Willis had
not properly before him any facts upon which to base his opinion as to
the Attorney-General's having neglected his duty. That that official had
much to answer for; that his practice had been one-sided and
inconsistent; that much of his life had been spent in endeavouring to
smother public opinion and to maintain the supremacy of a selfish and
corrupt caste--this must be conceded at the bar of history. But no such
allegations were before Judge Willis in an official form, and he had no
right to assume anything against the Attorney-General in the absence of
the most irrefragable evidence. Instead of evidence, he had merely heard
the _ex parte_ statements of an alleged libeller. This was the legal
aspect of the matter, and it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that
the Judge permitted himself to be influenced, by his personal dislike to
Attorney-General Robinson.

The Attorney-General sat for a moment as if thunderstruck. He had so
long been accustomed to having his own way in Courts of Justice, and to
seeing his opinions deferred to by the bench, that he could scarcely
credit what was passing before his eyes. That a Judge should dare to
censure him in this irregular way, before the bar and the public, was
almost beyond belief. A contemporary account says that he turned to "a
rich cream colour."[101] He was at all events labouring under suppressed
rage as he deliberately arose to address the Court. He denied that he
had neglected his duty in not preferring indictments against persons in
cases where no formal complaint had been laid, and he utterly repudiated
the idea that his office imposed upon him the _role_ of