ority, and the commands they are sworn to
obey come from those who have no share in their appointment. In the mean
time they have the example of the court of _Chatelet_ to encourage and
guide them in the exercise of their functions. That court is to try
criminals sent to it by the National Assembly, or brought before it by
other courses of delation. They sit under a guard to save their own
lives. They know not by what law they judge, nor under what authority
they act, nor by what tenure they hold. It is thought that they are
sometimes obliged to condemn at peril of their lives. This is not
perhaps certain, nor can it be ascertained; but when they acquit, we
know they have seen the persons whom they discharge, with perfect
impunity to the actors, hanged at the door of their court.

The Assembly, indeed, promises that they will form a body of law, which
shall be short, simple, clear, and so forth. That is, by their short
laws, they will leave much to the discretion of the judge, whilst they
have exploded the authority of all the learning which could make
judicial discretion (a thing perilous at best) deserving the appellation
of a _sound_ discretion.

It is curious to observe, that the administrative bodies are carefully
exempted from the jurisdiction of these new tribunals. That is, those
persons are exempted from the power of the laws who ought to be the most
entirely submitted to them. Those who execute public pecuniary trusts
ought of all men to be the most strictly held to their duty. One would
have thought that it must have been among your earliest cares, if you
did not mean that those administrative bodies should be real, sovereign,
independent states, to form an awful tribunal, like your late
parliaments, or like our King's Bench, where all corporate officers
might obtain protection in the legal exercise of their functions, and
would find coercion, if they trespassed against their legal duty. But
the cause of the exemption is plain. These administrative bodies are the
great instruments of the present leaders in their progress through
democracy to oligarchy. They must therefore be put above the law. It
will be said that the legal tribunals which you have made are unfit to
coerce them. They are, undoubtedly. They are unfit for any rational
purpose. It will be said, too, that the administrative bodies will be
accountable to the general Assembly. This, I fear, is talking without
much consideration of the nature of th