happen to a
prisoner at his trial. Attempting to speak on the bill for granting
counsel to prisoners in cases of high treason, he was confounded, and
for some time could not proceed, but recovering himself, he said, "What
now happened to him would serve to fortify the arguments for the bill.
If he innocent and pleading for others was daunted at the augustness of
such an assembly, what must a man be who should plead before them for
his life?"[13] The courts are in the habit of assigning counsel to
prisoners who are destitute, and who request it; and counsel thus named
by the court cannot decline the office.[14] It is not to be termed
screening the guilty from punishment, for the advocate to exert all his
ability, learning, and ingenuity, in such a defence, even if he should
be perfectly assured in his own mind of the actual guilt of the
prisoner.[15]

It is a different thing to engage as private counsel in a prosecution
against a man whom he knows or believes to be innocent. Public
prosecutions are carried on by a public officer, the Attorney-General,
or those who act in his place; and it ought to be a clear case to induce
gentlemen to engage on behalf of private interests or feelings, in such
a prosecution. It ought never to be done against the counsel's own
opinion of its merits. There is no call of professional duty to balance
the scale, as there is in the case of a defendant. It is in every case
but an act of courtesy in the Attorney-General to allow private counsel
to take part for the Commonwealth; such a favor ought not to be asked,
unless in a cause believed to be manifestly just. The same remarks apply
to mere assistance in preparing such a cause for trial out of court, by
getting ready and arranging the evidence and other matters connected
with it: as the Commonwealth has its own officers, it may well, in
general, be left to them. There is no obligation on an attorney to
minister to the bad passions of his client; it is but rarely that a
criminal prosecution is pursued for a valuable private end, the
restoration of goods, the maintenance of the good name of the
prosecutor, or closing the mouth of a man who has perjured himself in a
court of justice. The office of Attorney-General is a public trust,
which involves in the discharge of it, the exertion of an almost
boundless discretion, by an officer who stands as impartial as a judge.
"The professional assistant, with the regular deputy, exercises not his
own d