I confess I tremble, when I consider that your judgment
is now going to be passed, not on the culprit at your bar, but upon the
House of Commons itself, and upon the public justice of this kingdom, as
represented in this great tribunal. It is not that culprit who is upon
trial; it is the House of Commons that is upon its trial, it is the
House of Lords that is upon its trial, it is the British nation that is
upon its trial before all other nations, before the present generation,
and before a long, long posterity.
My Lords, I should be ashamed, if at this moment I attempted to use any
sort of rhetorical blandishments whatever. Such artifices would neither
be suitable to the body that I represent, to the cause which I sustain,
or to my own individual disposition, upon such an occasion. My Lords, we
know very well what these fallacious blandishments too frequently are.
We know that they are used to captivate the benevolence of the court,
and to conciliate the affections of the tribunal rather to the person
than to the cause. We know that they are used to stifle the
remonstrances of conscience in the judge, and to reconcile it to the
violation of his duty. We likewise know that they are too often used in
great and important causes (and more particularly in causes like this)
to reconcile the prosecutor to the powerful factions of a protected
criminal, and to the injury of those who have suffered by his
crimes,--thus inducing all parties to separate in a kind of good humor,
as if they had nothing more than a verbal dispute to settle, or a slight
quarrel over a table to compromise.
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