But, my Lords, it is in its transfer exposed to a danger of
an opposite description. The delegate of vengeance may not feel the
wrong sufficiently: he may be cold and languid in the performance of his
sacred duty. It is for these reasons that good men are taught to
tremble even at the first emotions of anger and resentment for their own
particular wrongs; but they are likewise taught, if they are well
taught, to give the loosest possible rein to their resentment and
indignation, whenever their parents, their friends, their country, or
their brethren of the common family of mankind are injured. Those who
have not such feelings, under such circumstances, are base and
degenerate. These, my Lords, are the sentiments of the Commons of Great
Britain.
Lord Bacon has very well said, that "revenge is a kind of wild justice."
It is so, and without this wild austere stock there would be no justice
in the world. But when, by the skilful hand of morality and wise
jurisprudence, a foreign scion, but of the very same species, is grafted
upon it, its harsh quality becomes changed, it submits to culture, and,
laying aside its savage nature, it bears fruits and flowers, sweet to
the world, and not ungrateful even to heaven itself, to which it
elevates its exalted head.
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