Let those who feel with me upon this occasion
join with me in this vow: if they will not, I have it all to myself.
It is not to defend ourselves that I have addressed your Lordships at
such length on this subject. No, my Lords, I have said what I considered
necessary to instruct the public upon the principles which induced the
House of Commons to persevere in this business with a generous warmth,
and in the indignant language which Nature prompts, when great crimes
are brought before men who feel as they ought to feel upon such
occasions.
* * * * *
I now proceed, my Lords, to the next recriminatory charge, which is
_delay_. I confess I am not astonished at this charge. From the first
records of human impatience down to the present time, it has been
complained that the march of violence and oppression is rapid, but that
the progress of remedial and vindictive justice, even the divine, has
almost always favored the appearance of being languid and sluggish.
Something of this is owing to the very nature and constitution of human
affairs; because, as justice is a circumspect, cautious, scrutinizing,
balancing principle, full of doubt even of itself, and fearful of doing
wrong even to the greatest wrong-doers, in the nature of things its
movements must be slow in comparison with the headlong rapidity with
which avarice, ambition, and revenge pounce down upon the devoted prey
of those violent and destructive passions.
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