Page:A View of the State of Ireland - 1809.djvu/54

 So unpossible it is, to remove any fault so generall in a people, with terrour of lawes or most sharpe restraints.

Eudox. What meanes may there be then to avoyde this inconvenience? for the case seemes very hard.

Iren. We are not yet come to the point to devise remedies for the evils, but only have now to recount them; of the which, this which I have told you is one defect in the Common Law.

Eudox. Tell us then (I pray you) further, have you any more of this sort in the Common Law?

Iren. By rehearsall of this, I remember also of an other like, which I have often observed in trialls, to have wrought great hurt and hinderance, and that is, the exceptions which the Common Law alloweth a fellon in his tryall; for he may have (as you know) fifty-six exceptions peremptory against the iurors, of which he shal shew no cause. By which shift there being (as I have shewed you) so small store of honest iury-men, he will either put off his tryall, or drive it to such men as (perhaps) are not of the soundest sort, by whose meanes, if he can acquite himselfe of the crime, as he is likely, then will he plague such as were brought first to bee of his iurie, and all such as made any party against