Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 3.djvu/235

 FRANCIS BACON 159 massing its clouds and determined to cover his old age with shame, gloom and sorrow. He had been Lord Chancellor but three years, when, on March 15, 1621, a committee of the House of Commons reported two cases of bribery or corrup- tion against him. Twenty-two other cases were also soon after presented. The House of Lords proceeded to investigate these charges, and Bacon defended himself. It was shown that fourteen of the twenty-four cases were presents given long after the suits were terminated ; three more were sums of money loaned in the ordinary course of business ; another case was an arbitration where compensation was due him ; in another case the gift was sent back ; another present, a piece of furniture, had never been accepted ; another case was a New Year's gift, and in other cases the money was openly paid to the officers of his court. " Thus," says Hepworth Dixon, " after the most rigid scrutiny into his official acts, and into the official acts of his servants, not a single fee or remem- brance, traced to the chancellor, can, by any fair construction, be called a bribe. Not one appears to have been given on a promise ; not one appears to have been given in secret ; not one is alleged to have corrupted justice." It must be remembered that the salaries of all the high officers of the govern- ment were at that time paid in gifts and fees. Thus the king gave the lord chan- cellor but 81 6s. %d. a year, while the place was worth ,10,000 to ^15,000; worth in our money to-day $125,000. "The judges had enough to buy their gloves and robes, not more." The lord chancellor had to maintain a huge ret- inue : " his court, his household, and his followers, gentlemen of quality, sons of peers and prelates ; magistrates, deputy lieutenants of counties, knights of the shire, have all to live on fees and presents." It is still true that in England the law will not help a barrister or a physician to recover a fee ; their compensation is, in theory, at least, supposed to be a gratuity for those they serve. But it may be urged that Bacon plead guilty to corruption and bribery. He did nothing of the kind. He acknowledged that he " partook of the abuses of the times," and that the existing customs should be reformed ; but he solemnly declared to Buckingham, May 31, 1621 : "I have been a trusty and honest and Christ-loving friend to your lordship and the justest chancellor that hath been in the five charges since my father's time." Again, he said : " I had no bribe or reward in my eye or thought when I pronounced any sentence or order. . . . I take myself to be as innocent as any babe born on St Innocent's day in my heart." All attempts to subsequently reverse his decrees failed, although his enemies were in possession of power. But King James urged him to make no defence, " to trust his honor and his safety to the crown. ... He pleads guilty to carelessness, not to crime." He desired to live to finish up his philo- sophical works. To resist the king's wishes was to leave himself at the mercy of his life-long enemy, Coke ; he yielded. The king remitted his fine of .40,000 and released him from the Tower. Bacon goes back to his books and writes in cipher : " I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years ; but it was the justest censure that was in Parliament these two hundred years." He meant thereby, that while personally innocent of corruption, the sentence would