Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/104

66 power, and all the barriers we have decribed have been erected for this purpoe: but all would be inufficient to retrain their paions, without the lions mouths and the tate inquiitors; thee were engrafted on the council of ten. This terrible tribunal, is overeign in all crimes againt the tate; it conits of ten choen yearly by the grand council; the ix of the eigniory ait, and the doges preide when they pleae. Three chiefs, appointed monthly by lot, to open all letters, eize the accued, take examinations, and proecute the prioner; who is cloely confined, allowed no council, and finally acquitted or condemned to death, in public or private, by the plurality of voices. This was the original tribunal, but it was not found ufficient, and the tate inquiitors were erected in the beginning of the ixteenth century. This tribunal conits only of three perons, all taken from the council of ten, who have authority to decide, without appeal, on the life of every citizen, the doge himelf not excepted. They employ what pies they pleae; if they are unanimous, they may order a prioner to be trangled in gaol, or drowned in the canal, hanged in the night, or by day, as they pleae; if they are divided, the caue mut go before the council of ten, but even here, if the guilt is doubtful, the rule is to execute the prioner in the night. The three may command acces to the houe of every individual in the tate, and have even keys to every apartment in the ducal palace, may enter his bed-chamber, break his cabinet, and earch his papers. By this tribunal, have doge, nobility, and people, been kept in awe, and retrained from violating the laws, and to this is to be acribed the long duration of this aritocracy. Such