Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/338

286 like criminal nature was the cause of the people's retiring to the Janiculum, and of giving new vigor to the law made for the safety of debtors.

Since that time creditors were oftener prosecuted by debtors for having violated the laws against usury, than the latter were sued for refilling to pay them.

IBERTY has been often weakened in monarchies by a thing of the least use in the world to the prince: this is the naming of commissioners to try a private person.

The prince himself derives so very little advantage from those commissioners, that it is not worth while to change tor their sake the common course of things. He is morally sure that he has more of the spirit of probity and justice than his commissioners, who always think themselves sufficiently justified by his orders, by a dubious interest of state, by the choice that has been made of them, and even by their very apprehensions.

Upon the arraigning of a peer under Henry VIII. it was customary to try him by a committee of the house of lords: by this means he put to death as many peers as he pleased. Rh