Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/748

 BRIBING A CHANCELLOR field returned to him three thousand two hundred and fifty pounds, calmly stating that "it was too large a present." At the trial, as has been stated, the Chan cellor acted as his own senior counsel and his manner to the prosecutors was so inso lent 'and overbearing that they appealed to the Court for protection, stating that "the managers cannot but observe the indecent behavior of this lord and his unworthy manner of treating us. We do not think the lord at the bar should be directing the managers as if he sat in his place as judge. We are here advocates of all the Commons of Great Britain to demand justice against him." The defense, which may be sum marized from the arguments made by the Chancellor and his counsel, is a most mem orable plea for the "spoils system." It was argued that the Commons had "in this instance mistaken their course and instead of proceeding legislatively to remedy a de fective state of the law and asking your lordships to concur with them in prospectively amending a system which is supposed to lead to abuse, they have been misled by public clamor to appeal to this House as a court of justice, and to call for punishment where there has been no offense. . . . As suming that the moderate sums paid to the Chancellor by the persons whom he ap pointed to office were the purchase price thereof, there was no offense unless the sale of an office was prohibited by common law or statute. He that has an office in his gift, if he takes care that the duties of it are faithfully performed, may dispose of it as he may anything else that is valu able, on such terms as may be agreed on between him and the person to whom it is bestowed. The payment of money for it is no act of injustice to the person appointed, for he had no right to the office, and his advancement is owing to the favor of him who has the power of nomination. If the office be valuable, so is the power of appoint ment, which may be considered part of the estate of the person to whom it belongs. Of

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whatever nature the office may be, it does not follow that its duties will be inade quately performed because a consideration has been paid for it." Counsel then cited at great length author ities from the time of the Roman Empire to show that the sale of offices had been permitted and that there was a distinction "between the sale of justice and the sale of judicial offices." There was, it was true, a statute forbidding the sale of offices, but it did not directly apply to the sale of Mas terships, and being a penal statute, it must be strictly construed, and counsel boldly challenged some of the "ermined sages who sit upon the woolsacks in your lordships' house to advise you whether the sale of offices be a misdemeanor by the common law of England." Counsel asserted that they "disdained to rely on technical points, for neither morally nor legally has the noble lord committed any offense. The best proof that the practice is neither against common nor statute law is that it has been invari ably and notoriously practised by his pre decessors, which we do not urge to palliate violation of duty but to show that no duty had been violated, that many fine and up right judges had without any public cen sure or any self-reproach received gratui ties on dispensing of these offices and with as little hesitation and as little secrecy as they have received their fixed fees or their salary. ' ' The peroration of defendant's counsel is most impressive. "There, my lords, re member how the noble earl has employed the wealth he has acquired, and consider whether so to employ it he would acquire it in the commission of a crime. It was a cruel application by one of the managers, of a well-known maxim 'that a man may be profuse of his own while he greedily grasps the property of others.' How has the noble lord been profuse? in relieving the needy and oppressed, in patronizing obscure merit wherever he could find it, in liberally contributing to benevolent objects.