Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/540

 LORD CHANCELLOR BACON victed, escaped death by reason of the Queen's illness and death, and was released upon James I's accession. There is no real controversy about the outward and external facts. Bacon's own letters and speeches furnish all of the facts needed for our judg ment, except the revelation of what were his real motives and feelings, which we can only judge of by reasoning and conjecture. Bacon undertook to defend himself against his critics at the time, who were many, by the argument, that whatever loyalty he owed Essex by reason of his grant of the Twickenham estate was subordinate to the allegiance he owed his sovereign, and that he had so told his benefactor at the time of the acceptance of the gift. The highly technical and artificial character of this defence, which is elaborately set forth in Francis Bacon's celebrated letter to the Earl of Devonshire, at once strikes the modern mind. The charge against him was not that he wisely refrained from em barking in Essex's doubtful and rash pro ceeding; for this no one blamed him, but that he accepted the professional task of proceeding criminally against him who had founded his fortunes, and so energetically pushed the prosecution as to bring his benefactor to the scaffold. Bacon was not at that time either Attorney or Solicitor General, and might have escaped the un happy situation by refusing to take charge of the matter, or, if necessary, resigning his position as Queen's Counsel. It may be that this would have blighted his legal career, and such resignation or withdrawal would pretty certainly have irritated the Queen against him; but we find in the next reign Sir Henry Yelverton, when it became apparently his duty as Solicitor General to prosecute the Earl of Somerset for murder] resigning his office rather than so proceed against one from whom he had received considerable favor and patronage; and Yelverton's disinterested course won unani mous plaudits at the time, and did not pre vent his ultimate professional success.

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Bacon in his letter to the Earl of Devon shire, further explained that he had, so long as there was possibility of success, endeavored to prevent the prosecution of Essex for treason, and to soften the Queen's heart towards him; but admitted that when he found it impossible to check the matter, he had proceeded with his best vigor and skill to attain success in the proceeding. It would therefore seem on his own show ing that Bacon did not claim to justify his course on the strong, stern, Roman ground of duty to the State; for on this ground he would have been reprehensible in the early attempts he alleges he made to have the prosecution stifled. The idea of a possible withdrawal or resignation is not alluded to in this letter to the Earl of Devonshire or elsewhere in Bacon's correspondence, and seems never to have occurred to him. Ingrati tude is an offence of so hateful a nature as to necessarily estrange the guilty party from our sympathies, but on the other hand it may, and not infrequently does happen that a lawyer, as well as any other man, may be placed in a position of conflicting obligations, where he must either be seem ingly ungrateful or ignore other and yet higher duties. Thus it may sometimes happen, in the complicated drama of life, that the course of action adopted by a man at certain junctures may be accounted for as proceeding from either the highest or the lowest motives. Bacon is entitled there fore to a fair examination of the whole question even if his own reasons given in justification of his conduct do not strike us as forcible. Any peril to the State from Essex, if any had ever existed, had passed away. His power had arisen more from his influence with the Queen than from any other source, and there was no scarcity of lawyers, competent and ready to take up the prosecution had Bacon withdrawn. But the general ethical question is not so easy of decision; the easiest path, even when one of self-sacrifice, is not always the path of duty. There may be and are some