Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/102

xciv orders be made but in public court, and not in chambers; that excessive fees be taken away; that no bribery nor money be given for the hearing of any cause. These and many other things his majesty thought fit to be done this session. And his majesty added, that when he hath done this, and all that he can do for the good of his subjects, he confesseth he hath done but the duty whereunto he was born."—The house then adjourned till the afternoon.

In the afternoon the Prince of Wales "signified unto the lords that the lord chancellor had sent the following submission to their lordships:

"It may please your lordships,—I shall humbly crave at your lordships hands a benign interpretation of that which I shall now write. For words that come from wasted spirits and an oppressed mind are more safe in being deposited in a noble construction, than in being circled with any reserved caution.

"This being moved, and, as I hope, obtained, in the nature of a protection to all that I shall say, I shall now make into the rest of that wherewith I shall at this time trouble your lordships a very strange entrance. For, in the midst of a state of as great affliction as I think a mortal man can endure, (honour being above life,) I shall begin with the professing of gladness in some things.

"The first is, that hereafter the greatness of a judge or magistrate shall be no sanctuary or protection of guiltiness, which (in few words) is the beginning of a golden world. The next, that, after this example, it is like that judges will fly from any thing that is in the likeness of corruption, (though it were at a great distance.) as from a serpent; which tendeth to the purging of the courts of justice, and the reducing them to their true honour and splendour. And in these two points, God is my witness, that though it be my fortune to be the anvil upon which these good effects are beaten and wrought, I take no small comfort.

"But, to pass from the motions of my heart, whereof God is only judge, to the merits of my cause, whereof your lordships are judges, under God and his lieutenant, I do understand there hath been heretofore expected from me some justification; and therefore I have chosen one only justification instead of all other, out of the justifications of Job. For, after the clear submission and confession which I shall now make unto your lordships, I hope I may say and justify with Job, in these words: 'I have not hid my sins as did Adam, nor concealed my faults in my bosom.' This is the only justification which I will use.

"It resteth, therefore, that without fig-leaves I do ingenuously confess and acknowledge that, having understood the particulars of the charge, not formally from the House, but enough to inform my conscience and memory, I find matter sufficient and full both to move me to desert the defence, and to move your lordships to condemn and censure me. Neither will I trouble your lordships by singling those particulars, which I think may fall off.

Neither will I prompt your lordships to observe upon the proofs, where they come not home, or the scruples touching the credits of the witnesses; neither will I represent unto your lordships how far a defence might, in divers things, extenuate the offence, in respect of the time or manner of the gift, or the like circumstances, but only leave these things to spring out of your own noble thoughts and observations of the evidence and examinations themselves, and charitably to wind about the particulars of the charge, here and there, as God shall put into your mind, and so submit myself wholly to your piety and grace.

"And now that I have spoken to your lordships as judges, I shall say a few words to you as peers and prelates, humbly commending my cause to your noble minds and magnanimous affections.

"Your lordships are not simple judges, but parliamentary judges; you have a further extent of arbitrary power than other courts; and, if your lordships be not tied by the ordinary course of courts or precedents, in points of strictness and severity, much more in points of mercy and mitigation.

"And yet, if any thing which I shall move might be contrary to your honourable and worthy ends to introduce a reformation, I should not seek it. But herein I beseech your lordships to give me leave to tell you a story. Titus Manlius took his son's life for giving battle against the prohibition of his general; not many years after, the like severity was pursued by Papirius Cursor, the dictator, against Quintus Maximus, who being upon the point to be sentenced, by the intercession of some principal persons of the senate, was spared; Whereupon Livy maketh this grave and gracious observation: Neque minus firmata est discipllna militaris periculo Quinti Maximi, quam miscrabili supplicio Tili Manlii. The discipline of war was no less established by the questioning of Quintus Maximus than by the punishment of Titus Manlius; and the same reason is of the reformation of justice; for the questioning of men of eminent place hath the same terror, though not the same rigour with the punishment.