It may be delicate and dangerous ground to tread upon to undertake to descend to particulars upon such a subject. Every case must, to a great degree, depend upon its own circumstances, known, peradventure, to the counsel alone; and it will often be hazardous to condemn either client or counsel upon what appears only. A hard plea--a sharp point--may subserve what is at bottom an honest claim, or just defence; though the evidence may not be within the power of the parties, which would make it manifest. There are a few propositions, however, which appear to me to be sound in themselves, and calculated to solve this problem practically in the majority of cases: at least to assist the mind in coming to a safe conclusion _in foro conscientiae_, in the discharge of professional duty. There is a distinction to be made between the case of prosecution and defence for crimes; between appearing for a plaintiff in pursuit of an unjust claim, and for a defendant in resisting what appears to be a just one. Every man, accused of an offence, has a constitutional right to a trial according to law: even if guilty, he ought not to be convicted and undergo punishment unless upon legal evidence; and with all the forms which have been devised for the security of life and liberty. These are the panoply of innocence when unjustly arraigned; and guilt cannot be deprived of it, without removing it from innocence. He is entitled, therefore, to the benefit of counsel to conduct his defence, to cross-examine the witnesses for the State, to scan, with legal knowledge, the forms of the proceeding against him, to present his defence in an intelligible shape, to suggest all those reasonable doubts which may arise from the evidence as to his guilt, and to see that if he is convicted, it is according to law. A circumstance the celebrated Lord Shaftesbury once so finely turned to his purpose must often happen to a prisoner at his trial. Attempting to speak on the bill for granting counsel to prisoners in cases of high treason, he was confounded, and for some time could not proceed, but recovering himself, he said, "What now happened to him would serve to fortify the arguments for the bill. If he innocent and pleading for others was daunted at the augustness of such an assembly, what must a man be who should plead before them for his life?"[13] The courts are in the habit of assigning counsel to prisoners who are destitute, and who request it; and counsel thus named by the court cannot decline the office.[14] It is not to be termed screening the guilty from punishment, for the advocate to exert all his ability, learning, and ingenuity, in such a defence, even if he should be perfectly assured in his own mind of the actual guilt of the prisoner.[15]