XIV. We should hope, the world is greatly mistaken in this matter. The ministers of justice, as far as they are able, and they most commonly can do this, must discharge and comply with the duties of their function in judicial phrases, and according to the words of the law; and although there may have been positive promises made, when they come to the sentence, they must consult and conform to the books of jurisprudence, and not the letters of recommendation. God defend us, however, from the serious misfortune of the protector of either party, having, or ever being able to have, influence in the seats of justice! For then we may have reason to apprehend, that to the shame of the law, the motive of the conduct of the partial Judge may be betrayed by his countenance, and that the dread of such motive being known, may be the torturer who presses out and exposes the secret, or else, that the thing may be unravelled by conjectures, or proved by some transactions in the business; and these are the sort of cases, which, after many years study, make people understand the law in a sense they never understood it before, and which, in the same instant, increases and lessens their esteem for the same authors, and causes the breath of favour to incline the balance, with which they weigh probabilities, to the side where there is the least weight in the scale. I remember that great lawyer, Alexander of the family of the Alexanders, in his treatise called _Dias Geniales_, says of himself, that he abandoned the profession of an advocate in disgust, from having observed in his own practice, that neither the wisdom or abilities of a counsellor, nor the goodness of a cause, were of any avail in courts, when the opposite parties were espoused by people of power. XV. But excepting these instances, which have weight with those only, who had rather rise to the highest seats on the bench than ascend to heaven, other modes of favour in courts are trifling and of little use or consequence; but to speak the truth, we ourselves give occasion to their being thought useful and of consequence. If when a person of authority intercedes on behalf of a suitor, we give him hopes and encouragement; or if our answers to such applications, are in terms which exceed what is necessary in a judicial reply; and if afterwards, when that person obtains a sentence in his favour, we seem desirous, or behave so as to make it be thought, our suffrage was a compliment to the great man who interested himself in the suitor’s behalf, in order that he should think he was obliged to us; we are the authors of this error in mankind, and the cause of the injury, which, in consequence of it, our credit suffers with the world.