Sir Richard, on the contrary, interested himself warmly for the condemned; and Lord Temple took part enough to make it a measure in the Admiralty to refuse to sign the warrant for execution, unless they were better satisfied on the legality of the sentence--if their consciences could be tranquillized by such opiates as the casuists of Westminster Hall could administer, Lord Hardwicke had no apprehension but the warrant might still be signed. Accordingly, the King referred the sentence to the Judges; and as there was no difficulty but what they could solve by pronouncing an absurdity legal, they soon declared, that a sentence, which acquitted of two crimes, and yet condemned, without specifying a third, was very good law. And thus, without an instance of interpreting a _new_, _obscure_, and _doubtful_ statute in the most unfavourable sense, and contrary to the stream of precedents by which criminals recommended to mercy were constantly pardoned, the people of England (that some revengeful men might be gratified, and some guilty men might have their crimes atoned by the sacrifice of another man) obtained the alarming precedent of a sentence pronounced by implication! And this was the more alarming, as it was known that the word _negligence_[76] had been proposed in the Court-Martial, and had been rejected by them. Consequently, they had thought it their duty to condemn for _no_ crime; and the Judges discovered the virtue of a crime in words, which the persons who framed the sentence had intended should _not_ express it. What added to the criminality of the Judges was, that the young Lord Torrington, the Admiral’s nephew, having petitioned the Admiralty for leave for his uncle to appeal against so unprecedented a sentence, they desired to see his reasons, and having received them, laid them before the King and Council, by whom they were referred to the Judges. The Judges, who had desired to see all the sentences in capital cases that had been given by Courts-Martial since the Revolution, excused themselves from examining Lord Torrington’s arguments, equally referred to them by the Council. One can hardly avoid saying on such inconsistent behaviour, that the Judges knew what was the inclination of the Council on the different papers referred to their consideration; and that they accordingly rejected an appeal from a novel sentence, which they pronounced law from precedents which had all taken their rise under the abrogated law.