This judgment was accordingly brought under review of the High Court by what is technically called a bill of advocation, suspension, and liberation--the meaning of which is simply that Hare tried another chance for freedom by applying to the highest tribunal. The Lord Justice-Clerk, who saw at once that the question was so far new, and of the first importance, not only in its merits, but viewed in relation to the state of the public mind, wished to have it judged of by all the Lords, and he therefore called upon the public prosecutor to answer the request of Hare. The Lord Advocate, who, no doubt, felt himself placed in a delicate position, but still determined to stand by the law and the dignity of the Crown, accordingly presented his answer; and long pleadings, called informations, having been lodged, the case came to be tried before the Court on the 2d February. The celebrated Jeffrey appeared for Mrs Wilson, and Duncan M'Neill for Hare. It was maintained on the part of Hare, said Mr Jeffrey, that the public prosecutor was entitled to make a compact, to which compact their Lordships were bound to give effect; that their Lordships had no discretion, but that it rested entirely with the Lord Advocate to enter into such compact, and to extend immunity to any number of cases, without the control of the judge; in short, that the Lord Advocate possessed the uncontrolled power of exercising the royal prerogative. And this he might do, not merely in respect of the particular crime as to which a _socius criminis_ was to be used as a witness, but might, if he chose, extend it to all other crimes of which he might have been guilty. Whenever the Lord Advocate stipulated an immunity, it seemed to be maintained, on the other side, that a sufferer by housebreaking, fire-raising, and other crimes, was to be deprived of his right, as a private party, to prosecute the guilty perpetrator of the wrong, and that the Lord Advocate had a power to enter into a compact by which he could grant immunity for offences, past or future, known or unknown. Such a prerogative would be to invest the public prosecutor with a power of pardon which only belonged to the Crown, and this, too, without a tittle of authority, amounting to an assumption of the authority of Parliament; and so forth. But all the eloquence of Jeffrey would not do. The judges had, long before this day of judgment, been down in the deep wells of authority, and, as one of the enraged people said, came up drunk with law, and kicked sober justice out of court. Certainly, if such a profane expression could be used, these learned men might have been in that state, for seldom had they appeared so surcharged with authorities. They seem to have rummaged every corner of the Advocates' Library and the Register-Office to find out the origin of the law of king's evidence, and to have hunted out every decision bearing upon the case, so that, it would