The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
as I made use of,--even if the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament
assembled, if the collective body of Parliament, if the voice of Europe,
had used them,--if we had spoken with the tongues of men and angels,
you, in the seat of judicature, are not to regard what we say, but what
we prove; you are to consider whether the charge is well substantiated,
and proof brought out by legal inference and argument. You know, and I
am sure the habits of judging which your Lordships have acquired by
sitting in judgment must better inform you than any other men, that the
duties of life, in order to be well performed, must be methodized,
separated, arranged, and harmonized in such a manner that they shall not
clash with one another, but each have a department assigned and
separated to itself. My Lords, in that manner it is that we, the
prosecutors, have nothing to do with the principles which are to guide
the judgment, that we have nothing to do with the defence of the
prisoner. Your Lordships well know, that, when we come before you, you
hear a party; that, when the accused come before you, you hear a party:
that it is for you to doubt, and wait till you come to the close, before
you decide; that it is for us, the prosecutors, to have decided before
we came here. To act as prosecutors, we ought to have no doubt or
hesitation, nothing trembling or quivering in our minds upon the
occasion. We ought to be fully convinced of guilt, before we come to
you. It is, then, our business to bring forward the proofs,--to enforce
them with all the clearness, illustration, example, that we can bring
forward,--that we are to show the circumstances that can aggravate the
guilt,--that we are to go further, show the mischievous consequences and
tendency of those crimes to society,--and that we are, if able so to do,
to arouse and awaken in the minds of all that hear us those generous and
noble sympathies which Providence has planted in the breasts of all men,
to be the true guardians of the common rights of humanity. Your
Lordships know that this is the duty of the prosecutors, and that
therefore we are not to consider the defence of the party, which is
wisely and properly left to himself; but we are to press the accusation
with all the energy of which it is capable, and to come with minds
perfectly convinced before an august and awful tribunal which at once
tries the accuser and the accused.
Having stated thus much with respect to the Commons, I am to read to
your Lordships the resolution which the Commons have come to upon this
great occasion, and upon which I shall take the liberty to say a very
few words.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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