Note 203 — Chapter XI

It would have been a wiser course in the Ministers not to have resorted to this expedient, which at least was open to strong suspicion. Mr. Burke thus comments upon it: “After a jury upon legal evidence have given their verdict, a court of judicature has determined, the judges have approved, and the party is under sentence, the mercy of the Crown interposes; ‘No, no,’ say the Government, ‘we must have a jury of surgeons—of that kind of judicature we must avail ourselves,’ and the man receives the royal pardon. When they witness these things the unfortunate people of England say, We are not seditious without reason,” &c.—(Speech on Mr. Onslow’s motion for declaring Colonel Lutterell duly elected for Middlesex, in Cavendish’s Parliamentary Debates, vol. i. p. 382.)—See also Junius’s Letters, vol. i. p. 50.—E.