How cruel must all impartial spectators of the publick transactions
account a prosecution like this? What would be your lordships' judgment,
should you read, that in any distant age, or remote country, a man was
condemned upon the evidence of persons publickly hired to accuse him,
and who, by their own confession, were traitors to their country?
That wickedness, my lords, should be extirpated by severity, and justice
rigorously exercised upon publick offenders, is the uncontroverted
interest of every country; and therefore it is not to be doubted, that
in all ages the reflections of the wisest men have been employed upon
the most proper methods of detecting offences; and since the scheme now
proposed has never been practised, or never but by the most oppressive
tyrants, in the most flagitious times, it is evident, that it has been
thought inconsistent with equity, and of a tendency contrary to publick
happiness.
I am very far, my lords, from desiring that any breach of national trust
should escape detection, or that a publick office should afford security
to bribery, extortion, or corruption. I am far from intending to
patronise the conduct of the person mentioned in the present bill.
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