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English governors and judges, who, though well meaning and just men, yet knew neither the people, nor their laws, language, nor customs; and (from not being brought in the country) they were unacquainted with the thousand minute and undescribable impressions and notions acquired in childhood, which have a strong influence on our character and conduct through life. They could not, in the nature of things, preserve that check on the people to which they had been accustomed under the judges of their own nation.

Man is prone to error-he needs a curb rein. The impressions which the old French government and judges left behind them, wore off by degrees, and the rising generation degenerated. I do not mean to confine this observation to the Canadians alone; Englishmen felt it likewise; and all mankind must feel bad effects from an imperfect definition of their line of duty, and a want of good and wholesome laws.

Nothing debases a people so soon or so effectually as bad laws, or a bad administration of laws, in themselves good: the latter more frequently occurs than the for

mer. I have had several opportunities, besides the present, of verifying the observation.

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In the countries in the south of Europe, for instance, particularly in Portugal, the laws are good in principle, but they are ill administered. The judges are very corrupt; they are venal in the highest degree, which arises from their salaries being so low that they cannot support that rank in life to which they are entitled. From the gradual depreciation of money, their income has been constantly getting worse.For some time, the respectability attached to the character of a judge would induce men of education and property to accept of the situation; domestic œconomy would enable them to preserve a respectable appearance: but, in time, their situation ceases to be desirable. Men of inferior rank and education can alone be found to accept of it: bribes are offered, because the judges are known to be poor both in purse and spirit: bribes for the same reasons are taken: but the blame rests with the government;-by not applying a remedy to the evil, which they know to exist, they

may be supposed to wink at it: it increases every day corruption of every sort creeps in: a bad man will not pay his debts, if by paying part to his judge he can preserve the rest. If an innocent man is assaulted and wounded, or robbed, and the culprit, though condemned upon the clearest evidence, can purchase a pardon, the principle of retributive justice is wounded and weakened-in time it is altogether destroyed.

I knew an instance in Portugal, where a formidable band of robbers had carried on a practice, for some time, of robbing, and murdering in the most barbarous manner. They were, upon undoubted proof, convicted of a variety of crimes of the deepest die ;-the mere naming of which would make human nature shudder. They were condemned to death, to the number of, I believe, thirty. They consisted of innkeepers, muleteers, friars, younger sons of respectable families: some women, too, were amongst them; but they were not executed—and why? because they mustered up twelve thousand crowns, which being handed over to a judge in Porto, where

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they were tried, he procured their pardon. This circumstance is universally known in Portugal: it happened in the year 1802.

Let me ask, what effect such a glaring act of injustice, such abominable venality in a judge, would have on society, particularly on the minds of the rising generation? It is too evident: all idea of right and wrong must be destroyed: the passions must gain strength, and take the lead, no longer kept under by early conviction, that every breach of the law will assuredly be punished: private revenge, deadly feuds, clandestine murder, become prevalent. All these things are, in fact, frequent in Portugal, in Spain, in Italy, in Turkey, and in every other country where the sources of justice are polluted.

In the feudal times in Britain, much of the same kind of proceedings were continually occurring: individual caprice, and not the law, governed. Thankful ought we to be that no such abuses now exist. I have always thought there was great wisdom and truth in the answer my Lord Mansfield gave to the King, when he was asked, at the time of the riots in Lon

don," whether he thought the government had reason to be alarmed at the apparent increase of licentiousness and corruption in the kingdom?" The answer was, "that his Majesty had nothing to fear, so long as corruption was kept out of Westminsterhall."

I beg pardon for taking up your time. with these stories. They obtruded themselves into notice, as illustrative of my assertion, that nothing debases a people so soon, or so effectually, as the mal-administration of justice.

In the application of the principle to Canada, I am very far from thinking that any of the judges are venal or corrupt; on the contrary, they are very upright and independent men. The criminal law of England is administered in its greatest purity; crimes are sure of meeting the punishment attached to them: hence you seldom hear of any acts of violence. In criminal matters, the abuse of justice strikes us forcibly; but, in civil matters also, the abuse of justice has an infallible tendency to corrupt the public mind-whether it arises