 by whom, as their intrigues at the court
of Saint James's chanced to prevail, the delegated powers of sovereignty were
alternately swayed. The evils attending upon this system of government resemble
those which afflict the tenants of an Irish estate, the property of an absentee.
There was no supreme power, claiming and possessing a general interest with the
community at large, to whom the oppressed might appeal from subordinate tyranny,
either for justice or for mercy. Let a monarch be as indolent, as selfish, as
much disposed to arbitrary power as he will, still, in a free country, his own
interests are so clearly connected with those of the public at large, and the
evil consequences to his own authority are so obvious and imminent when a
different course is pursued, that common policy, as well as common feeling,
point to the equal distribution of justice, and to the establishment of the
throne in righteousness. Thus, even sovereigns, remarkable for usurpation and
tyranny, have been found rigorous in the administration of justice among their
subjects, in cases where their own power and passions were not compromised.
    It is very different when the powers of sovereignty are delegated to the
head of an aristocratic faction, rivalled and pressed closely in the race of
ambition by an adverse leader. His brief and precarious enjoyment of power must
be employed in rewarding his partisans, in extending his influence, in op
pressing and crushing his adversaries. Even Abon Hassan, the most disinterested
of all viceroys, forgot not, during his caliphate of one day, to send a douceur
of one thousand pieces of gold to his own household; and the Scottish
vicegerents, raised to power by the strength of their faction, failed not to
embrace the same means of rewarding them.
    The administration of justice, in particular, was infected by the most gross
partiality. A case of importance scarcely occurred, in which there was not some
ground for bias or partiality on the part of the judges, who were so little able
to withstand the temptation, that the adage, »Show me the man, and I will show
you the law,« became as prevalent as it was scandalous. One corruption led the
way to others still more gross and profligate. The judge who lent his sacred
authority in one case to support a friend, and in another to crush an enemy, and
whose decisions were founded on family connections or political relations, could
not be supposed inaccessible to direct personal motives; and the purse of the
wealthy was too often believed to be thrown into the scale to weigh down the
cause of the poor litigant. The subordinate
