(Howell’s, Vol. ii.):  “Upon advised consideration of the charge, descending into my own conscience and calling my memory to account, as far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defense and put myself upon the grace and mercy of your lordships. ...  To the nineteenth article, vis., ’That in the cause between Reynell and Peacock, he received from Reynell two hundred pounds and a diamond ring worth four or five hundred pounds,’ I confess and declare that on my first coming to the Seal when I was at Whitehall, my servant Hunt delivered me two hundred pounds from Sir George Reynell, my near ally, to be bestowed upon furniture of my house, adding further that he had received divers former favors from me.  And this was, as I verily think, before any suit was begun.  The ring was received certainly pendente lite, and though it was at New Year’s tide it was too great a value for a New Year’s gift, though, I take it, nothing near the value mentioned in the article.”

That while Lord Chancellor of England he took gifts intended to corrupt justice, he confessed to his shame, but he does not seem to have been wholly able to decide whether in doing so he broke faith with those who wished to corrupt him, or with the kingdom and constitution of England he represented, against their desire to purchase justice.  He seems to have believed that though his conduct was corrupt, his decisions were honest.  He says, indeed, that in spite of his bribe-taking, “he never had bribe or reward in his eye or thought when he pronounced any sentence or order.”

This cannot be admitted in excuse even for Bacon, but his moral weakness, if it obscure for the time the splendor of his intellect, died with him, while his genius, marvelously radiant above that of any other of the last ten centuries, still illuminates the path of every pioneer of progress.

His address to the Star Chamber on Dueling was delivered in the proceedings against Mr. William Priest for writing and sending a challenge, and Mr. Richard Wright for carrying it, January 26th, 1615, Bacon being then the King’s attorney-general.  The text is from T. B. Howell’s ‘State Trials,’ London 1816.

SPEECH AGAINST DUELING

My Lords, I thought it fit for my place, and for these times, to bring to hearing before your lordships some cause touching private duels, to see if this court can do any good to tame and reclaim that evil, which seems unbridled.  And I could have wished that I had met with some greater persons, as a subject for your censure; both because it had been more worthy of this presence, and also the better to have shown the resolution I myself have to proceed without respect of persons in this business.  But finding this cause on foot in my predecessor’s time, I thought to lose no time in a mischief that groweth every day;