The prerogative of the king to refuse his assent, might, perhaps, be expected to come in as a protection, but here there is least of all any thing to be expected.  In the first place, it is thought to be wise never to use that prerogative, and, in the second place, the lord-high-chancellor is the king’s guide in every thing of the sort, insomuch, that he is styled the keeper of the king’s conscience.

With power, influence, and interest on one side, and nothing to oppose it on the other, (for the common proverb is true, as all common

—–­ {98} The law is the widest, and the shortest, and the nearest road to a peerage.  A Howe, Nelson, and St. Vincent, play a game, partly of skill, and partly of chance, for title; they must have luck and opportunity.  The others are sure with fewer competitors to have more prizes. -=-

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proverbs are, that what is every body’s business is nobody’s,) the lawyers must encroach on the public, and they have done so to a most alarming degree.

In this case, it is not, as in others, where the great cut out work for and employ the small.  No.  The great generally (indeed almost always) begin with the advice and by the means of an attorney, who is only supposed to understand law-practice.  The proceeding does not originate with the council, who could form some judgment of the justice of the case, so that a mean petty-fogging attorney may, for a trifle, which he puts into his own pocket, ruin two ignorant and honest men; he may set the ablest council to work, and occupy, for a time, the courts of justice, to the general interruption of law, and injury of the public.

This is, perhaps, one of the greatest and most crying evils in the land, and calls out the most loudly for redress, as the effects are very universal.  In a commercial country, so many interests clash, and there are such a variety of circumstances, that the vast swarms of attorneys, who crowd the kingdom, find no difficulty in misleading one of the parties, and that is the cause of most law-suits.

As commercial wealth increases the evil augments, not in simple proportion, but in a far more rapid progression; first, in proportion to the wealth and gain to be obtained, and, secondly, according to the opportunities which augment with the business done.

In addition to the real dead expense, the loss of time, the attention, and the misfortune and misery occasioned by the law, are terrible evils; and, if ever the moment comes, that a general dissatisfaction prevails, it will be the law that will precipitate the evil.

The mildness of the civil laws in France, and the restraints under which lawyers are held, served greatly to soften the rigours of the revolution for the first two years.  Had they possessed the power and the means they do in England, the revolution must have become much more terrible than it was at the first outset.

The lawyers owe all their power to the nature of the government.  An arbitrary monarch will have no oppressor but himself, but here the [end of page #121] different interests are supposed to be poised; and when they are, all goes right, but, when they happen not to be so, the most active interest carries the day.