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THE GREEN BAG

times cas2s when personal abnegation may bs the cours2 dictated by timidity and not by honor. There are cases where the call to the public officer, or even the private advocate, cannot be disregarded or avoided without the forsaking of obligation. In some cases for instance, manifest wrong doers may be so entrenched in power by wealth and influence or by. the support of Public Opinion, that it may be difficult to find competent lawyers possessing both the courage and capacity to assail them successfully; in such case it may be the duty of the conscientious lawyer, and specially of the upright public officer, to stifle his private feelings and even if his heart bleeds to proceed against his friend, and firmly, calmly, and judicially to enforce the claims of Justice. On the other hand a yet mere difficult case may arise where an excited public clamor, from a community inflamed by a reckless and sensational press, de mands the condemnation of innocent vic tims. In such case it may be that the friend to whom the debt of gratitude is due, may, if the public prosecutor surrenders his office, bs hounded to destruction by an un scrupulous and popularity-hunting succes sor. Under such circumstances it may be the duty of the public officer to use his office for the protection of the innocent and to see that the law is not strained or dis torted even against the guilty. To take however the lofty course of the fair, calm, and fearless performance of duty. between the outcry of an inflamed public opinion on the one hand, and the solicita tion of personal feeling on the other, will try the strength of the stoutest mind and heart, and none should adopt it unless con fident of his strength to endure obloquy and persecution, and of his skill to steer his bark safely through the conflicting currents. Yet no one can doubt in the supposable case of a public prosecutor seeing any citi zen, not his friend, liable to be convicted of crime by a prosecution founded on an erroneous construction of law or supported

by false testimony, that he would be bound to use all the power of his office to prevent such a miscarriage of justice. In all these cases it behooves the lawyer to strictly ex amine himself and see that public duty and patriotism are his real motives, unmingled with ambition, or desire of emolu ment, or worldly advancement. The con temporary disapproval of Bacon's course with regard to Essex was perhaps largely due to the general perception that his actions were on the lines which self-interest and the expectation of future favors from his sov ereign would have dictated. Two or three circumstances tended to strengthen this view. In 1599, the year of Essex's return from the disastrous Irish campaign, Bacon had written a letter to the Queen soliciting the gift of an estate worth, he stated. £&i per year, near Gorhambury. It is also to be remembered that in 1601, after Essex's execution, but while Elizabeth still reigned. Bacon wrote and published a little book entitled "The Declaration of the Treasons of the Earl of Essex," in which he re viewed the case and sought to obtain the condemnation of that unfortunate noble man by the Court of Public Opinion in confirmation of his conviction, which he had obtained in the House of Lords. There seemed certainly no duty laid upon him to blacken the reputation of his friend and benefactor after he had perished on the scaffold, and a man of honorable feeling would have preferred to bear any censure on his own cause rather than go outside of his professional duty to vindicate himself at the expense of his friend, whose death he had already brought about by his successful prosecution. He certainly did not help his position with regard to this book by the excuses he made with regard to it, in the letter to the Earl of Devonshire, written after the Queen's death and •which has been already referred to. He claimed in this letter that the expression and tone of the book were not his own but were inspired by high authority, of which he was but the