Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/351

complete or satisfactory can be offered to the human mind. How an evasive, indirect reply will stand with your reputation, or how far it will answer in point of defence, at the bar of the house of Lords, is worth your consideration. If, after all that has been said, it should still be maintained, that the court of king's bench, in bailing felons, are exempted from all legal rules whatsoever, and that the judge has no direction to pursue, but his private affections, or mere unquestionable will and pleasure, it will follow plainly, that the distinction between bailable and not bailable, uniformly expressed by the legislature, current through all our law books, and admitted by all our great lawyers, without exception, is, in one sense, a nugatory, in another, a pernicious, distinction. It is nugatory, as it supposes a difference in the bailable quality of offences, when, in effect, the distinction refers only to the rank of the magistrate It is pernicious, as it implies a rule of law, which yet the judge is not bound to pay the least regard to: and impresses an idea upon the minds of the people, that the judge is wiser and greater than the law.