Contrasts in EnglisJi Criminal Law. things, to a prisoner charged with high treason, " the assistance of counsel, not exceeding two, throughout his trial, to ex amine his witnesses and to conduct his whole defense, as well in point of fact as
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upon questions of law." Many wise men predicted the com plete ruin of the State. Bishop Bur nett, after stating that the bill had passed contrary to the hopes of those then at the head of affairs, said : " The design of it seemed to be to make men as safe in all trea sonable practices as possible." The judges were the avowed enemies of the change. The Act was to go into effect on the 25 th of March, 1696. On the 24th of March, Sir William Parkyns, a wealthy knight, bred to the law, was brought to trial for having been concerned in a Ja cobite plot to assas sinate the King. He urged that coun sel might be allowed him, and cited the preamble of the statute as declaring that such a demand was reasonable and just. Lord Holt, the great Lord Chief Justice Holt, the jurist who ruled Coggs v. Bernard, replied : " God forbid that we should anticipate the operation of an Act of Parliament even by a single day." (13 State Trials, 72.) Parkyns then asked that the trial be postponed; but his appli
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cation was refused, and the unlucky man was actually convicted and executed six hours before the bill went into effect. The first instance on record of the assign ment of counsel under the Act is on the trial of Rookwood and others, for having been concerned in the same conspiracy as Parkyns. Sir Bartholomew Show er was assigned as counsel. The cra ven cowardice of his language is striking. "My lord," said he, addressing Lord Chief Justice Holt, "we are assigned of counsel in pursu ance of an Act of Parliament, and we hope that nothing which we shall say in defense of our client shall be im puted to ourselves. . . . We come not here to countenance the practices for which the prisoners stand accused, nor the principles upon which such prac tices may be pre sumed to be found ed; for we know of none, cither religious or civil, that can warrant or excuse them." In strong contrast with this abject apology is the splendid bearing of Erskine on the trial of Tom Paine. "I will forever — at all hazards — assert tfie dignity, indepen dence, and integrity of the English Bar, without which impartial justice, the most valuable part of the English Constitution, can have no existence. From the moment
