of the interest of the country, and especially of its judicial establishments which belongs to his office, informed the people of Scotland. of the attempt which was making to innovate on their system of criminal law, by one whom they might naturally have expected to have felt a well-grounded pride in its purity and its excellence. It is impossible to figure any measure in which the people of Scotland, and especially the country gentlemen, could be more deeply concerned. They have a direct interest in every thing which relates to the administration of the criminal law, under which they live; and they have, if possible, a still more direct interest in every thing which relates to those duties connected with the crimi nal law which it belongs to them to discharge. They therefore felt the obligation they were under to the Lord Advo'cate for informing them of the measure, and of its probable consequences; and they lost no time in taking the matter into their consideration. The reviewers have sneered at the Lord Advocate's conduct in communicating to the counties his own opinion of the effects of the bill; but it is impossible not to see that this sneer is occasioned by the invincible power of those reasons by which his lordship's opinion was supported. The counties of Scotland were entitled to trust that the Lord Advocate, the first law officer of the country, would watch over the judicial establishments of Scotland, and protect them against encroachment-they were entitled to the aid of his experience and knowledge, and to rely on his assistance and co-operation, whenever it became necessary to resist the machinations of rash, speculative, theoretical legislators-the most dangerous of all visionary schemers. But while the Lord Advocate communicated his own opinion of Mr Kennedy's bill, and his own reasons for opposing it, he added, "though my own mind is made up against the policy of the proposed provision, I do not desire to be understood as wishing 'unduly to influence the county gentlemen in the decision which they may form regarding it, but merely to point out some of the probable consequences, so as there may not subsequently exist any just cause of complaint, if, when the act is put in force, such inconveniences should be found to result from it." 66 66 . The county gentlemen, who are always alive to the real interests of their country, and whose sagacity cannot be overreached by the flimsy eloquence of a self-sufficient inexperienced le gislator, or the flippant remarks of a peevish reviewer, saw the matter in its true light, and with very few exceptions,* all the counties of Scotland passed resolutions condemnatory of the bill. The reviewers have given a number of inconsistent reasons for this uniform opposition of the counties of Scotland to Mr Kennedy's bill. In one place (p. 206) they ascribe it almost entirely to the "threatened addition to their own personal trouble :" in another place (p. 177) they ascribe it entirely to "their sympathy with the possessors of power"-they deny that any respectable opposition" has yet been made to it; and they assert that they never remember any subject on which intelligent men, who gave their minds to it candidly and without party feeling, were nearly so unanimous." It may be so, but surely the unanimity was all against the bill; for in no one county, or public body of any description, was there a single resolution passed in favour of it; while, as already mentioned, in almost every county in Scotland resolutions were passed against it. But, say the reviewers, the opposition was merely by the "FREEHOLDERS of Scotland, who, having received from the Lord Advocate "a signal to rise against it," "called meetings," &c. and then the reviewers launch into their favourite theme of invective against the "freeholders of Scotland," and "the unfortunate system on which the elective franchise among us depends," and the reviewer exclaims, that it is not worth while for him, a man of sense, to waste his leisure" on the subject. 66 Now, in all this, we again see the reviewer's spleen oozing out, mingled with his ignorance. Every person in * The only exceptions noticed by the reviewers are three, viz. Lanark, where the matter was discusssed; and the feeling was so strong against the bill, that all the power of the Hamilton faction, so predominant in that county, barely prevented resolutions from being passed against it. The matter was referred to a committee as a sort of neutral course. Kirkcudbright and Wigton did nothing, I could, if necessary, account for this apparent supineness in these two counties. Scotland, who is not an Edinburgh re- It is truly disgusting to hear a pert and ignorant reviewer (at all events, there can be no harm in calling him an ignorant one, since we have already proved him to be so) uttering such unmeasured expressions of condemnation and affected contempt of the resolutions passed by the gentlemen of all the counties of Scotland, as the following:-" In every instance they seem to have fallen into some of those deplorable absurdities, which must always mark the statements of men who are speaking under the double confusion of neither knowing what they are discoursing about, nor In the other counties, there was no But it is needless to say any more on the subject of the resolutions passed by the counties-the sense of the county gentlemen has been decidedly expressed, and nothing can more clearly shew the weakness and impolicy of Mr Kennedy's bill, than the fact, that it is attempted to be forced through against the wishes and opinions of those without whose wishes and opinions no alteration of the kind contemplated is excusable. DETECTOR. Inverary is also one of the towns in which the circuit courts are held. |
