There is a rough side to government, and there must be a quality of harshness in the nature of those who administer governments successfully.

Mr. Choate's courtesy was unfailing. He submitted deferentially to the verdicts of juries and to the opinions of the bench. He avoided personal controversy with his brethren at the bar, and he treated witnesses upon the stand, whether friendly or hostile, with apparent kindly consideration. It was only in argument that witnesses felt the force and weight of his keen satire and persuasive logic. His presence of mind never failed, and his ready resources in the contests of the bar were not less remarkable than the brilliancy of his arguments.

Perhaps no advocate ever received a heavier blow from a witness than fell upon Mr. Choate when managing the defense of a shipmaster who was charged with the crime of robbing and sinking his vessel in the waters of the Indian Ocean. The mate had become a witness for the Government. Robert Rantoul, Jr., was the prosecuting district attorney. The mate was a party to the crime, and it was the theory of his testimony to prove that the captain originated the scheme, and that the mate and his associates were persuaded by the captain to engage in the undertaking. In the cross-examination Mr. Choate sought for the inducements and representations to which the mate had yielded. |

The answers of the mate were reluctantly given, and he evidently held something back. At last Mr. Choate laid his elbows upon the table, rested his head upon his hands, and with a persuasive manner and voice said, "Now, my good fellow, will you not tell us what the captain said that induced you to engage in this business?" The witness replied with nervous impetuosity, and said, "He told us there was a man in Boston named Choate who would get us clear, if the money were found in our boots!" When the laughter and excitement had subsided, Mr. Choate, without change of voice or manner, said, "Did my brother Rantoul tell you to say that?" The witness, for a moment, was confounded by the address and personality of the question, and after some delay said, "No." Mr. Choate remarked, "We all knew he didn't, but why did you hesitate about that, as you have about everything you have told us to-day?" The rencontre left a wound on Mr. Choate, but the mode of escape was as good as the circumstances of the case permitted.

This incident in his career, and his successful defense of Albert J. Tirrell for the murder of Maria Bickford, were the basis of the keen and almost cruel attack made by Wendell Phillips, in his oration called "The Boston Idols."

The idols were Webster, Everett, and Choate.

In approaching Choate, he erected a pantheon, in which he put many of the great gods of jurisprudence, and accompanied their names with stately encomiums.

Among these were D'Agesseau, Romilly, and Mansfield. "Finally," said the orator, "New England shrieks, Here is Choate, who made it safe to murder, and for whose health thieves asked before they began to steal!'"

No greater tribute than this could be offered, either by friendly or hostile voice, to the learning, skill, and genius of an advocate; but beneath the spoken word there lurks the suggestion that there are human powers so exalted and controlling that they ought not to be employed in defense of persons charged with crime.

All crimes are primarily against the Government, whatever may be the personal circumstances attending their commission.

The sufferers can in no case be their own avengers. In the pursuit and prosecution of criminals the resources of a state or of a nation are at the command of the agents of the Government. Those resources are always greater than the resources of the most opulent individual. The Government enacts the laws, creates the courts, ordains the mode of procedure, furnishes the juries from its body of citizens; and, since the employment of Mr.

Webster to aid the Attorney-General of Massachusetts in the prosecution of the Knapps for the murder of Joseph White, it has been thought not improper for Governments to retain eminent counsel and advocates to aid or even to lead in the trial of persons charged with crime. The advantages could not be greater if it were the maxim of Governments that, for every crime committed, some person should suffer a penalty. The ancient and wiser maxim, that it is better that ninety-nine guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer, assumes that it is a higher duty to protect the innocent than to punish the guilty. And this duty always rests upon the Government

It is, therefore, a wise public policy which provides the means of defense for every person charged with crime; and a healthy public sentiment will in the end not only tolerate but it will support the advocate who undertakes the defense, even though the accused for the moment may be enduring the weight of an adverse and intolerant public judg

ment.

It is a public misfortune, whose effects run with the ages, when great criminals even are brought to the bar and tried and condemned without the support and aid of an able, vigorous, and persistent defense. And it should ever be borne in mind that,

in cases where the guilt of the party is beyond question, he is entitled to the benefit of every de fense which the law authorizes; and it should also be borne in mind that, if those means are denied to the guilty, the time will soon come when they will not be a shield to the innocent.

The line of professional duty is clear. The at torney is an officer of the court. He is to obey the law, and in his advice to clients he is always to direct them in the line of obedience to the law. Otherwise, he becomes a participator in their guilt. Usually, however, the attorney is not consulted until the law has been violated. The accused is then entitled to every advantage and privilege which the law allows. These the attorney and advocate are to find and to employ with whatever of ability they can command, and if in the end the accused is found not guilty, the law presumes him innocent; but, whether so or not, the fault, if fault there be, is with the Government and its agents.

Lord Brougham, in his defense of Queen Caroline, went much further. He maintained the extreme, revolutionary doctrine that it was the duty of counsel to pursue the defense of clients even to the destruction of the Government itself. This position, however, he qualified subsequently by declaring that he assumed it as a menace to the king,