t lxxil LIFE OF BACON. 



The answer to this resistance, Bacon thus relates in a 

 letter to the King : &quot; I replied in civil and plain terms, 

 that I wished his lordship, in my love to him, to think 

 better of it ; for that this, that his lordship was pleased 

 to put into great words, seemed to me and my fellows, 

 when we spake of it amongst ourselves, a reasonable and 

 familiar matter, for a king to consult with his judges, 

 either assembled or selected, or one by one. I added, 

 that judges sometimes might make a suit to be spared 

 for their opinion till they had spoken with their brethren ; 

 but if the King upon his own princely judgment, for 

 reason of estate, should think it fit to have it other 

 wise, and should so demand it, there was no declining; 

 nay, that it touched upon a violation of their oath, which 

 was to counsel the King without distinction, whether it 

 were jointly or severally. Thereupon I put him the case 

 of the privy council, as if your majesty should be pleased 

 to command any of them to deliver their opinion apart and 

 in private; whether it were a good answer to deny it, 

 otherwise than if it were propounded at the table. To this 

 he said, that the cases were not alike, because this con 

 cerned life. To which I replied, that questions of estate 

 might concern thousands of lives ; and many things more 

 precious than the life of a particular; as war and peace, 

 and the like.&quot; (a) 



By this reasoning Coke s scruples were, after a struggle, 

 removed, and he concurred with his brethren in obedience 

 to the commands of the King, (b) 



From the progress which knowledge has made, during 

 the last two centuries, in the science of justice and its 

 administration, mitigating severity, abolishing injurious 

 restraints upon commerce, and upon civil and religious 



() Vol. xii. p. 128. (6) See note ZZ at the end. 



