Now, if your Lordships will try him by such maxims and principles, he is certainly clear: for there is no manner of doubt that there is nothing he has practised once which he has not practised again; and then the repetition of crimes becomes the means of his indemnity.
Editor's note · Context
Burke critiques the defendant's repeated offenses, suggesting that their history of crimes should not absolve them.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Unquestionably there was at the Revolution, in the person of King William, a small and a temporary deviation from the strict order of a regular hereditary succession; but it is against all genuine principles of jurisprudence to draw a…
The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force.
Their objects would be enlarged with their elevation; but their disposition, and habits, and mode of accomplishing their designs must remain the same.
But the king of Great Britain obeys no other person; all other persons are individually, and collectively too, under him, and owe to him a legal obedience.





