It is thus that interest is put in competition with duty---cupidity with glory.There are doubtless not wanting noble minds by whom the seductions of sinister interest are resisted: but wherefore should they be so much exposed to what it is so difficult to resist?
It is true, that their ears may not be altogether insensible to the call of honour.The law has bestowed pecuniary rewards upon the captors of armed vessels---(another example, where one instance of profusion has created the necessity of a second)---but these rewards are still unequal: the chase of doves is more advantageous than the pursuit of eagles.
The remedy would be to tax, and tax heavily, the profits of lucrative cruises, to form a fund of reward in favour of dangerous, or merely useful expeditions.By this arrangement, the country would be doubly benefited, the service would be rendered more attractive, and conducted with more economy.It may be true, that if this tax were deducted from the share of the seamen, their ardour might be cooled: neither in value or in number are their prizes in this lottery susceptible of diminution.
But though this be true with respect to the lower ranks of the profession, ought we to judge in the same manner of the superior officers, whose minds are elevated as their rank, and on whose conduct the performance of the duty has the most immediate dependence?
In the judicial department, the service which belongs to the profession of an advocate, and the service which belongs to the office of a judge, are in a state of rivalry: they constitute the elements of two permanent conditions, of which the first among most nations is the preliminary route to the second.In England, the judges are uniformly selected from among the class of advocates.Now the interest of the country requires that the choice should fall upon the men of highest attainments in their profession, since upon the reputation of the judges depends the opinion which every man forms of his security.It is not of the same importance to the public that advocates should be supereminently skilful: their occupation is not to seek out what is agreeable to justice, but what agrees with the interest of the party to which chance has engaged them.On the contrary, the more decidedly any advocate is exalted in point of talents above his colleagues, the more desirable is it that he should no longer continue an advocate.In proportion to his pre-eminence, is the probability that he will be opposed to the distribution of justice.The worse the cause of the suitor, the more pressing is his need of an able advocate to remedy his weakness.
In England, the emoluments of the Lord Chancellor are reckoned at £20,000
--- Vice-Chancellor, 5,000
--- Master of the Rolls, 4,000
