In fact, the
whole power of the state was soon resolved into that body. Its due
composition became, therefore, of infinitely the greater importance.
Judge, Sir, of my surprise, when I found that a very great proportion of
the Assembly (a majority, I believe, of the members who attended) was
composed of practitioners in the law. It was composed, not of
distinguished magistrates, who had given pledges to their country of
their science, prudence, and integrity,--not of leading advocates, the
glory of the bar,--not of renowned professors in universities,--but for
the far greater part, as it must in such a number, of the inferior,
unlearned, mechanical, merely instrumental members of the profession.
There were distinguished exceptions; but the general composition was of
obscure provincial advocates, of stewards of petty local jurisdictions,
country attorneys, notaries, and the whole train of the ministers of
municipal litigation, the fomenters and conductors of the petty war of
village vexation. From the moment I read the list, I saw distinctly, and
very nearly as it has happened, all that was to follow.
The degree of estimation in which any profession is held becomes the
standard of the estimation in which the professors hold themselves.
Whatever the personal merits of many individual lawyers might have been,
(and in many it was undoubtedly very considerable,) in that military
kingdom no part of the profession had been much regarded, except the
highest of all, who often united to their professional offices great
family splendor, and were invested with great power and authority.
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