Sergeant Wiltshire. Madam, permit me: whether it be a hardship to deny full counsel to prisoners in criminal cases, I shall not pretend to say; but if it be, 'tis a hardship of the law's making, and not of mine, nor of my lord's: and none have suffered by it (at least in our day) but those who had broken the law.
The Sergeant then stopped a minute, and whispered with his junior. After which he turned to the Judge. "My Lord, we, that are of counsel for the Crown, desire to do nothing that is hard where a person's life is at stake. We yield to the prisoner any indulgence for which your Lordship can find a precedent in your reading; but no more: and so we leave the matter to you."
The Clerk of Arraigns. Crier, proclaim silence.
The Crier. Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! His Majesty's Justices do straitly charge all manner of persons to keep silence on pain of imprisonment.
The Judge. Prisoner, what my brother Wiltshire says, the law is clear in: there is no precedent for what you ask, and the contrary practice stares us in the face for centuries. What seems to you a partial practice, and, to be frank, some learned persons are of your mind, must be set against this, that in capital cases the burden of proof lies on the Crown and not on the accused. Also it is my duty to give you all the assistance I can, and that I shall do. Thus then it is: you can be allowed counsel to examine your own witnesses, and cross-examine the witnesses for the Crown, and speak to points of law, to be started by yourself,—but no further.
He then asked her what gentleman there present he should assign to her for counsel.
Her reply to this inquiry took the whole court by surprise, and made her solicitor, Houseman, very miserable. "None, my Lord," said she. "Half justice is injustice; and I will lend it no color. I will not set able men to fight for me with their hands tied, against men as able whose hands be free. Counsel, on terms so partial, I will have none. My counsel shall be three, and no more. Yourself, my Lord,—my Innocence,—and the Lord God Omniscient."
These words, grandly uttered, caused a dead silence in the court, but only for a few moments. It was broken by the loud mechanical voice of the crier, who proclaimed silence, and then called the names of the jury that were to try this cause.
Mrs. Gaunt listened keenly to the names; familiar and bourgeois names, that now seemed regal, for they who owned them held her life in their hands.
Each juryman was sworn in the grand old form, now slightly curtailed.