“Perfectly eloquent, completely convincing, irrefutably argumentative, and unanswerably just, my lord,” I put in; “but I must be permitted to hint that the validity of all laws is derived from the enactment; now the enactment, or, in the case of a treaty, the virtue of the stipulation, is not derived from the intention of the party who may happen to draw up a law or a clause, but from the assent of the legal deputies. In the present instance, there are two negotiators, and I now ask permission to address a few questions to them, reversing the order of your own interrogatories; and the result may possibly furnish a clue to the quo animo, in a new light.” Addressing the philosopher, I continued—“Did YOU, sir, in assenting to article 10, imagine that you were defeating justice, countenancing oppression, and succoring might to the injury of right?”
The answer was a solemn, and, I do not doubt, a very conscientious, “No.”
“And YOU, sir,” turning to Captain Poke, “did you, in assenting to article 3, in the least conceive that, by any possibility, the foes of humanity could torture your approbation into the means of determining that the bison-skin wearers were not to be upon a perfect footing with the best monikins of the land?”
“Blast me, if I did!”
But, Sir John Goldencalf, the Socratic method of reasoning—”
“Was first resorted to by yourself, my lord—”
“Nay, good Sir—”
“Permit me, my dear lord—”
“Sir John—”
“My lord—”