Lloyd Kenyon

“I do not know how far I ought to sit here and suffer a gentleman at the bar to bring forward parts of the Bible in this way. It is for you, gentlemen of the jury, to say whether you wish to hear them read.”

“Those regulations that are adapted to the common race of men are the best.”

“Two universities have been founded in this country, amply endowed and furnished with professors in the different sciences; and I should be sorry that those who have been educated at either of them should undervalue the benefits of such an education.”

“That corporations are the creatures of the Crown must be universally admitted.”

“The power of free discussion is the right of every subject of this country. It is a right to the fair exercise of which we are indebted more than to any other that was ever claimed by Englishmen. All the blessings we at present enjoy might be ascribed to it.”

“The discussion which was made by Luther, Melancthon, and the other persons who preceded the Reformation, opened the eyes or the public; and they got rid of the delusions which had been spread by the Pope of Rome, and emancipated mankind from the spiritual tyranny they were under, and brought about the establishment of that religion which we now enjoy in this country.”

“The wishes of every human man are, that guilt may not be fixed upon any man; but I confess I am one of those who have not the weakness—which weakness, a Judge at least, and a jury, must get rid of, before they fit themselves to fill the respective stations which they are to fill in the administration of the justice of the country— I say, therefore, I am not one of those who wish under false compassion, inconsistent with the administration of criminal justice, that a person on whom guilt is fairly fixed, should escape the punishment which the law annexes to his guilt.”

“We are all desirous to sit as long as we can, but necessity justifies that which it compels; the strength of man is not adequate to this. Lord Mansfield, as little inclined to give way as any man, did give way at a certain hour in the case of Lord Pomfret.”

“Concessions made for the purpose of settling the business for which the action is brought, cannot be given in evidence; but facts admitted I have always received.”

“We must not, by any whimsical conceits supposed to be adapted to the altering fashions of the times, overturn the established law of the land: it descended to us as a sacred charge, and it is our duty to preserve it.”

“Courts of equity make their decrees so as to arrive at the justice of the case without violating the rules of law.”

“A Court of equity can mould interests differently from a Court of law; and can give relief in cases where a Court of law cannot.”

“It is sometimes difficult to get rid of first impressions.”

“It is of great importance that the laws by which the contracts of so numerous and so useful a body of men as the sailors are supposed to be guided, should not be overturned.”

“The legislature have anxiously provided for those most useful and deserving body of men, the seamen and marines of this country.”

“He had no right to take the law into his own hands.”

“In many cases a party undertakes to prove a custom from the time of legal memory, the reign of Richard the Second; but that proof is generally established by evidence of acts done at a much later period, and frequently no evidence is given beyond the present century.”

“It is a maxim in our law that a plaintiff must shew that he stands on a fair ground when he calls on a Court of justice to administer relief to him.”

“It is the great duty of every Court of justice to administer justice as well as they can between the litigating parties ; another, and not less material, duty is to satisfy those parties that the whole case has been examined and considered.”

“Many people there are in this kingdom who never see a Gazette to the day of their deaths, and very mischievous would be the consequences if they were bound by a notice inserted in it.”