Note, 1. It is a fundamental error in the administration of justice,
and that which cannot but lead men to abundance of transgression, to
consider the parties concerned more than the merits of the cause, so as
to favour one because he is a gentleman, a scholar, my countryman, my
old acquaintance, has formerly done me a kindness, or may do me one, or
is of my party and persuasion, and to bear hard on the other party
because he is a stranger, a poor man, has done me an ill turn, is or
has been my rival, or is not of my mind, or has voted against me.
Judgment is perverted when any consideration of this kind is admitted
into the scale, any thing but pure right. 2. Those that are partial
will be paltry. Those that have once broken through the bonds of
equity, though, at first, it must be some great bribe, some noble
present, that would bias them, yet, when they have debauched their
consciences, they will, at length, be so sordid that for a piece of
bread they will give judgment against their consciences; they will
rather play at small game than sit out.