177 Essays 157 
judges to represent the royal person and execute 
everywhere the delegated parts of his office and 
authority. You ministers know that much of the 
strength of government depends on the opinion 
of the people, and much of that opinion on the 
choice of rulers placed immediately over them. If 
you send them wise and good men for governors, 
who study the interests of the colonists, and advance 
their prosperity, they will think their king wise and 
good, and that he wishes the welfare of his subjects. 
If you send them learned and upright men for 
judges, they will think him a lover of justice. This 
may attach your provinces more to his government, 
You are therefore to be careful whom you recom- 
mend to those offices. If you can find prodigals 
who have ruined their fortunes, broken gamesters or 
steckjobbers, these may do well as governors; for 
they will probably be rapacious, and provoke the 
people by their extortions. Wrangling proctors 
and pettifogging lawyers, too, are not amiss; for 
they will be forever disputing and quarrelling with 
their little Parliaments. If withal they should be 
ignorant, wrongheaded, and insolent, so much the 
better. Attorney’s clerks and Newgate solicitors 
will do for chief-justices, especially if they hold their 
places during your pleasure; and all will contribute 
to impress those ideas of your government that are 
proper for a people you would wish to renounce it. 
6. To confirm these impressions and strike them 
deeper, whenever the injured come to the capital 
with complaints of maladministration, oppression, or 
injustice, punish such suitors with long delay, enor- 
75) To