Quote#Politics & Power
It is the principle of the common law, that an officer ought not to…
Quote byJohn Eardley Wilmot · 1709–1792
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Stotesbury v. Smith (1759), 2 Burr. Part IV. 928..
English (original)
It is the principle of the common law, that an officer ought not to take money for doing his duty.
— John Eardley Wilmot
More from John Eardley Wilmot
There is no merit in a settlement: it depends upon positive law.
It is a strange, wild jurisdiction, where the jurors are judges both of law and fact, and ignorant country fellows2 are to determine the nicest points of law.
If once we go upon niceties of construction, we shall not know where to stop. For one nicety is made a foundation for another; and that other for a third; and so on, without end.
Nothing could be of worse consequence, than that an officer of the Court should combine with a criminal to frustrate the sentence of the Court.
The time makes no difference in the reason of the thing.
I cannot help thinking that where a person appeals to the Law of England, he must take his remedy according to the Law of England to which he has appealed.