My public life is before you; and I know you will believe me when I say, that when I sit down in solitude to the labours of my profession, the only questions I ask myself are, What is right? What is just? What is for the public good?

A wise nation preserves its records, gathers up its muniments, decorates the tombes of its illustrious dead, repairs its greatest structures and fosters national pride and love of country, by perpetual references to the sacrifices and glories of the past.

My books are very few, but then the world is before me - a library open to all - from which poverty of purse cannot exclude me - in which the meanest and most paltry volume is sure to furnish something to amuse, if not to instruct and improve.

My public life is before you; and I know you will believe me when I say, that when I sit down in solitude to the labours of my profession, the only questions I ask myself are, What is right? What is just? What is for the public good?

We may smile at these matters, but they are melancholy illustrations.