Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	court_n	justice_n	law_n	3,065	5	4.7299	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54677	The history of the conquest of China by the Tartars together with an account of several remarkable things concerning the religion, manners, and customes of both nations, but especially the latter / first writ in Spanish by Senõr Palafox ... and now rendred English.; Historia de la conquista de la China por el Tartaro. English. 1671	Palafox y Mendoza, Juan de, 1600-1659.	1671 (1671)	Wing P200; ESTC R33642	206,638	622

doth give a beginning and progress to them Finally the Ruine and Preservation of Empires and People dep●●nds much upon the different management of Affairs by those who are the Supream Governours The Tartars had their Councils and Justice-Seats in the same manner as the Chineses had but not in so great a number They kept up the Dignity of Calao and Mandorin but none attain thereto but by Merit and Election and these ought all to be persons of high Reputation and Merit of which the Tartars would be first well satisfied and informed As for their Laws and Policy the manner of proceeding in their Courts of Judicature and the Officers appertaining thereto and their administration of Justice as well in Criminal Causes as in Actions of Debt and Trials of Right between party and party conformable to those Ordinances and Regulations which the Tartars have made we have not as yet been particularly informed herein We only know in general that herein they act just opposite to what the Chineses did And that they might quietly introduce and establish these new Customs which are so contrary to the ancient they have the more industriously employed the Ch●●neses whom they have put into several Charges and Offices And the people on their part that they may ingratiate themselves to their new Masters have the more readily conformed in all things to these new Laws And thus in all probability there will not be left in a short time the least appearance of the ancient Chinese Government In all Suits and Trials the Tartars never make use of any long Writings neither have Practitioners in Law any great Employment there In all Trials between party and party the parties concerned justifie by word of mouth only their claim to the thing in contest and by word of mouth alone the cause is decided All other Ceremonies are counted a frivolous and expensive loss of time They were yet more quick and expeditious in the dispatch of criminal causes and yet they did very diligently examine all charges and accusations alledged against the party accused They have this Maxime That Guilt or Innocence do presently manifest it self when judicious persons who manage the Examinations proceed impartially Neither do they make use of Prisons Chains and Fetters saying that thus to torment men is to put them twice to death When any criminal person is seized upon at that very instant of time he is brought before the Judge if the Crime be sufficiently proved against him he is immediately punished if the proofs are defective he is set at liberty There is but two sorts of punishments for all criminal persons When the crime doth not deserve death they take two Arrows and strike them through the Ears of the Criminal and turning the shafts upwards they tie them together on the top of his head and in this posture they make him march through the Streets and publick places of the Town or City and an Officer goes before him and proclaims aloud that whoever hath committed the like Crime shall receive the like punishment But if the Crime deserves death his Head is cut off without making any distinctions between either the quality of persons or the nature of Crimes It is sufficient that they have deserved to die When they execute the condemned person they first strip him as naked as when he was born to the end say they that he may go out of the world as he came into it When he is thus stripped the Executioner with a Cimeter or short Sword strikes off his Head and when the Body is fallen down he hacks it to pieces fo●● which reason they stript it at the first And usually they leave the dead Body upon the place pretending thereby to make others dread and abhor the like crime It is said that heretofore the Executioner used to take home with him a Thigh to make therewith an Entertainment for his Friends And this perhaps gave rise to the report that the Tartars eat Mans-Flesh But as it hath been already observed there are none except the most savage barbarous and brutish persons of that Nation who can be judged capable of committing so horrid a crime Neither would the Tartars so honour the Carkasses of criminal persons as to give them living Sepulchres That which seems most strange in the administration of Justice by the Tartars is that they can so soon go through all necessary Proofs and Exa●●inations in criminal causes and private contests between party and party But Xunchi by a Law which will admit of no Gloss or Comment pretends to have taken away all impossibility or difficulty in these quick and speedy Trials by which he ordained that all Suits and Contests between party and party should be decided ass●●on as the parties concerned had been heard and that in criminal Causes the party accused should either immediately be punished or acquitt●●d but if the party accused were really guilty and the accusation not verified nor the party convicted that then the J●●dge who acquitted him should undergo the penalty of the Crime committed for Xunchi pretended that then the fault must be in the Judge But if the fault was proved the party accused was punished at the very instant of time though never so inconvenient and ●●hat either by a pecuniary Mulct or corporeal punishment Thus there was no possibility of prolonging Trials Nor was there any way to evade the due Execution of the Emperour's Law which he designed to oblige thereby the Judge to be as much concern'd to sift and impartially examine the Evidence as the accused person to make his Defence This Law he caused to be executed and observed most rigorously The consequence whereof was this that afterwards there was in all Offices and Courts of Judicature such persons who though they were not rich yet they discharged their Employments with such integrity that the people were much better satisfied with these Judges than with those under the Chinese Emperours though they were very rich and Majestick Such precipitation in the dispatch of Affairs may seem somewhat barbarous and not very politick but the contrary excess of prolonging Trials by perplexing Causes with Tricks and frau●●ulent Nicet●●es and going through all those Terms and Punctilio's and Orders of Courts which serve only to delay Justice and make Causes to be so long depending that they can never come to be decided This I say may perhaps seem not less barbarous to those people Happy is that Nation where Causes are not so precipitately determined as amongst the Tartars nor yet so delatory as in other places But this Moderation is the operation of a Virtue which humane Policy doth not alwaies consult Xunchi hath also given to all those Officers and Mandorins who are actually in possession of those Employments all those Pensions and Allowances which the ancient Emperours of China setled upon them and hath continued several of the most ancient amongst them in their former Offices and Employments or else hath

put them into other places not less honourable than their former And yet these have never ceased to complain that they had only the Name and Title of Mandorin left them They had reason to say so if they considered that they were now really obliged to gain and maintain at least a better Fame than they had before Nothing can better capacitate any publick Officer or Magistrate to serve his Prince in his Employment than to have the reputation of Merit and desert which may render him considerable in the esteem of the people But the Officers who did most murmur and complain were those who had the management of the Exchequer and the Revenues of the Emperour They were not satisfied that they could not enrich them by those vast Sums of Money which passed through their hands The Tartars derided them and scoffingly asked them if they were not called the Officers of the Emperour's Exchequer if they were so they must then acknowledge that the Exchequer was not theirs but the Emperours but if they appropriated it to themselves by enriching themselves thereby they were not then the Officers of the Emperours Exchequer but of their own that they should either be satisfied with the Pensions were allotted them or resign up their place●● to others That the Emperour would not want Officers to discharge those Employments and yet be well content with the same Pensions and Allowance they had who murmured and were so discontented at them After the Xunchi had strictly enjoyned his Officers not to sell Justice he punished very severely those Judges against whom it was proved that they had received any Bribes or Presents And he was the more vigilant to put a Check to this disorder knowing that the Ruine of China was at first occasioned by the Avarice and ●●orruption of the greatest part of the Judges and those who were i●● the most eminent Offices and Employments in that State For as for Pilfering Extortion and Bribery the Chinese Officers and Ministers of State were scarce to be parallell'd in the whole world And upon this very account long before the loss of that Empire they were so detested and abominated by all their Neighbours that by their Books and Writings it plainly appears they could neither speak nor write of the Mandorins without bitter expressions of indignation against them It was they who managed and disposed of all the Emperours of China's Revenue but in such a manner that the Emperour whose Revenue amounted yearly to more than thirty Millions sterling was ever in want and indigency At least in appearance he had not wherewith to supply the necessary Expences of his State which was occasioned by the fraud of the Mandorins who diverted to their own private occasions the greatest part of those Monies which should have been employed upon the publick account and never concerned themselves with thinking or contriving how the Souldiery should receive their pay and subsistance and less how to reward those who had faithfully served their Prince and Countrey And yet the people were compelled to pay Taxes Subsidies and Impositions to maintain the pride and grandeur of the Mandorins and other Officers who had advanced themselves by the decay of the State and yet they were so weak and cowardly that they durst not attempt to preserve either it or any part thereof from utter ruine and destruction Whereas before a Mandorin would have trampled upon and treated with scorn and contempt the most considerable Officers of the Army now on the contrary the sight of one poor Souldier would have made a great number of Mandorins run away and hide themselves Thus by the avarice of these Officers the Princes Guard was composed only of some poor distressed Souldiers who were both ill paid and maintain'd and being scorn'd and vilified to advance their Fortune and Condition sided with the Rebels Zunchin perceived but too late that Souldiers have a great share in the support and preservation of Empires and the greater by the impossibility there is that great Empires should not have potent Enemies In his greatest exigency and distress he found he had not any Souldiers whom he had by the least recompense engaged to stick firmly to the defence of his Person and State He then understood that his Treasure and Revenue had not been employed in those things which were necessary and important for his preservation He was fully convinced that his Imperial Grandeur was but ill supported when he saw his Royal person abandoned his Life and Empire reduced to its last period and that there was now no remedy left but that both he and the Empire must both perish together The Tartarian Emperour Zunchi saw clearly all these Disorders in the Government of China and judging by the actions of the Chineses that these ill Customs were strongly inrooted he judged it the more important utterly to extirpate them He therefore entred upon this Affair with that care and resolution that it was not his fault if afterwards Justice was not well regulated and executed in China His Ministers of State and the Officers whom he employed were likewise very diligent herein And certainly nothing could more effectually put a stop to these disorders than to see the prudence and fidelity of the Officers concur with the good intentions of their Master It wa●● a thing very extraodinary to see with what uprightness and integrity all the Officers both those who were really Tartars and those who desired to be thought so proceeded in the execution of their Charge Ly the famous Viceroy of Canton who boasted that he was a Tartar though he was believed to be a Chinese when he was Commander of the Army pillaged and plundered all places and persons yet after he was transformed to a very grave Magistrate and acted as a most incorruptible Judge in all Causes which were brought before him gained thereby a publick repute and esteem as a most zealous person for the due execution of Justice and Equity And as for the Plunder which he took in those Towns and Places which he had subdued he justified himself as well as he could by the Law of Arms which alwaies allows the General and Commanders in Chief a considerable part of the Booty because they have so great an one in the peril and danger And if the Souldiers under his Command took advantage of any opportunity to take what they could get it was to be considered that they had then no other way to subsist there coming no Money from the Court to pay them with Thus he endeavoured to put as fair a gloss as he could upon all his former actions and endeavoured to excuse all that was past and for the future he acted so uprightly and proceeded with so much honour and impartiality in the management of all Affairs and obliged all the Officers under him to demean themselves so plausibly towards the people that they willingly accepted of this fair Deportment in recompense of all those mischiefs he had formerly