BOOK V OF Legislative and Executive Power CHAPTER V OF COURTS AND MINISTERS Systematical monopoly of confidence. - Charac- ter of ministers and their dependents. - Dupticiy of courts. - Venality and corruption. - Universality of this principle. WE shall be better enabled to judge of the dispositions with which information is communicated, and measures are executed, in monarchical countries, if we reflect upon another of the ill consequences attendant upon this species of government, the existence and corruption of courts. The character of this, as well as of every other human institution, arises out of the circumstances with which it is surrounded. Ministers and favorites are a sort of people who have a state prisoner in their custody, the whole management of whose understanding and actions they can easily engross. This they completely effect with a weak and credulous master, nor can the mos...