In the office of the Lord Chancellor, Viscount Melbourne and Lord Brougham were seated on opposite sides of the sofa.
Several documents lay before them, densely filled with names.
Behind these names were various severe criminal charges, merely glancing at which could send a shiver through one's liver.
Theft of large livestock, burgling homes, vandalizing machinery, highway robbery, murder, treason...
Each of these charges alone could be enough for the gallows, let alone for those carrying multiple, for those, the only option was to repeatedly enforce the death penalty.
Lord Brougham, holding the list, said, "More than a thousand serious offenders; if all were to be sentenced to hanging, it would exceed the total executions of the past decade combined."
