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the Province of New Jersey. Miss Anne Seward, in one of her letters, after describing a steep romantic dell in the high peak of Derbyshire, on the brow of which stood the large and populous village of Eyam, states, that it was in this rocky gallery that Mr. Mompesson, the rival in virtue of the good Bishop of Marseilles, preached to his parishioners of the village, when it was visited by the plague in 1666, rationally concluding that assembling in a close church would be likely to increase the infection. From this pious and courageous Rector of Eyam, Roger Mompesson is supposed to have de

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Indeed, had she loved herself as well as me, she had fled from the pit of destruction with her sweet babes, and might have prolonged her days; but she was resolved to die a martyr to my interest. My drooping spirits are much refreshed with her joys, which I think are unutterable."

2 William Mompesson was Rector of Eyam in Derbyshire, during the time of the plague in London. He never caught the disorder; and was enabled during the whole period of the calamity, to perform the functions of the physician and the priest of his afflicted parish. During these pious labors, his wife was taken ill and died. There are some touching passages in a letter written by him upon this occasion to Sir George Saville, the patron of the living of Eyam. "This is the saddest news that ever my pen "With tears I beg, that when you could write! The destroying angel are praying for fatherless infants, you having taken up his quarters within would remember my two pretty my habitation, my dearest wife is babes."-Kingston's Am. Biog. Dic.,

gone to her eternal rest, and is in

"Dear sir, let your dying chaplain recommend this truth to you and your family, that no happiness nor solid comfort can be found in this vale of tears, like living a pious life; and pray ever retain this rule: 'never do any thing upon which you dare not ask the blessing of God.'"

p. 209.

vested with a crown of righteousness, having made a happy end."

scended. His family was an ancient and respectable one, and he had attained to considerable eminence in England, before he came to this country. He was not only an eminent lawyer, but he had been the Recorder of Southampton, and a member of two several Parliaments. He arrived in Philadelphia in the summer of 1703, and was the bearer of a letter from William Penn to James Logan, for a copy of which, in the possession of the American Philosophical Society, I am indebted to the kindness of Edward Armstrong, Esq., the Recording Secretary of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.

"The gentleman," writes Penn, "who brings this, is constituted Judge of the Admiralty of Pennsylvania, the Jerseys, and New York, and is yet willing to be my Attorney General to rectify matters in law, and to put you into better methods, in which respect, he is by the judicious here thought to be very able. If you were together, it were for thy advantage in many respects. He is a moderate Churchman, knows the world here, has been in two several Parliaments, and Recorder of Southampton. Only steps abroad to ease his fortune of some of his father's debts he was unwarily engaged for. He is a favorite of Lord Cornbury's father, the Earl of Clarendon. I have granted him a commission for Chief Justice, in case the people will lay hold of

such an opportunity as no Government in America ever had of an English lawyer, and encourage him by a proper salary."

Logan in reply announces the arrival of "Counsellor Mompesson;" and in another letter to Penn some months afterwards, thus speaks of him: "He is ingenious, able, honest, and might be a great blessing to us could we enjoy it." He also suggests that if he could be made Chief Justice by the Queen for Jersey, as well as Pennsylvania, it would be a great encouragement to him, and that he could serve more Provinces than both these in that station.1

The people of Pennsylvania, however, seemed very insensible to the blessing thus tendered them, and were slow in laying hold of this opportunity of having an English lawyer for their Chief Justice.

1 Mompesson's arrival had been heralded by a letter from Penn to Logan, in which he says, "I hope you will have one out shortly, that will be a safer guide and surer footing than ever yet was with you; an ablegrounded lawyer, and a good-tempered, honest, sober gentleman."

Again he writes under date of April 3d, 1703: "If Counsellor Mompesson cannot have a salary from the people as Chief Justice of the Province, for which he is well fitted, then if he were Secretary of the government, (if that post is a clog to thee,)

or, in case of my cousin Markham's decease or refusal, if he were Register General, I should like it for his deserved encouragement."

Samuel Preston writes to a friend in England under date of August 13 1703: "To the no small surprise of Col. Quarry, arrived here as soon or before report, one Roger Mompesson, Judge for the Admiralty, famed as a man of great abilities, free, it is said, from prejudices of party, of integrity, friendly to Gov. Penn, and, as it is thought, like to be a happiness to this place."

He was not sworn into office until April, 1706, and there is no evidence that he ever took his seat on the Bench.1 The administration of justice was at this time, and for many years afterwards, in a very unsettled state in Pennsylvania, and the people, as Logan says in one of his letters to Penn, had become "so superlatively honest," that there was little business for the Courts to do; so that the Chief Justice had not much hope of mending his fortune in that Province. In the mean time Lord Cornbury, the son of his friend and patron, had been appointed Governor of New Jersey and New York, and at once made him the Chief Justice of both those Provinces; which office he continued

1 The following are extracts from the minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, published by order of the Legislature, in 1838.

At a Council held at Philadelphia the 17th of April, 1706. "The Governor acquainted the Board that the Proprietor had, by Judge Mompesson, sent over his warrant directed to Col. Hamilton, to pass a commission under the great seal, constituting the said gentleman Chief Justice of this Government; but that Col. Hamilton being deceased before his arrival, it could not then be done, and it has been to this time deferred; but that at length the said Judge has been pleased to accept of it, though the present encouragement be but very slender and no way inviting, yet it may

be reasonably hoped, since the country has now made some provision for the support of government, they will not fail likewise to provide for the administration of justice in the Courts, and especially take care to lay hold on so good an opportunity offered them."

The Governor then ordered a Commission, appointing the said R. Mompesson Chief Justice, to be read, which being done, the Chief Justice took the usual oaths.-2 Pro. Min., p. 287.

No provision, however, seems to have been made for the administration of justice; and Mompesson was obliged to be content with acting as the Chief Justice of New York and New Jersey.

to fill during the whole of Cornbury's administration. He became his principal adviser in all matters of law, and was no doubt the author of that Ordinance to which reference has already been made. All cotemporary authorities agree in representing him to have been a man of much ability, and great learning in his profession. And when we remember that he was an English lawyer, and presided for so many years over the Courts of New York and New Jersey, we shall have less difficulty in accounting for the fact, of the close resemblance, which has until recently existed in the judicial systems of these States, and their general conformity to the practice of the Courts of Westminster Hall.

Of the private life and character of the Chief Justice, unfortunately, little can now be known; but in the political transactions of the times, he played a somewhat conspicuous, and not a very creditable part. He was not named as one of the Council in the Instructions of Lord Cornbury, but he soon became a member of the Board, probably in the place of Lewis Morris, who had been expelled by the Governor for his refractory conduct. And certainly, a more pliant and submissive councillor than Mompesson, Lord Cornbury could not have desired.

All who are at all familiar with the history of

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