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Lord Bute; when we find, as was the case under the last minister, an English government, when we were at war with France, actually urging the French ministers to send better Generals against us, that they might have some excuse for surrendering advantages which our blood and treasure had been employed to purchase,—we feel grateful to Sir Robert Walpole, and acknowledge that the government of a Whig oligarchy is better than that of a Jacobite favourite. England was indeed given up to an oligarchy at this time—an oligarchy in great measure, as is proved by the immortal writings of Fielding and of Richardson, independent of the law. But that law, in return, lay with crushing weight upon the lower classes (t). During this century the English legislator wrote with the pen of Draco. To cut down a young sapling in a pleasure ground; to break down the mound of a pond; to steal to the value of twelve pence from the person, were capital offences. The last law-I mention the fact because it illustrates the spirit and genius of our legislation-kept its place in our statute book, thanks to our lawyers, our judges, and our representatives, from the time of Henry the First to that of George the Fourth. At the time when Blackstone wrote, one hundred and sixty of the actions that men are daily liable to commit, were visited with capital punishment. And these sanguinary laws, proposed, carried, and acted upon on the spur of an immediate impulse, without foresight and without reason, by our aristocracy, a body shamelessly indifferent to the morality and comfort of the people, always mistaking a love of detail (which in truth is hardly ever united with manly wisdom and statesmanlike capacity) for practical ability,—were passionately supported by all the judges and Court lawyers, who often witnessed their effects, till the reign of George the Fourth. And yet we obstinately persevere in applying exclusively to the judges on questions of Law Reform! though experience has

(t) The execution of Lord Ferrers is an exception which proves the rule. Count Horn, under the Regent Orléans, was broken alive upon the wheel, though connected with almost every reigning House in Europe.

shewn that, in most cases, to ask a judge or a Crown lawyer to reform the law, is to ask the Pope to abandon transubstantiation. In the mean time, have we any right to complain that a people, under the combined effect of so many demoralizing influences as were paramount in England during the last century, neglected by the Church, oppressed by the law, corrupted by the example of their superiors,-should become sordid, stupid, and ferocious? Sir Robert Walpole's main object was to keep power: he preferred his present interest to his future fame; he connived at every abuse, and distrusted all reformation. "He never," said his ablest follower, "would give the least encouragement to any emendation either of the law or the Church, though the expense and hardship of the first, and the tyranny and injustice of the last in the Ecclesiastical Courts, were got to an excess wholly unjustifiable and almost insupportable. From this way of reasoning, he opposed the inquiry into the South Sea affair,-the bill to vacate the infamous sale of Lord Derwentwater's estate,-the examination of the House of Commons into the affairs of the charitable corporations, and abuses in the gaols."

The Act of Settlement, which may be considered the cornerstone of our constitutional law, and which was passed after the death of the Duke of Gloucester had destroyed all hopes of issue from the Princess Anne, made the judges immoveable. This most important measure, which, such is the servile ignorance of the English vulgar, has been incessantly ascribed, in episcopal sermons, in reviews, and in other productions of waiters on Providence, to George the Third, with as much truth as the abolition of the slave trade, of which he was the unflinching partizan,—was in reality carried during the reign of our illustrious Deliverer. It is true that he had rejected, by a most unhappy exercise of the prerogative, a bill containing a similar provision in 1692; but to whatever cause this was owing, it certainly must not be attributed to any wish of exercising any sort of improper influence over the judges.

The patents of all William's judges ran, "dum bene se gesserint." Nor was there ever a time when the Crown abstained more scrupulously from all interference with our tribunals. It would have been well for England and the administration of justice if this could be said with truth, either during the period we are now entering upon, or even during the early part of the present century. We have not always had, and it would be unreasonable to expect that we always shall have, men like Lord Denman at the head of the common law.

That an inferior race of judges were now presiding in our Courts, appears from the trials of this time, and, I may remark, that the character of the judges is no bad test for that of the practitioners,-as emptiness (for that, I believe, is the right translation) calls on emptiness, mediocrity encourages mediocrity. A technical, prosaic judge, dreads, dislikes, and endeavours to stifle any symptom of genius. The trial of Layer took place before Pratt, a man whom his high station has not redeemed from insignificance, and who contrived by his pedantic folly to give the air of a martyr to a man who was in reality condemned on very conclusive testimony. The prisoner was brought to the dock in irons,—a piece of mere wanton brutality.

Prisoner.-"I hope, my Lord, the irons shall be taken off.” L. C. J.-"They shall now be taken off."

It then appeared, that owing to the irons, the prisoner had not been able to give his counsel any instructions before eleven on the preceding night. It might be thought that natural justice, where a man's life was at stake, required the delay of the trial. The Chief Justice, however, contents himself with making the profound remark, "It was an omission." Some discussion arising as to whether the jury should be called over in such a way as to give the prisoner the full benefit of his challenges, Pratt remarks, "It is dangerous to make a precedent,

AN INNOVATION."

A witness was to call the statement made by the prisoner

before the Privy Council. It was shewn, that the prisoner's statement had been taken down, but had not been read over to him. The prisoner's counsel objected.

Pratt, C. J.-"You seem to mistake what it is that is contended by the King's counsel. They are not going to offer anything to be read in evidence. Your objection would prevail if they were going to read a confession as evidence, which was neither read to nor signed by him. But if there is no examination reduced into writing, and signed by the party, the consequence is, that the witness is at liberty to give an account of what was said, and he may look to his notes to refresh his memory You say there is no precedent for it: for God's sake recollect yourself; it is done every day at the Old Bailey."

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An attempt was made to impeach the character of one of the witnesses for the Crown, by proof of a particular fact. This was not allowed. The Chief Justice said, "You know what the rule of practice and evidence is when objections are made to the credit and reputation of a witness, you cannot charge him with particular facts. For, if that were allowed, it would be impossible for a man to defend himself."

This rule has continued, subject to one seeming exception. In cases of rape, where the prosecutrix denies criminal intercourse with the prisoner, or immoral conduct, such as endeavouring to attract men in the public street, evidence may be called to contradict her, because such evidence is said to bear upon the question before the Court.

Layer was convicted and executed.

In the same plot with Layer, a person was implicated of far greater importance, the famous Francis Atterbury, the idol of the High Church party, a graceful writer, an accomplished scholar, a restless intriguer, a quarrelsome bishop, an intolerant unbeliever, and a dishonest man. With every concession to the violence of party spirit, and the laxity of morals which it is apt to engender, when zeal in a particular

cause atones for every other crime, the disregard of truth in this man, bishop and partizan as he was, is really astonishing. He must have taken oaths over and over again with intent to violate them; and before the House of Lords he persevered, with surprising hypocrisy, in assuming the airs of injured innocence, and in solemnly denying facts, which not only the evidence, though not such as a Court of justice would act upon, and his subsequent conduct, but recent publications, prove beyond all shadow of question, to be true. The Stuart papers shew that his correspondence with the Pretender was close and intimate, and his letters contain declarations of unalterable fidelity and allegiance to the ruler, whom he had repeatedly called God to witness, that he renounced, and with whom he protested, before his peers, that he never had any communication. His defence, however, was feeble, and far

below his reputation.

The case of Atterbury illustrates the necessity of the occasional interference of Parliament to chastise guilt, which Courts of justice cannot reach. The rules of Courts of justice must be constructed with a view to the general wants of society, and a Court of justice that, using a jury as an instrument, should act upon the evidence which established, beyond the possibility of doubt, the guilt of Atterbury, would expose to hazard the lives and liberties of the most innocent of mankind. To call upon juries to appreciate hearsay, to observe where it is, and where it is not, corroborated by circumstances that are confessed, to unravel the tangled web that artifice has spun, to trace under all its disguises the hidden thread, which is the clue to the prisoner's guilt, would be to require from them far more discernment and penetration than they possess. Fortunately for mankind it is not often that guilt has time, or reflection, or cunning enough to shroud itself in so much artifice. In this case, the bishop had dictated the letters containing the treasonable correspondence to a person named Kelly, and he had used various cyphers; the key to the

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