evidence so proper as the constant exercise of jurisdiction in the place in question, where that sort of evidence can be had." "You observe, gentlemen, the indictment charges that he was present, aiding and abetting the murder; and, therefore, however instrumental you may suppose him to have been in procuring the death of Sir John, by carrying him on board and treating him there in the manner you have heard, yet, if you have not evidence to induce you to believe that he was present, aiding and abetting at the murder, he will not be guilty on this indictment. But, gentlemen, you must not be deceived by the mere sound of words. It is not necessary, in order to render a person guilty as a principal in murder or other felony, that he should be in the same room, or on the very spot where the fact is committed, or even in sight or hearing of it: if he be engaged in the design, and posts himself at the time of execution in a proper station to give assistance, if need be, or to prevent a surprise, whereby the persons actually committing the fact are encouraged in the perpetration of it, he is in the eye of the law present, aiding and abetting, and equally a principal in the fact with those who actually commit it. An instance or two may make this rule better understood.-If several persons agree to commit a murder on the highway, or in the open fields, and one party of them undertakes to see the fact committed; the others disperse themselves to their several stations, and stand upon the watch to prevent a surprise: they are all equally guilty, and in the eye of the law present at the fact. So, if a number of people agree to commit a murder, and to that end break into a house, and then disperse themselves into several rooms; or if any of the company stand without, and keep the door while the murder is committed within, they are all equally guilty, and in the eye of the law present. Nay, though the original intention might be barely to commit a robbery, yet, if in prosecution of that design a murder is committed, the whole company, those who stood upon the watch, as well as

those who committed the fact, are all equally guilty, and principals in the murder. And, therefore, gentlemen, if, upon the evidence which has been given, you believe that the prisoner Goodere did stand at the door of the purser's cabin while the murder was committed, in order to encourage those within in the perpetration of the fact, or to prevent any assistance which might have come, you must find him guilty."

In the case of Timothy Murphy, where an attempt was made by an attorney, named Goddard, to put an innocent man (Nooks) to death, for a crime which Goddard's client had committed, an endeavour was made to exclude the evidence of Nooks, as the person falsely accused, in the prosecution of the real offender. In this case the objection was at once and peremptorily overruled, and the reasoning of Mr. Pratt, afterwards Lord Chief Justice, entirely adopted by the Court: "This I take to be a clear maxim and ground of law, and universal, that every man in this kingdom is a competent witness on behalf of the Crown, unless he is convicted or attainted of some scandalous offence," &c.

So the evidence of the accomplice in the crime of forging a will was admitted to prove, that he had forged the will by the prisoner's direction. In this case, as the character of the witness had been assailed, it was held that witnesses might be called to establish it.

In the trial of McDaniel and others, the law as to accomplices is admirably laid down by Mr. Justice Foster. Mr. Hume Campbell cited the instance of Tarquin (liv. 1. 54), as of an accessory before the fact. Pedantry could go no further. A question had been made as to the evidence of fear; Mr. Justice Foster says, "Suppose a man stunned before he is aware, supposing him overpowered after a desperate resistance, is the robber to escape? The law will presume fear in odium spoliatoris,' an expression borrowed from the Canon law." If such manly sense were common in 1836, in our judicial investigations, felons would not have been allowed to

escape, because the word wilfully or the word feloniously was left out of the indictment. It deserves to be mentioned, however, as an instance of the enlightened and philosophical principles on which justice was administered in England, that these prisoners, being indicted afterwards for a conspiracy of which they were convicted, were sentenced to the pillory; in which one of them was killed on the spot, and another so dangerously wounded by the brutalized rabble that his recovery was judged impossible. The punishment of the pillory was not, however, abolished, but was still suspended over the heads of those who wrote against the Government. De Foe (c) and Shebbeare (d) both underwent it, for writings not nearly so acrimonious as those of Swift; Horne Tooke might have suffered it: and it was reserved for Lord Ellenborough to inflict on his political adversaries. If we combine this punishment, which left the fate of petty offenders to the discretion of the lowest ruffians, with the prerogative reserved to the hangman, of tempering justice with mercy, or of inflicting, as he actually did on a learned and amiable man, convicted of high treason (e) in 1745, the most horrible tortures in the case of more important criminals, we may, perhaps, doubt whether in any country the path of the lower classes was beset with more snares, or, melancholy as it (c) "Earless on high stood unabashed De Foe." A line more disgraceful to Pope than to its object.

"One of these writers, the fellow who was pilloried, I forget his name, is so grave and sententious a writer, there is no bearing him." Swift's Sentiments of a Church of England man. This was De Foe.

(d) "De Foes! Shebbeares!

Hark to my call, for some of you have ears."

Heroic Epistle to Sir W. Chambers.

(e) In 1817, Sir Samuel Romilly's bill for altering the horrible punishment of high treason, was rejected by a majority of 63, out of 113. This is an excellent proof of the progress of legislation among us. The consequence of our laws was, that in the last century it was safer to undertake a long journey by sea, than to travel ten miles from London. The nation was thoroughly demoralized. "If I am to be assaulted, pillaged, and plundered, if I can neither sleep in my house, nor walk in the streets, nor travel in safety, is not my condition equally bad, whether a

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is to confess the disgraceful fact, whether ignorance of all that it was most incumbent on them to know, and indifference to the well being of those over whom it was their immediate duty to watch, ever displayed itself more unequivocally among any legislators, than those to whom, during three-fourths of the last century, the interests of this country were committed (f).

This country presented the contrast of the evils that result from excessive corruption in one class, with those which the lowest brutality alone could generate in the other. The upper classes were corrupt, without refinement; the middle gross, without good humour, and the lower brutal, without honesty (g). And as I have reached the period to which this testimony applies, I will now quote the words of a man who was himself a lawyer, and an active magistrate, as well as a man of comprehensive thought, and almost unequalled knowledge of human nature. Fielding ascribes (and, I doubt not, with great truth) the increase of crime to the absurd laws of evidence. "There is no branch of the law," he says, "more bulky, more full of confusion and contradiction, I had almost said absurdity, than the law of evidence as it now stands. One rule of this law is, that no man interested shall dragoon or a robber be the person who assaults and plunders me.” Fielding's Increase of Robbers, vol. 10, p. 349. Shaw dwells on the miserable condition of the poor at this time, and doubts whether to ascribe it to the "natural inbred cruelty of the English, for which we are so famous," or the intolerance of our sects. Fielding admits our inhospitality to foreigners, and the scandalous condition of the poor. Vol. 10, p. 376.

(f) See Fielding's Works, vol. 10, p. 10.

A modern glossary:

Judge,

Justice.}

An old woman.

Knave.. The name of four cards in every pack.

Patriot.. A candidate for a place at Court.

Riches.. The only thing on earth that is really desirable.

Virtue, } Subjects of discourse.

(g) See the Chapter on Hats, in Fielding's Jonathan Wild, which is worthy of Lucian or Cervantes.

be sworn as a witness. By this is meant pecuniary interest (we might suppose he had just been reading the Sussex case); but are mankind governed by no passion but avarice? Are not pride, hatred, and the other passions, as powerful tyrants in the mind of man? And is not the interest which these passions propose to themselves, by the enjoyment of their object, as powerful a motive to evil as the hope of any pecuniary interest whatever” (h)?

(h) Fielding's Amelia, Chap. 2. But the fourth of the same work contains a picture still more hideous of our institutions, which, for the lower classes, must have been almost the worst in Europe. "The case of this poor man is unhappy enough. He served his country, lost his limb, and was wounded at the siege of Gibraltar; he was apprehended and committed here on a charge of stealing; he was tried and acquitted,indeed his innocence manifestly appeared at the trial,—but he was brought back here (jail) FOR HIS FEES, and here he has lain ever since." Is not this as bad as the lettres de cachet, and the Bastille, and the Inquisition ?