Droits of Admiralty.

An Account of Monies Received as Droits of the Crown and Droits of the Admiralty; and of the Manner in which the same have been applied from the 21st day of February, 1817.

Note. The difference between the amount of Payments and Receipts arises from the Balances existing at the commencement of the Accounts, and from the Interest of Exchequer Bills, in which those Balances have from time to time been invested.

Whitehall, Treasury Chambers,

29th May, 1818.

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C. ARBUTHNOT.

LAW is an excellent thing, when cheaply, impartially, and speedily administered; and its professors too are excellent men, when they act independently of all sinister influence: neither intimidated by power, misled by ambition, nor swerved from the honest discharge of their functions by the love of gain. The Judges are almost without excuse when they fail to discharge their duties conscientiously and independently: they are dependent on no superior authority: they hold their situations during their lives, unless guilty of some flagrant outrage; it is only, therefore, the paltry hope of preferment, and not the danger of losing their present honours, that in any case can bias their decisions. Hitherto the people liave had full confidence in their wisdom and integrity, unless when the interests of government were involved; but lately there has been witnessed such extraordinary scenes, that the people must now begin to despise them, not only for their ignorance, but their slavish devotion to the existing authorities. We of course allude to what has taken place since the Proclamation of the Prince Regent. It does not belong to our publication to discuss the politics of the day; but we may properly notice the effect proceeding from these abuses in our legal system, which it is the object of this article to investigate. To show the entire subserviency of the judicial authorities to the Crown, we shall first insert an extract from the Prince Regent's Proclamation, and then some curious passages from the addresses of the Judges to the Grand Juries.

"And we do urge and command all sheriffs, justices of the peace, chief magistrates of cities, boroughs, and corporations, and all other magistrates throughout Great Britain, that they do, within their respective jurisdictions, make diligent inquiry, and bring to justice the author and printer of such wicked and seditious writings as aforesaid, `ad all who shall circulate the same; and that they do use their best endeavours to bring

Expense of the Administration of Justice.

to justice all persons who have been or may be guilty of uttering seditious speeches and harangues, and all persons connected in any riots or unlawful assemblies; which, on whatsoever pretext they may be grounded, are not only contrary to law, but dangerous to the most important interests in the kingdom.”—Prince Regent's Proclamation, July 30th.

This was blowing the conch of war. No sooner was the ministerial bulletin issued, than it was re-echoed back from the grand juries, the judges, the magisterial, and all the judicial authorities in the kingdom. Some, in their zeal not to come short of the spirit and tenour of the proclamation, immediately began to sabre the people; others, equally zealous, expatiated on the indescribable blessings of debt and taxation; representing them as having supplied the rich with their capital, and the poor with all their comforts and enjoyments; and, altogether, there was exhibited such a mass of absurdity, sheer ignorance, and servility, that it is impossible but the people should now despise and mistrust those, whom heretofore they had looked upon with a considerable portion of respect and confidence. If they have fallen in the estimation of the people, as they unquestionably have, the fault is clearly their own, in openly appearing to the eye of the most stupid observer, the devoted advocates of the present plundering and deluding system. That the public may have a just estimate of the characters of those appointed to administer the laws, we shall now insert a few extracts from the addresses of the Judges to the Grand Juries in different counties, and also from the addresses of the Grand Juries: they will afford a memorable record of their ignorance and servility.

"It was a favourite opinion with many that taxation was the cause of all the distress experienced in any part of the country; but if it could be shown that the lower classes derived their employment and comforts from taxation, it could not be fairly alleged they were produced by taxation. It was undeniable that the prosperity of the country had increased in exact correspondence with the increase in the national debt. About forty millions annually were, by means of the national debt and taxation, circulated through the country, affording capital for great undertakings, creating credit and confidence, and diffusing among all classes industry and wealth.”—Mr. Justice Bailey's Address to the Grand Jury at York.

"GENTLEMEN OF THE GRAND JURY.-I feel that I should be unfit for the dignified situation I hold, if I did not address you upon a subject which almost solely engages the public attention, and greatly agitates the entire country. I allude to those measures which have recently called forth from his royal highness the Prince Regent a proclamation in consequence of numerous bodies of people having met ogether under the specious pretexts of obtaining what they call a radical reform in the

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houses of parliament, but which, in reality, is neither more nor less than an intention of pulling down the ancient institutions of the country, and wresting from us our only glorious security-the constitution as established by our forefathers. By numbers I have said, and not by talents or respectability, have meetings of the most seditious nature been held throughout the country, where, by the most artful addresses, the misguided have been inflamed into the reception and dissemination of the most dan gerous doctrines; the principle of which seems to be, that the mass of the people are not duly represented in the great houses of the nation, and that in fuct the members of the legislature have sold, or are daily selling the birth-rights and privileges of the people for their own private interest or some other base purpose."-Mr. Justice Garrow to the Grand Jury of Surrey.

"We, the Grand Jury of the county palatine of Chester, at the assize holden at Chester, on the 1st day of September, 1819, feel it incumbent at this time to declare our indignation at the machinations of artful and itinerant demagogues, who disseminate papers of the most dangerous and seditious tendency at public meetings; with freedom in their mouths, and fraud and plunder in their hearts, employ the most inflammatory language; insidiously inculcate, under the specious veil of reform, hatred and contempt of our constitution; and instigate the ignorant, and unwary even to phys sical force (that is violence and open arms) for the enforcement of their visionary claims, at once useless to themselves, destructive of the rights and property of their fellow subjects, and involving the whole country in one general ruin."-Address of the Grand Jury of Chester.

"Gentlemen,-I am fearful they are grasping at something beyond their professions, that they are spreading abroad the pernicious principle that the PROPERTY OF THE RICH inhabitants of the country ought to be divided amongst its entire population. Such are the Utopian schemes they wish to propose to their followers; but, thank heaven, it has always been the boast of England, that what has been gained by honest industry, every man should quietly enjoy and transmit to his children."-Chester Assizes ; "Attorney General's Address on a Trial for Riot at Macclesfield.

These are the precious fruits of the Regent's proclamation, The first observation that must occur to every one, is the connexion betwixt a mere proclamation of ministers, and the duties of the judges, magistrates, and grand juries of the country. We may suppose that these gentlemen had already been discharging their duties according to law; what new powers could they derive from the manifesto of Sidmouth and Castlereagh? This document could not make that a crime which was not crime before; it could create no new law, nor give any new power to the judicial authorities. If the meetings of the people were lawful and peaceable, it could not render them unlawful and riotous; if the productions of the press were neither libellous nor seditious, they could not be rendered such by any ministerial dictum. What new powers then were given by this proclama

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tion? What connexion was there betwixt this proclamation and the administration of justice? Why should the magistrates and judges, in consequence of this ministerial edict, all at once alter their proceedings both towards the public press, and the people? Their duties and powers were already prescribed by the law of the land; and neither the authority of the Regent nor his ministers could alter them. But what was still more illegal and unconstitutional, the judges of the land-men holding their situation for life, solely that they may be independent of the Crown-making a royal proclamation the foundation for their proceedings in a court of justice, and of their advice and directions to the grand juries of the counties.

Let us now examine the speeches of the Judges more in detail. We shall not enter into any verbal analysis of the passages we have extracted, but merely endeavour to show their general principle and tendency. To the reader it must be clear, that the object of all the speakers was first to render the people of this country contented under the present iniquitous system, by convincing them it was better than any thing which could be substituted in" its place; and secondly, to alarm the middling classes by inculcating the belief, that reform was a mere pretext-that the people ultimately designed the overthrow of the monarchy; the subversion of property; the entire dismemberment of the social fabric; and, in fact, a renewal of all the chimerical projects and unfortunate excesses which tarnished the glories, and partly frustrated the objects of the French revolution. The last is the great object of all the hirelings of the press, and the adherents of abuse: they labour incessantly to alarm the rich, the timid, and the imbecile classes of the community; the Reformers ought to be indefatigable in their efforts to circumvent their base artifices, to refute their never-ceasing calumnies, and show the whole world that they seek to establish no new form of government, nor the violation of the rights and property of any class of individuals.

Of Bailey's speech it is unnecessary to say much. It affords the most, memorable instance of either judicial ignorance or base servility on record. What! taxation not the cause of the distresses of the people! Why, what then, Mr. Bailey, is the cause of their privations? Is it the want of industry, ingenuity, a fine soil, or favourable seasons? Nay, the learned Judge represents the burdens of the people as one great source of their comforts and prosperity. Will the trading and farming classes, or even country gentlemen, adopt this monstrous paradox? Will they believe that the payment of one-third of their incomes for the maintenance of placemen and pensioners, and to discharge the interest of the borough debt, is the means by which capital and employment are created, and the comforts of the working classes