verdict, and yet provide for an honest one, as well as possible. It was brought into Great Britain by the AngloSaxons, to whose government and laws it might have been better adapted than to ours; it certainly was to their religion. They were heathens, among whom the obligation of an oath could neither have been so sacred nor so binding as among Christians, truly such. When they became Christians they were too tenacious of their old customs and privileges, to lay this form aside, though the necessary unanimity on the one hand, and the dreadful obligation of an oath on the other, rendered it then so inconvenient. The sufferings of the English under the Norman kings, among which we may reckon as chief, the abolition of their ancient laws, which had been lately reduced to a body by Edward the Confessor, were so great, that they thought themselves happy in the restitution of them by the charter of Henry the First. At such a juncture, had there been greater defects than this we are complaining of (and greater are scarce possible) they would have made no scruple of embracing them, accompanied with their ancient liberties and laws.

Thus the petty jury, as we now have it, being introduced piece by piece, came down to us as a part of our constitution; and as it was always supposed to be the chief foundation of the people's privileges, it was not to be expected that the people should desire to see any alterations made in it. Though if it can be shewn that its form is such as exposes the bulk of the people to the iniquity and oppression of their petty tyrants, more than it guards them against the power of the crown, they will have but little reason to glory in it as the basis and bulwark of their privileges.

To effect this, it will be sufficient to prove by experience, and from its own nature, that it has the strongest tendency to render perjury and partiality familiar to the commons in general, and to exclude those from sitting as jurors, whose consciences are not to be corrupted by any means. For wherever this is the case, wherever oaths are made light of, and common honesty despised, wherever good and honest men, whose consciences are governed by religion, are shut out from the administration of the laws, and the administration left only to such as have nothing to consider but how to

serve themselves, or those who can serve them again, there privileges, and liberties, and rights are a mere jest. The great man, or the ruling party disposes of every thing at discretion.

But to the first point, viz. That a petty jury tends strongly to render perjury and partiality familiar to the commons in general, or the people. It is a constant practice, when any one dissents from the opinion of his brother jurors, first to endeavour to reduce him by the strongest arguments they can offer; if those do not take effect, the next expedient is teizing; if conviction and conscience still hold out (and in reason and charity those ought to be supposed as the principles of an opposition so very inconvenient and prejudicial to himself), then he is to be represented to the world as a wretch of the most perverse and crooked disposition, as stiffened by a bribe, or partial to the wrong side against justice and his oath; in short, as a man with whom business cannot be done, nor measures taken. This character is fixed on him as a brand by which other sheriffs are warned to avoid him, and his countrymen so frightened, that no body cares to be on the same jury with him again. Besides, as he can serve nobody, nobody will serve him. As he has opposed the reigning interest, it will not fail to oppose him, whenever it is his misfortune to have any business of his come before a jury. All these considerations, added to hunger, cold, confinement, and darkness, beat strongly against his conscience. He must be a little hero to bear up and combat such a frightful muster of almost every thing that can hurt him in this life. There is nothing more rare than such a spirit. Notwithstanding all the difficulties in the way of unanimity, arising from diversity of opinion, and the solemnities of an oath, we see the difficulties and terrors just now mentioned, on the other side, prevail so over them, as to bring the jury (unless it be once in a thousand times that they stay out a little while for decency's sake) to a ready and cheerful agreement. Business is dispatched, and right settled, with almost as much expedition, as if the determination were lodged in the breast of one single man; and we are agreeably surprised to see causes of the most doubtful and difficult nature, decided in a few minutes by twelve men, any two of whom could find

matter of many hours dispute in any ordinary controverted point, where neither their discernment is awakened by an oath, nor their caution by a sense of justice. That the desire of doing justice should make one less scrupulous, and an oath less conscientious, is surprising; or that where there are more scruples, there should be fewer doubts; where more conscience, less debate and disquisition, is what from a knowledge of mankind, one would not expect. Nor indeed are those causes of nicety and dispute in all other cases, the causes of agreement in this; no, in this they are no causes at all; they do not interfere; they are superseded by the fear of being outlawed, in the manner mentioned above, or by a willingness to court the reigning interest. These principles are to be thanked for all that harmony with which our differences are decided by petty juries. The ends these aim at are well known and easily agreed upon.

As soon as any one has once or twice made a sacrifice of his conscience to the aforesaid considerations, he is then qualified for business, he neither thinks perjury nor partiality such odious or such terrible crimes as he took them for at a distance; he is prepared to use them on other occasions as well as on a jury, whensoever his own interest or the service of his friends, which to him (generous man!) are the same thing, shall require it. His conscience, a little refractory at first, being now backed and bitted by his interest, trudges on quietly through thick and thin, and is so very tame, that it will, without wincing in the least, suffer him now and then to take up a friend behind him in a dirty road. This gentleman thus qualified, and with this happy turn to business shews a particular zeal for the service of his country. He is never wanting to the sheriff nor his friends. You see him bustling and squeezing forward into the eye of the court, ready to answer aloud to his name, and catching at the book, when he comes to be sworn, with an eagerness that shews he has the business of the county at heart.

Now as almost all our squires and freeholders take their turns to sit on the public business as petty jurors, so they have all an opportunity of qualifying themselves as aforesaid. I submit it now to all the candid and observing,

whether a petty jury may not be looked on as the nursery and school of all our country law-jobbers, and county politicians, as the source of almost all that shameless partiality, impious perjury, and cruel oppression, under which the country groans; and of all those monstrous verdicts especially, with which the petty juries of one county have surprised and shocked even those of another.

Again, this same constitution of the petty jury, while it, as it were with one hand scatters the contempt of justice and an oath among the people, with the other drives away the honest and the conscientious from the administration of our laws and the service of their country. It must be great resolution indeed, and such as few men are masters of, that can encourage an honest man to make one on a petty jury, when he knows, that if he should dissent from the interest that is to govern the rest, he is to be made the public mark of calumny, that his reputation, and his fortune, if it is liable, are to be worried by the den of lions, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and whose tongue is a sharp sword. Few men would care to run into the miserable dilemma, either to act against their consciences, or to bring on themselves the persecution of the county in which they live. For this reason it is that honest and scrupulous men absent themselves from the public business, and choose to be fined rather than incur a much greater evil, which they have so just reason to fear, the clashing of their consciences, and the constitution of the petty jury will bring upon them. By this means the fine, that was in-. tended for the public good, becomes a tax upon conscience and common honesty, commodities so rare that I believe the duty on them brings but little into the treasury of any county. An honest man who keeps a shop, or deals in any kind of retail, whose business and trade depends upon the number of his customers, is more especially concerned to shun an assizes, if there be any cause to be brought on above the trial of a pickpocket; because he is more dependent on his character, and on the good or ill-will of his neighbours, than people in any other kind of business. Nor is the loss of this class of men to justice a small one, because, of all kinds of men, capable of being on a petty jury, from the country squire to the five pound farmer, there

are none, generally speaking, so rational or conscientious as the merchants, none on whom the welfare of the nation does so much, or so immediately depend, none therefore who are both so well qualified for, or so justly entitled to, the administration of law and justice.

Can any country be more unhappy than one in such a situation as this, with meddlers, and time-servers, and party-men, to say no worse, and worse need not be said, to execute its laws, and distribute justice? And can any thing be plainer than that the form and constitution of a petty jury is principally in fault? Let every one judge now whether, in a place, where self-interest, avarice, and corruption prevail, the rich, and the cunning must not have the management of every thing. It is not possible that there should be common privileges or a public good where honesty is wanting, because conscience being thrust out of play, and interest, the only principle, the only spring and motive of all that passes, power must be bought and sold, must inevitably fall into the hands of a few, who are able to purchase it. By this means that share of power, which by our constitution is vested in the commonalty, is as effectually taken out of their hands as if there were but one will in the nation. In some counties the government, which ought of right diffusively to belong to the whole body of the people, is collected and shared by two or three, who associate to dispose of it, as seems best to themselves, without being diverted from their schemes, or maiming their measures by weak scruples about justice. Among these, however, justice is sometimes done, and the people admitted to some share in affairs by the mutual jealousies, and the frequent contentions among their leaders. When the great ones fight for the power, the people, under their feet, sometimes catch up such parcels of it as fall in the scramble. There are but two sides of a question, so that when those in power are divided, the stronger party must take one side, and sometimes it happens luckily to be the right one. In other counties the administration is purely monarchical. There is one person who can carry any thing. Whoever has a point to gain must have his assistance, and in lieu of it engages his whole interest, and his most vigorous services to that person. And as this either was, is, or may be the