and fober fun&tions of the Recorder of the City of London. We allude to the period when the mania of Wilkes and Liberty" had in fome degree influenced the whole kingdom; and whofe epidemic rage had, in a peculiar manner, infected the metropolis. A very large majority of the Livery efpoufed every meature that was brought forward in oppofition to Government. The lower claffes, too fond of uproar, fupported the fame principle; and the Corporation itself became at length fubject to the predominating influence. The Sheriffs were felected from among thofe Citizens who were the moft violent in fupport of Oppofition measures; and men, totally unconnected by their fituations and characters with the City, purchased their freedom, and took up their livery, in order to take upon themfelves thefe troublesome and expensive offices. The ordinary rotation of the Court of Aldermen was infringed to elect fuch of its members to the Chief Magiftracy, who were the partizans and fupporters of Mr. Wilkes and his caufe.

In this ftate of civil difcord, the Recorder gave his opinion with firmness and understanding; but he could only give his counfel, and paffively fubmit to the majority of the Corporation. At length, a Remonftrance to the Throne was propofed and carried in a Court of Common Council, which contained fuch opinions, that the Recorder peremptorily refufed to exercife his official functions on the occafion. He reprefented it as enforcing doctrines which he should ever oppole, and expreffed in a language unfit for the Sovereign to hear. He was therefore determined not to be the organ by which his Majefty fhould receive íuch an infult.

Sir James Hodges, the Town Clerk, fupplied the place of the Recorder on this occafion. He was a fenfible conceited man, who had been a Bookfeller on London Bridge, and whofe oratory in the Common Council had raised him to his fituation. The office gratified his vanity, and has fecured to him a renown, which few Bookfellers have derived from works not published by themselves: it has caufed his name to be recorded in the Letters of Junius.

The refolution of the Recorder was, however, attended with confiderable mortification and fome danger. He was fun moned to justify his conduct before the Common Council, and his fpeech on that occafion was not calculated to avert the vote of cenfure which followed it. He

was not only treated with great acrimony, but it was in the view of the powerful party to deprive him of his office. They, however, contented themselves with holding him forth, not only in their speeches, but in publications and caricatures, as an offenfive character, and a City Mob at that time was a very unpleasant enemy.

In the temper and difpofition of Administration at this period, fuch conduct was certain of a reward; and the Recorder was, in the year 1772, appointed a Baron of his Majefty's Exchequer. In a fhort time fubfequent to his poffeffion of the ermine, on a question proposed to the Twelve Judges by the House of Lords, Baron Eyre was diftinguished by his argument on that occafion. That he conducted himself with honour and ability in his judicial ftation, appears from his fucceffive advancements. In 1787, he fucceeded that able Lawyer and excellent man Sir John Skynner, as Chief Baron of his own Court. On the refignation of Lord Thurlow in 1792, he was appointed First Commiffioner of the Great Seal; and on the removal of Lord Loughborough, in the fucceeding year, to the Chancery Beach, he fucceeded that Noble Judge as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.

As his judicial life was one sober feries of official employment, in which no extraordinary events called forth an extraordinary application of mind or know. ledge, his reputation is confined to the regular fcene of public duty. It may, perhaps, be thought that his appointment to prefide at the State Trials, in London, is an exception to the foregoing obfervation. It was indeed a very im portant charge; nor do we mean to dif parage his useful qualities or acknowledged integrity, by expreffing our opi nion concerning it. Whether it arofe from his fuperior view of the cafe, an haraffed mind, or what he conceived to be a difcreet accommodation to the cir cumitances of the moment, we do not pretend to determine but it appeared to us that he did not refift the bold irregu larities of Horne Tooke as Sir Michael Fofter would have refifted them.

In private life, Lord Chief Justice Eyre difplayed the qualities which rendered him estimable among those who were fo happy as to be within their influence. He has, however, left them to lament him, and is gone to wait the awful fummons to that tribunal where the Judges of the earth will receive judg

ment.

curitate perfonæ noftræ Regiæ et exitus noftri, fecundario pro tranquillitate et defenfione ecclefiæ Chrifti infra Regnum noftrum Angl. et tertio pro bono publico, pace et tranquillitate Regni noftri prædicti ac Dominorum et nobilium, et tocius

Communitatis ejufdem cujufcunque gradus et condicionis exiftant, nec non in evitatione effufionis fanguinis Chriftiani profpicere conftringimur,licet propinquitas janguinis, et internus et teneris amor quem ad præfatum Georgium in teneri atate fua babuimus et jerebamus, nos ad contrarium naturaliter movent et exhortant."

We, confidering that justice is an excellent virtue, by it kingdoms profper, Kings and Princes reign and govern, thereby all good rule, policy, and the public welfare are maintained and fupported, which virtue, fo acceptable to God himself, we intend, as we ought, to follow and practife in preference to any other carnal affection and the more fo, as we are bound by the tie of confcience, and liable, from our folemn appeal to God, to perpetual damnation ; firft, we are obliged to provide for the fecurity of our royal perfon, and of our iffue; fecondly, for the tranquillity and defence of Chrift's Church, within our kingdom of England; and thirdly, for the fafety of the public weal, the peace and quiet of our aforefaid kingdom, and of the Lords and Nobility, and of the whole community, of every degree and condition; and lastly, in order to avoid the fhedding of Chriftian blood; notwith(tanding the nearness of † propinquity, and the internal and tender love which we had and bore to the aforefaid

George in his infancy, his crimes now naturally induce and provoke us to act the contrary part.

When the reader is made acquainted with the inftances of unmerciful feverity in the reign of Edward IV. and not only unmercifully fevere, but the fufferers perfectly innocent, and confequently in no ways deferving punishment, much less death; among whom is the above mentioned George Duke of Clarence, the King's own brother; he will perhaps be inclined to confider the reafons affigned, though affigned by the Monarch himself, for awarding execution against the Duke, as a very futile attempt in extenuation of one of the most cruel fratricides ever recorded.

John Earl of Oxford, a wife, prudent, and valiant peer, with his fon Aubry de Vere, Sir Thomas Teddingham, William Tyrrel, and Walter Montgomery, Efqrs. were, without ever being called to answer for themfelves, attainted of treason by, the Parliament convened in the first year of his reign, viz. A. D. 1462.

Fuller fays, it was agreed upon that Sir Thomas || Cooke, late Lord Mayor of London, and Knight of the *+ Bath, a man of great eftate, fhould be accufed of treafon; and that King Edward IV. by private inftructions to the Judge, appeared fo far interested, that though Sir Thomas was not, he must be found guilty;. and if the law was too fhort, the Judge, muft ftretch it to the purpofe: and accordingly an *‡ oyer determiner was kept in the Guildhall of the city of London, the / day of Á, D. 1467, A. R. 7. Edw. IV. in which fat with

The Duke was the King's own brother.

the

The confequence of this measure was as had been forefeen: the wretched mariners made every exertion to gain the land to which they fuppofed the benevolent light directed; and, after dafhing from rock to rock, and fuffering elementary terror more dreadful than even death itself, the veffel went to pieces, and every foul on board perished.

On the coaft of Glamorganfhire, in the year 1783, a ship was in the fame manner enticed upon the rocks, but not foundering immediately, the deteftable monfters* that had Jured the unfortunate failors to deftruction came on board, murdered those whom the tempeft had fpared, and plundered the faid vellel of the molt va-, luable part of her cargo.

Another inftance of Coast Cruelty, of a much later date, is recorded in the public papers of May 28, in an article dated from Southampton, May 25, 1799, in the following words:

"We are forry to ftate the lofs of his Majesty's fchooner Les Deux Amis, of 16 guns, Wilfon, mafter, bound from Jersey to Portfmouth. The weather being very thick, fhe ftruck upon a funken rock near Grange Chine, the back of the Ifle of Wight, at which place the General Goddard Indiaman was loft a few years Eince. Her mafts were cut away, and every means used to get her off; but the gale increafing, all endeavours proved in effectual.

"There were on board feveral paffengers of diftinction, who, together with

the Captain and crew, with the greateft difficulty faved their lives, the fea running very high, and they being expofed to the fury of the waves in a small boat.

"The peafantry, on this little veffel's reaching the fhore, began plundering the Gentlemen of every thing which they had faved from the wreck, and feemed to confider whatever they could lay hold of as a lawful prize. In fact, had it not been for Captain Green and the officers of the North Hants militia, who, on the firft intimation being given them of the plun dering inhabitants, lined the coast with a ftrong detachment, no part of the property, nor perhaps the lives, of the owners would have efcaped from the nefarious hands of thefe inhuman wretches."

Thefe three inftances out of an immenfe number which, as has been already flated, might be adduced, may perhaps be fufficient to fhew that the barbarous (for I have too much refpect for the benevolent people of Pelew to term it favage) ferocity, for which the inhabitants of our coafts have from the earliest ages been remarkable, has not much abated.

Ireland, Cornwall, and Wales, have been long upon record for this fpecies of infubordination and incivilization. Their remote fituation, remote from the metropolis, has been ftated as a reason, and fometimes as an excufe, for the brutality and the plundering propenfities of the peafants, and of the lower clafs of people in thofe places: but what fhall we fay with respect to the commiffion of thofe enormities on the coaft of Hampshire, within one hundred miles from the centre of Government, of Politeness, of Arts, and Commerce? Or what shall we fay to the depredations committed upon the Banks of the Thames, and in the metropolis itfelf? Nay, if we generally condider the manners and morals of that very

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