The Percy Anecdotes: |
THE severity of the laws of Draco is proverbial; he punished almost all sorts of faults with death; and was hence said by Demades 'to have written his laws, not with ink, but with blood.' To steal an apple was with him a crime of as deep a dye, as to commit sacrilege; even 'confirmed idleness' was punished with death. On Draco himself being once asked, 'Why he punished such petty crimes with death?' he made this severe answer: 'That the smallest of them did deserve that, and that there was not a greater punishment he could find out for greater crimes.'
A tragedy by Eschylus was once represented before the Athenians, in which it was said of one of the characters, 'that he cared not more to be just, than to appear so.' At these words all eyes were instantly turned upon Aristides, as the man who, of all the Greeks, most merited that distinguished character. Ever after he received, by universal consent, the surname of the Just, a title, says Plutarch, truly royal, or rather truly divine. This remarkable distinction roused envy, and envy prevailed so far as to procure his banishment for ten years, upon the unjust suspicion, that his influence with the people was dangerous to their freedom. When the sentence was passed by his countrymen, Aristides himself was present in the midst Of them, and a stranger who stood near and could not write, applied to him to write for him in his shell. 'What name?' asked the philosopher. 'Aristides ' replied the stranger. 'Do you know him then?' said Aristides, 'or has he in any way injured you?' ' Neither,' said the other, 'but it is for this very thing I would he were condemned. I can go nowhere but I hear of Aristides the Just.' Aristides inquired no further, but took the shell, and wrote his name in it as desired.
The absence of Aristides soon dissipated the apprehensions which his countrymen had so idly imbibed. He was in a short time recalled, and for many years after took a leading part in the affairs of the republic, without showing the least resentment against his enemies, or seeking any other gratification than that of serving his country with fidelity and honour. His disregard for money was strikingly manifested at his death; for though he was frequently treasurer as well as general, he scarcely left sufficient to defray the expenses of his burial.
The virtues of Aristides did not pass without reward. He had two daughters, who were educated at the expense of the state, and to whom portions were allotted from the public treasury.
Aristides being judge between two private persons, one of them declared that his adversary had greatly injured Aristides. 'Relate rather, good friend,' said he, interrupting him, 'what wrong he hath done thee for it is thy cause, not mine, that I now sit judge of.'
Being desired by Simonides, the poet, who had a cause to try before him, to stretch a point in his favour, he replied, 'As you would not be a good poet, if your lines ran contrary to the just measures and rules of your art; so neither should I be a good judge or an honest man, if I decided aught in opposition to law and justice.'
Anacharsis was wont to deride the endeavours of Solon, whose code of law superseded the bloody one of Draco, to repress the evil passions of his fellow-citizens with a few words, which, said he, 'are no better than spiders' webs, which the strong will break through at pleasure.'
'So like a fly the poor offender dies, But like the wasp, the rich escapes and flies.' DENHAM.
The reply of Solon was worthy of the lawgiver of a refined people. 'Men,' said he, 'will be sure to stand to those covenants, which will bring evident disadvantages to the infringers of them. I have so framed and tempered the laws of Athens, that it shall manifestly appear to all, that it is more for their interest strictly to observe, than in anything to violate and infringe them.'
While Athens was governed by the thirty tyrants, Socrates, the philosopher, was summoned to the Senate House, and ordered to go with some other persons, whom they named, to seize one Leon, a man of rank and fortune, whom they determined to put out of the way, that they might enjoy his estate. This commission Socrates positively refused. 'I will not willingly assist in an unjust act.' said he. Charicles sharply replied, 'Dost thou think, Socrates, to talk in this high tone and not to suffer?' 'Far from it,' replied he, 'I expect to suffer a thousand ills, but none so great as to do unjustly.'
Phocian, the Athenian general, never suffered domestic or private views to interfere with the public interest. He constantly refused to solicit any favour even for those most nearly allied to him. His son-in-law, Charicles, being summoned before the republic on a suspicion of having embezzled the public money, Phocion addressed him in these admirable terms: 'I have made you my son-in-law, but only for what is just and honourable.'
Mysias, the brother of Anigonus, King of Macedon, solicited him to hear a cause, in which he was a party, in his chamber. 'No, my dear brother,' answered Antigonus, 'I will hear it in the open court of justice; because I must do justice.'
Among the laws which Diocles gave to the Syracusans, there was one which enacted, 'that no man should presume to enter, armed, into an assembly of the people; in case any should, he was to suffer death.' One day an alarm was given of an enemy approaching, and Diocles hastened out to meet them, with his sword by his side. On the way he was informed that the people, indifferent to their common danger, had assembled to talk sedition in the forum; and, forgetting all inferior circumstances in his zeal for the public safety, he stepped, armed as he was, into the midst of the assembly, intending to use his best endeavours to recall them to a sense of their duty; but before he could address them, one of the busiest of the factious called out, 'that Diocles in arms among the people, had broken the laws which he had himself made.' Diocles, struck but not confounded, turning towards his accuser, replied, with a loud voice, 'Most true; nor shall Diocles be the last to sanction his own laws.'. On saying this, he drew his sword, and falling on it, expired.
A fate precisely similar is recorded of Charondas, the law-giver of the Thurians.
When the disgrace of Lucretia, daughter of Brutus, by the eldest son of Tarquinius Superbus, was known in Rome, the people determined to shake off the tyranny by which they were oppressed, and drive the proud and cruel monarch from the throne of which he had proved himself so unworthy. Brutus, as Captain of the Guards, called an assembly, in which he expatiated on the loss of their liberty, and the cruelties they suffered by the usurpation and oppressive government of Tarquin. The whole assembly applauded the speech, and immediately sentenced Tarquin, his wife and family, to perpetual banishment. A new form of government was proposed; and after some difficulties it was unanimously agreed to create in the room of the king, two consuls, whose authority should be annual. The right of election was left to the people, and immediately they chose Brutus and Collatinus consuls, who swore for themselves, their children, and posterity, never to recall either Tarquin or his sons, or any of his family, and that those who should attempt to restore monarchy, should be devoted to the infernal gods, and immediately put to death.
Before the end of the year a conspiracy was formed, in which many of the young nobility were concerned, and among the rest the two sons of Brutus the consul. Their object was to restore the Tarquins; and they were so infatuated by a supernatural blindness, says Dionysius, as to write under their own hands, letters to the tyrant, informing him of the number of conspirators, and the time appointed for despatching the consuls.
A slave of the name of Vindicius became acquainted with their designs, and gave information to the consuls, who immediately went with a strong guard, and apprehended the conspirators and seized the letters.
As soon as it was day, Brutus ascended the tribunal. The prisoners were brought before him, and tried in form. The evidence of Vindicius was heard, and the letters to Tarquin read; after which the conspirators were asked if they had anything to urge in their defence. Sighs, groans, and tears, were their only answer. The whole assembly stood with downcast looks, and no man ventured to speak. This mournful silence was at last broken with slow murmurs of Banishment! Banishment! But the public good which predominated over the feelings of a parent, urged Brutus to pronounce on them the sentence of death.
Never was an event more capable of creating at the same time feelings of grief and horror. Brutus, father and judge of the two offenders, was obliged by his office to see his own sons executed. A great number of the most noble youths suffered death at the same time, but the rest were as little regarded as if they had been persons unknown. The consul's sons alone attracted all eyes; and while the criminals were executing, the whole assembly fixed their attention on the father, examining his behaviour and looks, which in spite of his sad firmness, discovered the sentiments of nature, which he could not entirely stifle, although he sacrificed them to the duties of his office.
In the year 1526, James Lynch Fitzstephen, a merchant, who was at that time Mayor of Galway in Ireland, sent his only son as commander of one his ships to Bilboa, in Spain, for a cargo of wine. The credit which he possessed was taken advantage of by his son, who secreted the money with which he was entrusted for the purchase of the cargo; and the Spaniard who supplied him on this occasion, sent his nephew with him to Ireland to receive the debt and establish a farther correspondence. The young men, who were nearly of the same age, sailed together with that apparent confidence and satisfaction which congenial pursuits generally create among mankind. The ship proceeded on her voyage, and as every day brought them nearer the place of destination., and the discovery of the fraud of young Fitzstephen, he conceived the diabolical resolution of murdering his friend; a project in which, by promises of reward and fear, he brought the greatest part of the ship's crew to join. On the night of the fifth day, the unfortunate Spaniard was violently seized in his bed and thrown overboard. A few days more brought the ship to port. The father and friends of young Fitzstephen received him with joy, and in a short time bestowed a sufficient capital to enable him to commence business.
Security had now lulled every sense of danger, he sought the hand of a beautiful girl, the daughter of one of his neighbours.
His proposals were accepted, and the day appointed which was to crown his yet successful villany, when one of the sailors who had been with him on the voyage to Spain was taken ill, and finding himself on the point of death, sent for the father, and communicated a full account of the horrid deed his son had committed. The father, though struck speechless with astonishment and horror, at length shook off the feelings of the parent, and exclaimed, 'Justice shall take its course.' He immediately caused his son to be seized with the rest of the crew, and thrown into prison. They all confessed their crime - a criminal prosecution was commenced, and in a few days, a small town in the West of Ireland beheld a sight scarcely paralleled in the history of mankind; a father, like another Brutus, sitting in judgment on his son! and like him too, condemning him to die as a sacrifice to public justice! --A father consigning his only son to an ignominious death, and tearing away all the bonds of paternal affection, where the laws of nature were violated, and justice demanded the blow! -- A father with his own lips pronouncing that sentence which left him childless, and at once blasted for ever the honour of an ancient and noble family! 'Were any other but your wretched father your judge,' said the virtuous magistrate, 'I might have dropped a tear over my child's misfortunes, and solicited his life though stained with murder; but you must die. These are the last drops which shall quench the spark of nature; and if you dare hope, implore that heaven may not shut the gates of mercy on the destroyer of his fellow creature.' Amazement sat on the countenance of every one. The fellow citizens of the inflexible magistrate, who revered his virtues and pitied his misfortunes saw with astonishment the fortitude with which he yielded to the cruel necessity, and heard him doom his son to a public and ignominious death.
The relatives of the unhappy culprit surrounded the father, they conjured him by all the ties of affection, of nature, and of compassion, to spare his son. His wretched mother flew in distraction to the heads of her own family, and conjured them for the honour of their house, to rescue her from the ignominy the death of her son must bring upon their name. The citizens felt compassion for the father; affection for the man; every nobler feeling was roused, and they privately determined to rescue the young man from prison during the night, under the conviction that Fitzstephen having already paid the tribute due to justice and to his honour, would rejoice at the preservation of the life of his son. But they little knew the heart of this noble magistrate. By some accident their determination reached his ear; he instantly removed his son from the prison to his own house, which he surrounded with the officers of justice.
In the morning he partook with his son the office of the holy communion; after giving and receiving a mutual forgiveness, the father said, 'You have little time to live, my son, let the care of your soul employ the few moments; take the last embrace of your unhappy father.'
The son was then hung at the door of his father, a dreadful monument of the vengeance of heaven, and an instance of the exercise of justice, that leaves everything of the kind in modern times at an immeasurable distance.
The father immediately resigned his office; and after his death, which speedily followed that of his son, the citizens fixed over the door of the house a death's head and cross bones carved in black marble, to perpetuate the remembrance of this signal act of justice.
Tarpeia, the daughter of Tarpeius, the keeper of the Roman capitol, agreed to betray it into the hands of the Sabines, on this condition, 'that she should have for her reward, that which they carried upon their left arms, meaning the golden bracelets they wore upon them. The Sabines having been let in by Tarpeia, according to compact, Titius, their king, though well pleased with carrying the place, yet detesting the manner in which it was done, commanded the Sabines to give the fair traitor her promised reward, by throwing to her all they wore on their left arms; and therewith unclasping his bracelet from his left arm, he cast that, together with his shield, upon her. All the Sabines following the example of their chief, the traitoress was speedily overwhelmed with the number of bracelets and bucklers heaped upon her, and thus perished miserably under the weight of the reward which she had earned by the double treachery to her father and to her country.
An exchange of captives was agreed on between Fabius and Hannibal, and he that had the fewer in number, was to pay a piece in money, as the ransom of the remainder. Fabius informed the senate of this compact, and that on counting numbers it was found that the Roman captives exceeded by two hundred and forty the Carthaginian. The senate, however, refused to ratify the agreement, and withal reproached Fabius for doing so little honour to the Roman name, as to agree to free men whose cowardice had made them the slaves of their enemies. Fabius received the rebuke with calmness, convinced at the same time in his own mind, that however just it might be, there was something still more just in being faithful to an engagement, deliberately made by a public officer, on the public behalf. His private purse was not at the moment affluent enough to discharge the stipulated ransom, but rather than deceive Hannibal, he sent his son to Rome, with instructions to sell all his lands, and to return with the money to the camp. Young Fabius did so; the ransom of the Roman prisoners was paid; and the patriot general, by thus sacrificing his fortune to his honour, gave his character one more claim to that immortality which numberless great and good acts have conferred upon it.
M. Portius Cato raised himself many enemies by his stern and inflexible integrity, his honesty in doing right to the injured, and his severity in punishing offenders. He spared no man, nor was a friend to any one who was not so to the commonwealth. More than fifty accusations were successively brought against him; yet, by the common suffrage of the people, he was always declared innocent, and that not by the power of his riches or the interest of his friends, but by the justness of his cause. Cato was also as wise as he was just; for, being accused again in his old age, he requested that Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, one of his chief enemies, might alone sit in judgment upon him. This was granted, the cause of complaint examined into, and Gracchus pronounced him innocent. From a result so corresponding to the noble confidence shewn by Cato, he lived ever after in equal glory and security.
The boast of Portius Cato, that he had been fifty-one times tried and acquitted, though extraordinary enough, was greatly exceeded by that of the Athenian Aristophon, who prided himself in having been ninety-five times cited and accused before the public tribunals, and in every instance pronounced innocent.
Augustus Caesar was once sitting in judgment when Mecaenas was present, who, perceiving that the emperor was about to pass sentence of death on a number of persons, endeavoured to get up to him; but, being hindered by the crowd, he wrote on a piece it paper, 'Tandem aliquando surge, carnifex?' 'When are you going to rise, hangman?' and then threw the note into Caesar's lap. Caesar immediately rose without condemning any person to death; and far from taking the sarcastic admonition of Mecaenas amiss, he felt much troubled that he had given cause for it.
The emperor Trajan would never suffer any one to be condemned upon suspicion, however strong and well grounded; saying it was better a thousand criminals should escape unpunished, than one innocent person be condemned. When he appointed Subarranus Captain of his Guards, and presented him according to custom with a drawn sword, the badge of his office, he used these memorable words: 'Pro me, si merear, in me:' 'Employ this sword for me, but if I deserve it, turn it against me.'
Trajan would not allow his freedmen any share in the administration. Notwithstanding this, some persons having a suit with one of them of the name of Eurythmus, seemed to fear the influence of the Imperial freedom: but Trajan assured them that the cause should be heard, discussed, and decided, according to the strictest laws of justice; adding, 'For neither is he Polycletus, nor I Nero.' Polycletus, it will be recollected, was the freedman of Nero, and as infamous as his master for rapine and injustice.
As Trajan was once setting out from Rome, at the head of a numerous army, glittering in all the pomp and circumstance of martial equipment, to make war in Wallachia, and when a vast concourse of people were gathered around to witness the proud spectacle, he was suddenly accosted by a woman, who called out in a pathetic but bold tone, 'To Trajan I appeal for justice!' Although the emperor was pressed by the affairs of a most urgent war, be instantly stopped, and alighting from his horse, heard the suppliant state the cause of her complaint. She was a poor widow, and had been left with an only son, who had been foully murdered. She had sued for justice on his murderers, but had been unable to obtain it. Trajan, having satisfied himself of the truth of her statements, decreed her on the spot the satisfaction which she demanded, and sent the mourner away comforted. So much was this action admired, that it was afterwards represented on the pillar erected to Trajan's memory, as one of the most resplendent instances of his goodness.
Cneius Domitius, tribune of the Roman people, eager to ruin his enemy, Marcus Scaurus, chief of the Senate, accused him publicly of several high crimes and. misdemeanours. His zeal in the prosecution tempted a slave of Scaurus, through hope of a reward, to offer himself privately as a witness. But justice here prevailed over revenge; for Domitius, without uttering a single word, ordered the perfidious wretch to be fettered and carried instantly to his master. So universally was this action admired, that it procured Domitius an accession of honours which he could scarcely have hoped for otherwise. He was successively elected consul, censor, and high priest.
Some soldiers of Gabinius wantonly put to death two sons of M. Bibulus, a person of distinction in the province of Syria. The afflicted father having appealed to Queen Cleopatra for justice on the murderers, she ordered them to be seized and sent to him, to be dealt with as he might see fit. Bibulus did as wisely as generously. He felt that, in private hands, punishment must have degenerated into revenge, and he was of the few who think that to repeat, is not the most rational way to show abhorrence of a deed of brutality. He commanded the culprits to be returned to the queen, thinking it revenge enough to have had the enemies of his blood in his power.
Brutus, the general, having conquered the Patarenses, ordered them on pain of death to bring him all their gold and silver, and promised rewards to such as should discover any hidden treasures. Upon this a slave belonging to a rich citizen, informed against his master, and discovered to a Centurion the place where he had buried his wealth. The citizen was immediately seized, and brought, together with the treacherous informer, before Brutus. The mother of the accused followed them, declaring, with tears in her eyes, that she had hidden the treasure without her son's knowledge, and that consequently she alone ought to be punished. The slave maintained that his master, and not the mother, had transgressed the edict. Brutus heard both parties with great patience, and being convinced that the accusation of the slave was chiefly founded on the hatred he bore to his master, he commended the tenderness and generosity of the mother, restored the whole sum to the son, and ordered the slave to be crucified. This judgment, which was immediately published all over Lycia, gained him the hearts of the inhabitants, who came in flocks to him from all quarters, offering of their own accord the money they possessed.
What a noble contrast does the conduct of Brutus form, to the base cruelty which disgraced the reign of James II. on an occasion not very dissimilar. During Monmouth's rebellion, one of his followers, knowing the humane disposition of a lady of the name of Mrs. Gaunt, whose life was one continued exercise of beneficence, fled to her house, where he was concealed and maintained for some time. Hearing, however of the proclamation which promised an indemnity and reward to those who discovered such as harboured the rebels, he betrayed his benefactress; and such was the spirit of justice and equity which prevailed among the ministers, that the ungrateful wretch was pardoned, and recompensed for his treachery, while his benefactress was burnt alive for her charity towards him.
The temple of Juno at Sparta was once robbed, and an empty flagon found, which had been left by the robbers. Much conjecture arose among the crowds who resorted to the temple, on the circumstance being known, when one man affecting to be wiser than the rest, said, his opinion, respecting the flagon, was, that the robbers had first drank the juice of hemlock before they entered the Temple, and had brought wine with them in the flagon, to drink in case they escaped being caught in the fact, wine being known to counteract the effect of the poison; but that should they be taken and suffer the hemlock to operate, they might die an easy death, rather than suffer the execution of the law. The company on hearing this, shrewdly inferred, that such an ingenious device could not come from one that barely suspected the matter, but from actual knowledge of the circumstance. Upon this they crowded about him, and inquired who he was? whence he came? who knew him? and how he had come to the knowledge he had stated? His answers were equivocal, and being closely pressed, he at last confessed that he was one of the men that had committed the sacrilege.
At Delft, a servant girl was accused of being accessary to the robbery of her master's house, on a Sunday, when the family were gone to church. She was condemned on circumstantial evidence, and suffered the severe punishment, allotted by the laws of Holland to servants who rob their masters. Her conduct whilst confined, was so exemplary, and her conduct had stood so fair previous to the imputed offence, that her master not only interceded to shorten her imprisonment, but received her again into his service.
Some time had elapsed after her release, when a circumstance occurred, which led to the detection of the real criminal, and consequently to the complete vindication of her innocence.
It happened as she was passing through the butchers' market at Delft that one of them, tapping her on the shoulder, whispered in her ear some words of very remarkable import. She instantly recollected having used these very words on the fatal Sunday of the robbery, while she was surveying herself in a glass in her dressing room, and when, as she supposed, no one was near. With a palpitating heart she hastened to her master, and told him what had occurred. He was a magistrate, and immediately instituted an inquiry into the circumstances of the suspected person, from which it appeared that he had suddenly got up in the world subsequent to the robbery, nobody could tell how. This circumstance was deemed sufficient to justify a search being made, and the measures of the police were so arranged, that it was made at one and the same time in his own house, and that of his nearest kindred. The result was, that various articles which had been stolen from the magistrate's house, at the time the maid servant had been accused, were found and taken away.
It seems that the robber had concealed himself in the turf-solder, or garret where the turf was stowed away, adjoining which was the servant's chamber; and whilst the poor girl was dressing, the villain overheard the words which led to his detection, effected the robbery, and got off unperceived.
He was broken alive upon the rack, and the city gave a handsome portion to the sufferer, by way of compensation for the wrongs she had suffered.
Philip of Macedon, rising from an entertainment at which he had sat some hours, was addressed by a woman who begged him to hear her cause. He complied with her request immediately, but upon her saying some things that were not very agreeable to him, he gave sentence against her. The woman promptly but calmly replied, 'Then I appeal.' 'How,' said Philip, 'from Your king? to whom then?' 'To Philip when fasting,' said the woman. The manner in which he received this answer was worthy of a great prince. He afterwards gave the cause a second hearing, found the injustice of his sentence, and condemned himself to make it good.
The same monarch being urged to use his influence with the judges in behalf of a person whose reputation would be quite lost by the sentence which was going to be pronounced against him, said, 'I had rather that the man should lose his reputation by an act of justice than that I should forfeit mine by violating it.'
One of the officers of Artaxerxes, King of Persia, of the name of Artibarzanes, solicited his majesty to confer a favour upon him, which, if complied with, would be an act of injustice. The king, learning that the promise of a considerable sum of money was the only motive that induced the officer to make such an unreasonable request, ordered his treasurer to give him thirty thousand dariuses, being a present of equal value with that which he was to have received. 'Here,' says the king, giving him an order for the money, 'take this token of my friendship for you; a gift of this nature cannot make me poor, but complying with your request would render me poor indeed, since it would make me unjust.'
Nouschirvan, King of Persia, being hunting one day, became desirous of eating some of the venison in the field. Some of his attendants went to a neighbouring village, and took away a quantity of salt to season it, but the king, suspecting how they had acted, ordered that they should immediately go and pay for it. Then, turning to his attendants, he said, 'This is a small matter in itself, but a great one as it regards me; for a king ought ever to be just, because he is an example to his subjects; and if he swerves in trifles, they will become dissolute. If I cannot make all my people just in the smallest things, I can at least show them that it is possible to be so.'
Cambyses, King of Persia, was remarkable for the severity of his government, and his inexorable regard to justice. The prince had a favourite of the name of Sisamnes, whom he made a judge, but who presumed so far on the credit he had with his master, that justice was sold in the courts of judicature as openly as provisions in the market. When Cambyses was informed of these proceedings, enraged to find his friendship so ungratefully abused, the honour of his government prostituted, and the liberty and property of his subjects sacrificed to the avarice of this wretched minion, he ordered him to be seized and publicly degraded, after which he commanded his skin to be stripped over his ears, and the seat of judgment to be covered with it, as a warning to to others. At the same time, to convince the world that this severity proceeded only from the love of justice, he permitted the soli to succeed his father in the honours and office of prime minister, cautioning him that the same partiality and injustice should meet with a similar punishment. It is remarked of his successor, that he was one of the most upright judges that ever existed, but on many occasions he was observed to wriggle very much in his seat.
Juvenalis, a widow, complained to Theodoric, King of the Romans, that a suit of hers had been in court three years, which might have been decided in a few days. The king, being informed who were her judges, gave orders that they should give all expedition to the poor woman's cause, and in two days it was decided to her satisfaction. Theodoric then summoned the judges before him, and inquired how it was that they had done in two days what they had delayed for three years? 'The recommendation of your majesty,' was the reply. 'How,' said the King, 'when I put you in office, did I not consign all pleas and proceedings to you? You deserve death for having delayed that justice for three years, which two days could accomplish;' and, at that instant, he commanded their heads to be struck off.
The haughty Solyman, Emperor of the Turks, in his attack on Hungary, took the city of Belgrade, which was considered as the bulwark of Christendom. After this important conquest, a woman of low rank approached him, and complained bitterly that some of his soldiers had carried off her cattle, in which consisted her sole wealth. 'You must then have been in a deep sleep,' said Solyman, smiling, 'if you did not hear the robbers.' 'Yes, my sovereign,' replied the woman, 'I did sleep soundly, but it was in the fullest confidence that your highness watched for the public safety.'
The emperor, who had an elevated mind, far from resenting this freedom, made the poor woman ample amends for the loss she had sustained.
The Emperor Camki, of China, being out hunting, and having strayed from his attendants, met with a poor old man, who wept bitterly, and appeared much afflicted for some extraordinary disaster. He rode up to him, and inquired the cause of his distress. 'Alas! sir, 'replied the old man, 'though I should tell you the cause of my distress, it is not in your power to remedy it.' 'Perhaps, my good man, I may serve you,' replied the emperor, upon which the man told him that all his sufferings were owing to a governor of one of the emperor's pleasure houses, who had seized upon a small estate of his near the royal house, and had reduced him to beggary. Not contented with this inhuman treatment, he had forced his son to become his slave, and thus robbed him of the only support of his old age.
The emperor was so affected with this speech, and so fully resolved to punish a crime committed under the sanction of his authority, that he determined on immediately accompanying the old man to the governor, but not knowing to whom he spoke, the old man remonstrated on the danger of such a mission; and being unable to dissuade him from it, pleaded his inability to keep pace with the emperor, who was mounted. 'I am young,' answered the emperor, 'do you get on horseback, and I will go on foot.' The old man not accepting the offer, the emperor took him up behind him, notwithstanding his ragged and filthy appearance, and they soon arrived at the house. The emperor asked for the governor, who, appearing, was greatly surprised, when the prince in accosting him, discovered to him the embroidered dragon, which he wore on his breast, and which his hunting dress had concealed. It happened, as if to render more famous this memorable act of justice and humanity, that most of the nobles, who had followed the emperor in the chase, came up at the time; and before this grand assembly, he reproached the old man's persecutor with his signal injustice; and after obliging him to restore to him his estate and his son, he ordered his head to be instantly cut off. He did more; he put the old man in his place, admonishing him to take care, lest fortune changing his manners, another might avail himself hereafter of his injustice, as he had now of the injustice of the governor.
When Numerius, governor of the Narbonnoise Gaul, was impeached of plundering hie province, he denied the charge and baffled his accusers: on which a famous lawyer cried out to the emperor, 'Caesar, who will ever be found guilty, if it is sufficient for a man to deny the charge?' To which Julian answered, 'But who will appear innocent, if a bare accusation is sufficient?'
Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt, though he had dominions enough of his own, was always ready when occasion offered to make free with those belonging to others. At his return from the siege of Mousul in Syria, without success, he seized the whole lordship of Emessa, in prejudice to the right of Nasir Eddin, the young prince who claimed it.
This he did upon pretence that the father of the youth had forfeited it, by giving countenance to confederacies against the sultan's interest. Saladin, however, ordered that proper care should be taken of the injured prince's education; and being desirous to observe what progress he made in his studies, he one day ordered him to be brought before him, and asked him, with much gravity, in what part of the Alcoran he was reading? 'I am come,' replied the young prince, to the surprise of all who were near him, 'to that verse which informs me, that he who devours the estates of orphans is not a king, but a tyrant.' The sultan was much startled at the turn and spirit of this repartee; but after some pause and recollection, returned the youth this generous answer: 'He who speaks with such resolution, would act with so much courage, that I restore you to your father's possessions, lest I should be thought to stand in fear of a virtue which I only reverence.'
Hakkam, the son and successor of Abdoubrahman Ill., wanting to enlarge his palace, proposed to purchase from a poor woman a piece of ground that lay contiguous to it; and when she could not be prevailed on to part with the inheritance of her ancestors, Hakkarn's officers took by force what they could not otherwise obtain. The poor woman applied to Ibn-Bechir, the chief magistrate of Corduba, for justice. The case was delicate and dangerous, and Bechir concluded that the ordinary methods of proceeding would be ineffectual, if not fatal. He mounted his ass, and taking a large sack with him, rode to the palace of the caliph. The prince happened to be sitting in a pavilion that had been erected in the poor woman's garden. Bechir, with his sack in his hand, advanced towards him, and after prostrating himself, desired the caliph would permit him to fill his sack with earth in that garden. Hakkam showed some surprise at his appearance and request, but allowed him to fill his sack. When this was done, the magistrate entreated the prince to assist him in laying the burden on his ass. This extraordinary request surprised Hakkam still more; but he only told the judge it was too heavy; he could not bear it. 'Yet this sack' replied Bechir, with a noble assurance, 'this sack, which you think too heavy to bear, contains but a small portion of that ground which you took by violence from the right owner. How then will you be able at the day of judgment to support the weight of the whole!' The remonstrance was effectual; and Hakkam without delay restored the ground, with the buildings upon it, to the former proprietor.
Bajazet the First was so incensed at the complaints constantly made to him of the corrupt conduct of his cadis in the administration of justice, that he came to the extraordinary resolution of assembling the whole of them together, and then causing the house in which they were to be set on fire, that they might all be consumed at once, and a lesson be thus given to their successors, on the beauty of being just, which they would not easily forget. Having given a hint of his intention to Hally Bassa, one of his councellors, a man of much prudence and moderation, the latter sought and found out a way to appease him. Bajazet had an Ethiopian boy, whom he took great delight in, and allowed to say whatever he pleased. Hally Bassa having instructed the boy what he should say, sent him in to the emperor, in a habit more gay than was usual with him. 'What is the matter, said Bajazet, 'that thou art thus gallant to-day?' 'I am,' said the boy, 'going from thee to the Emperor of Constantinople.' 'To him, that is our enemy?' replied the prince. 'What wilt thou do there?' 'I am going,' said he, 'to invite some old monks and devotees to do justice amongst us, since you are resolved to have all our cadis slain.' 'But my little Ethiop,' said Bajazet, 'what do they know of our laws?' On this Hally Bassa, who was standing by, reasonably observed, 'They know nothing, my lord; is it not worth while, therefore, to pause before you cut off those that do?' 'Why then,' asked the emperor, 'do they judge unjustly and corruptly?' 'I will discover to my lord the cause of it' said Hally; 'our cadis have no stipend allowed them out of the public treasury; they therefore indemnify themselves out of the purses of the suitors before them; place them above this temptation, and you will have effected the reform you wish.' Bajazet was pleased with the counsel, and commissioned Hally to fix such salaries as he should think fit. Hally accordingly ordered, and it afterwards remained the law, 'that every person who had an inheritance of so many thousand aspers, should, out of every thousand, allow twenty to the cadi of his district; and that for all instruments of marriage and similar contracts he should have twenty more.'
'And so,' says Knowles, 'their poverty was relieved, and justice duly administered.'
A poor man in Turkey claimed a house which a rich neighbour had usurped; he held his deeds and documents to prove his right, but his more powerful opponent had provided a number of witnesses to invalidate them; and to support their evidence more effectually, he presented the cadi with a bag containing five hundred ducats.
When the cause came to be heard, the poor man told his story, and produced his writings, but wanted that most essential and only valid proof, witnesses. The other, provided with witnesses, laid his whole stress on them, and on his adversary's defect in law, who could produce none; he therefore urged the cadi to give sentence in his favour.
After the most pressing solicitations, the judge calmly drew from under his seat the bag of five hundred ducats, which the rich man had given him as a bribe; saying to him very gravely, 'You have been much mistaken in this suit; for if the poor man could bring no witnesses in confirmation of his right, I myself can produce at least five hundred.' He then threw him the bag with reproach and indignation, and decreed the house to the poor plaintiff.
A ship freighted at Alexandria by some Turks, to bring them and their merchandize to Constantinople, met with a violent storm in the passage. The master told those freighters who were on board, that he could not save the ship, nor their lives, but by throwing overboard all the goods on the deck. They consented to the sacrifice, as well for themselves as for other freighters at Constantinople; but when the ship arrived there, they united to prosecute the master for the value of the goods. The Moulah of Galata, before whom he was summoned, had the case fully represented to him, and his deputy, as usual, had the promise of a reward.
When the parties appeared, and the witnesses were examined, the Moulah reflected some time, took down his book, and gravely opening it, told them that the book declared, that the master should pay the true value of those very goods; that is, what the freighters could prove by witnesses any one would give for them, or what they were really worth, on board the ship, at the very moment the master was constrained to throw them into the sea, as the only means by which he could save the lives of his passengers, amongst whom were the persons who now sued him.
The freighters ran out of court to seek witnesses, but the judge, who knew none could be procured, without farther hesitation gave his written decree in favour of the master.
Conflict of Affection and Duty.
A grocer of the city of Smyrna had a son who with the help of the little learning the country could afford, rose to the post of Naib, or deputy of the Cadi; and as such visited the markets, and inspected the weights and measures of all retail dealers. One day as this officer was going his rounds, the neighbours who knew enough of his father's character to suspect that he might stand in need of the caution, advised him to remove his weights; but the old cheat trusting to his relationship to the inspector, laughed at their advice. The, Naib, on coming to his shop, coolly said to him, 'Good man, fetch out your weights that we may examine them.' Instead of obeying, the grocer endeavoured to evade the order with a laugh; but was soon convinced that his son was serious, by his ordering the officers to search his shop, The instruments of his fraud were soon discovered; and after an impartial examination, openly condemned and broken to pieces. He was also sentenced to a fine of fifty piastres, and to receive a bastinado of as many blows on the soles of his feet.
After this had been effected on the spot, the Naib, leaping from his horse, threw himself at the feet of his father, and watering them with his tears, thus addressed him: 'Father, I have discharged my duty to my God, my sovereign, and my country, as well as to the station I hold; permit me now, by my respect and submission, to acquit the debt I owe a parent. Justice is blind; it is the power of God on earth; it has no regard to the ties of kindred. God and our neighbours' rights are above the ties of nature; you had offended against the laws of justice, you deserved this punishment, but I am sorry it was your fate to receive it from me. My conscience would not suffer me to act otherwise. Behave better for the future; and instead of censuring me, pity my being reduced to so cruel a necessity.
So extraordinary an act of justice gained him the acclamations and praise of the whole city, and a report of it being made to the Sublime Porte, the Sultan advanced the Naib to the post of Cadi, and he soon after rose to the dignity of Mufti.
The administration of justice has in more recent times become notoriously and avowedly corrupt in Turkey. The testimony of a Mussulman of the most infamous character is always preferred to that of the most respectable Christian; and the slight disgrace imposed by the law on gross perjury, is seldom, if ever, inflicted in criminal cases; everything depends upon the mere caprice of the judge. The life of man, concerning which no deliberation can be too long, is hastily sentenced away, without reflection, according to the influence of passion, or the impulse of the moment. A complaint was preferred to the vizier against some soldiers who had insulted the gentlemen of the Russian embassy: the vizier made a horizontal motion with his hand, and before the conference was over, seven heads were rolled from a sack at the feet of Prince Repnin. A man, caught in the act of pilfering property during a fire, has been thrown into the flames by order of the vizier. A housebreaker detected in robbery, is hanged up, without process, at the door of the house he has robbed. Shopkeepers, or dealers, convicted of using false weights or measures, are fined, bastinadoed, or nailed by the ear to their own door-post. Punishment, too, is frequently inflicted on the innocent, while the guilty enjoy the fruits of criminality. A Swedish gentleman walking one day in the streets of Constantinople, saw the body of an Armenian hanging from the front of a baker's shop. He inquired of a bystander for what crime the poor wretch had suffered? 'The vizier' said he, 'in passing by early in the morning, stopped and ordered the loaves to be weighed; and finding them short of weight, immediately, ordered the execution of the person in the shop.' 'How severe a punishment for so slight a crime!' 'It was thought severe,' replied the Turk, 'for the Christian was but a servant whose wages were twenty paras a day, and whose master derived the whole benefit from the deficiency in the weight of the bread.' And yet other Armenians had already occupied the vacant place, and were serving the customers with the greatest indifference.
The appellation of common law originated with Edward the Confessor. The Saxons, though divided into many kingdoms, yet in their manners, laws, and languages, were similar. The slight differences which existed between the Mercian law, the West Saxon law, and the Danish law, were removed by Edward with great facility, and without any dissatisfaction; and he made his alteration rather famous by a new name, than by new matter; for, abolishing the three distinctions above mentioned, he called it the Common Law of England, and ordained that no part of the kingdom should be governed by any particular law, but all by one. The common law, as contradistinguished from the statute law, consists of those rules and maxims concerning the persons and property of men, that have obtained by the tacit assent and usage of the inhabitants of this country; the consent and approbation of the people being signified by their immemorial use and practice.
In Plott's 'History of Staffordshire,' we are told that in the reign of Henry III., one Judith de Balsham was condemned for receiving and concealing thieves, and hanged from nine o'clock on Monday morning, till sunrise on Tuesday following, and yet escaped with life! In evidence of this most incredible story, Plott recites verbatim, a royal pardon granted to the woman, in which the fact is circumstantially recorded. 'Quia Inetta de Balsham pro receptamento Latronum ei imposito nuper, per considerationem. Curie nostre suspendio adjudicata et ab hora nona diei Lune usque post ortum solis diei Martis sequen suspensa, viva evasit sicutex testimonio fide dignorum accepimus.' What can be said against such testimony as this? Nothing perhaps but that the thing is impossible. The days of Henry III. were days of priestly imposture; and there have been grosser juggles in the annals of unholy craft, than hanging a woman for twenty-four hours without killing her!
In the account of Oxfordshire, by the same author, we find a remarkable notice of the woman Greene, who, after being hanged, was recovered by Sir William Petty. [See Anecdotes of Science, p. 519.] The time of suspension, it may be necessary to observe, was not quite so long as that of Judith de Balsham; she hung only about half an hour. 'What was most remarkable,' says Plott, and distinguished the hand of Providence in her recovery, she was found to be innocent of the crime for which she suffered.'
When it was once urged to Lord Chief justice King, that irons were absolutely necessary to safe custody, his lordship, who was of opinion with Bracton, that such a mode of confinement is as contrary to law as to humanity, replied, 'That they might build their walls higher.' The neglect of this legal precaution can certainly be no excuse for the infliction of an illegal punishment. The truth is, as Mr. Buxton justly observes, 'a man is very rarely ironed for his own misdeeds, but very frequently for those of others; additional irons on his person are cheaper than additional elevation to the walls. Thus we cover our own negligence by increased severity on captives.'
In 1782, Lord Loughborough imposed a fine of twenty pounds on the keeper of Norwich Castle, for putting irons on a woman. And yet we are told by Mr. Neild, that on a recent survey of the gaol at Brecon, there were, among other persons, half-starved and cruelly treated, two women, without shoes and stockings, heavily loaded with double irons!!!
Sufferer for Conscience' Sake.
Among the prosecutions for conscience' sake, which disgraced the reign of Henry the Fourth, none is more interesting than that of Air. William Thorpe, a follower of Wickliffe, of which an account, written by himself, is preserved in Fox's 'Acts and Monuments.' It is not only interesting as an apparently authentic record of the proceedings, but as a specimen of the language and manners of the times. The trial took place before Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1407. In the pious exhortations of the Archbishop to this heretic, there is a mixture of argument, and scolding, and swearing, which is altogether very amusing. After a long conference, in which the archbishop seldom condescended to address him by any other appellation than that of 'Lewde Lossel,' he asked him definitively to submit to the ordinances of the church; but receiving only a conditional answer:-'Then the archebishop, striking with his honde ferseylye upon a cupborde, spake to me with a greate spyrite, saying, But yf thou leave soche additions, obliging the now here, without ony excepcion to mine ordinaunce, or that I go out of this place, I shall make the as sure as ony thefe that is in the pryson of Lantern. Advyse the now what thou wilt do.'
And in the same spirit of Christian meekness, his grace concluded by telling Thorpe, ' BY --- I shall settle upon thy shynes a pair of perlis, that thou shalt be gladde to change thy voice.'
Thorpe, resolute in his nonconformity, was committed to prison, and there is no record of what became of him, though it is probable that the worthy archbishop took the humane advice of the bystanders, some of whom mercifully advised his grace to burn him, and others to drown him in the sea.
When Sir Thomas More was lord chancellor in the reign of Henry VIII., he ordered a gentleman to pay a sum of money to a poor woman, whom he had wronged. The gentleman said, 'Then I hope your lordship will grant me a long day to pay it.' 'I will grant your motion,' said the chancellor; 'Monday next is St. Barnabas' Day, which is the longest day in the year; pay it to the widow that day, or I will commit you to the Fleet Prison.'
Louis XI. proposing to cajole his court of parliament of Paris, if it should refuse to publish certain new ordinances which he had made, and the masters of that court being informed of the king's intentions, went to him in their robes. The king inquired their business? 'Sir,' answered the President La Vacquery, 'we are come here, determined to lose our lives, every one of us, rather than by our connivance any unjust ordinances should take place.' The king, amazed at this answer of La Vacquery, and at the constancy of the parliament, gave them gracious entertainment, and commanded that the edicts which he intended to have published should be immediately cancelled in their presence; swearing that henceforth he never would make edicts that should not be just and equitable.
Morvilliers, keeper of the seals to Charles the Ninth of France, was one day ordered by his sovereign to put the seals to the pardon of a nobleman who had committed murder. He refused. The king then took the seals out of his hands, and having put them himself to the instrument of remission, returned them immediately to Morvilliers, who refused to take them again, saying, 'The seals have twice put me in a situation of great honour; once when I received them, and again when I resigned them.'
Louis the Fourteenth had granted a pardon to a nobleman who had committed some very great crime. M. Voisin, the chancellor, ran to him in his closet, and exclaimed, 'Sire, you cannot pardon a person in the situation of Mr. --' 'I have promised him,' replied the king, who was ever impatient of contradiction; 'go and fetch the great seal.' 'But, sire!' 'Pray, sir, do as I order you.' The chancellor returns with the seals; Louis applies them himself to the instrument, containing the pardon, and gives them again to the chancellor. 'They are polluted now, sire,' exclaims the intrepid and excellent magistrate, pushing them from him on the table, 'I cannot take them again.' 'What an impracticable man!' cries the monarch, and throws the pardon into the fire. 'I will now, sire, take them again,' said the chancellor; 'the fire, you know, purifies everything.'
Prince Henry and Chief Justice Gascoigne.
A favourite servant of King Henry V., when Prince of Wales, was indicted for a misdemeanor; and notwithstanding the interest he exerted in his behalf, was convicted and condemned. The prince was so incensed at the issue of the trial, that forgetting his own dignity and the respect due to the administration of justice, he rushed into court, and commanded that his servant should be unfettered and set at liberty. The Chief Justice, Sir William Gascoigne, mildly reminded the prince of the reverence which was due to the ancient laws of the kingdom; and advised him, if he had any hope of exempting the culprit from the rigour of his sentence, to apply for the gracious pardon of the king, his father, a course of proceeding which would be no derogation to either law or justice. The prince, far from being appeased by this discreet answer, hastily turned towards the prisoner, and was attempting to take him by force out of the hands of the officers, when the chief justice, roused by so flagrant a contempt of authority, commanded the prince on his allegiance instantly to leave the prisoner and quit the court. Henry, all in a fury, stepped up to the judgment seat, with the intention, as every one thought, of doing some personal injury to the chief justice; but he quickly stopped short, awed by the majestic sternness which frowned from the brow of the judge as he thus addressed him: 'Sir, remember yourself. I keep here the place of the king, your sovereign lord and father, to whom you owe double allegiance. In his name, therefore, I charge you to desist from your disobedience and unlawful enterprise, and henceforth give a better example to those who shall hereafter be your own subjects. And now, for the contempt and disobedience you have shown, I commit you to the prison of the King's Bench, there to remain until the pleasure of the king, your father, be known.'
Henry, by this time sensible of the insult he had offered the laws of his country, suffered himself to be quietly conducted to gaol by the officers of justice. His father, Henry IV., was no sooner informed of this transaction, than he exclaimed in a transport of joy, 'Happy is the king who has a magistrate possessed of courage to execute the laws; and still more happy in having a son who will submit to the punishment inflicted for offending them.'
The prince himself when he came to be king, speaking of Sir William Gascoigne, said, 'I shall ever hold him worthy of his place, and of my favour; and I wish that all my judges may possess the like undaunted courage to punish offenders, of what rank soever.'
Queen Mary, until her marriage with Philip the Second, appears to have been merciful and humane; for Hollinshed says, that when she appointed Sir Richard Morgan Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, she told him, 'that notwithstanding the old error which did not admit any witness to speak, or any other matter to be heard (her majesty being party), that her pleasure was, that whatsoever could be brought in favour of the subject, should be admitted to be heard; and moreover, that the justices should not persuade themselves to put in judgment, otherwise for her highness than for her subject.'
Persecution for religious opinions assumed the most terrific form in the reign of the sanguinary Mary. Among the proceedings of the furious Bonner, there is none more affecting than the trial of Archbishop Cranmer for treason and heresy. The following extract from the 'State Trials' exhibits a lively portrait of the degradation of Cranmer, and the exulting pride of his enemy:
'Then they invested him (Cranmer) in all manner of robes of a bishop and archbishop, as he is at his installing, saving that as everything then is most rich and costly, so everything in this is of canvas and old clouts, with a mitre and a pall of the same suit, done upon him in mockery, and then the crosier staff was put in his hand.
'This done, after the Pope's pontifical form and manner, Bonner, who, by the space of many years, had borne, as it seemeth, no great good will towards him, and now rejoiced to see this day wherein he might triumph over him, and take his pleasure at full, began to stretch out his eloquence, making his oration to the assembly after this manner of sort.
'This is the man that hath ever despised the Pope's holiness, and now is to be judged by him. This is the man who hath pulled down so many churches, and now is come to be judged in a church. This is the man that condemned the blessed sacrament of the altar, and now is come to be condemned before that blessed sacrament hanging over the altar. This is the man that like Lucifer, sat in the place of Christ upon an altar to judge others, and now is come before all altar to be judged himself.'
The story of Cranmer's recantation signed by him, on a promise of life, which was afterwards violated, is known to all our readers.
After he had signed it, Dr. Cole received secret orders from the court to preach in Cranmer's presence, in one of the churches of Oxford, an anticipation of his funeral sermon. On the day appointed, the archbishop was placed upon a stage in front of the pulpit in a ragged gown, with an old square cap, to hear the sermon, which was performed by Dr. Cole, to admiration. After expatiating on the justice of his sentence, the preacher addressed the audience, and bade them take warning by the fate of so great a man; then directing himself personally to Cranmer, he lauded him for his conversion, and exhorted him to imitate the 'rejoicing' of St. Andrew on the cross, and the 'Patience' of St. Laurence in the fire.
The account of Cranmer's shame and remorse during this edifying harangue, is very pathetic and striking. It is a powerful specimen of old English writing.
'Cranmer in all this meantime, with what grief of mind he stood hearing the sermon, the outward show of his body did better express than any man can declare; one while lifting up his hands and eyes unto heaven, and then again for shame letting them down to the earth. A man might have seen the very image and shape of perfect sorrow lively in him expresssed. More than twenty several times the tears gushed out abundantly, dropping down his fatherly face. They which were present do testify, that they never saw in any child more tears than burst out from him at that time, all the sermon while, but especially when they recited his prayers before the people. It is marvellous what commiseration and pity moved all men's hearts, that beheld so heavy a countenance and such abundance of tears in an old man, and of so reverend a dignity.'
An officer of rank in the army of Louis the Twelfth, of France, having ill-treated a peasant, the Monarch made him live for a few days upon wine and meat. The officer, tired of this very heating diet, requested permission to have some bread allowed him. The king sent for him, and said, 'How could you be so foolish as to ill-treat those persons who put bread into your mouth?'
1. -- A gentleman having been revelling abroad, was returning home late at night; but overcome with wine, he fell down in the street, and lay there in a state of insensibility. Soon after, two persons, who were passing, having quarrelled, one of them observing that the drunkard had a sword by his side, snatched it away, and with it ran his adversary through the body. Leaving the instrument sticking in his wound, he ran off as fast as he could. When the watchman of the night came in the course of his rounds to the scene of this tragedy, and saw one man lying dead, with a sword in his body, and another lying near him in a state of drunkenness, with his scabbard empty, he had no doubt whatever that the crime and the offender were both before him; and seizing the drunkard, he conveyed him to prison.
Next morning he was examined before a magistrate; and being unable to remove the strong presumption which circumstances established against him, he was committed for trial. When tried, he was found guilty; and immediately executed for the murder of which he was perfectly innocent.
The real criminal was some time after condemned to death for another offence; and in his last moments confessed how he had made use of the reveller's sword to execute his own private wrongs.
2. -- In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a person was arraigned before Sir James Dyer, Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, upon an indictment for the murder of a man who dwelt in the same parish with the prisoner.
The first witness against him deposed, that on a certain day, mentioned by the witness, in the morning, as he was going through a close, which he particularly described, at some distance from the path, he saw a person lying dead, and that two wounds appeared in his breast, and his shirt and clothes were much stained with blood; that the wounds appeared to the witness to have been made by the puncture of a fork or some such instrument, and looking about he discovered a fork lying near the corpse, which he took up, and observed it to be marked with the initials of the prisoner's name; here the witness produced the fork in court, which the prisoner owned to be his.
The prisoner waived asking the witness any questions.
A second witness deposed, that on the morning of the day on which the deceased was killed, the witness had risen very early with an intention of going to a neighbouring market town, which he mentioned; that as he was standing in the entry of his own dwelling house, the street door being open, he saw the prisoner come by, dressed in a suit of clothes, the colour and fashion of which he described; that he (the witness) was prevented from going to market, and that afterwards the first witness brought notice to the town of the death and wounds of the deceased, and of the prisoner's fork being found near the corpse; that upon this report the prisoner was apprehended and carried before a justice of peace; that he, this witness, followed the prisoner to the justice's house, and attended his examination, during which he observed the exchange of clothes the prisoner had made since the time he had seen him in the morning; that all the witness charging him with having changed his clothes, he gave several shuffling answers, and would have denied it; that upon witness mentioning this circumstance of change of dress, the justice granted a warrant to search the prisoner's house for the clothes described by the witness as having been put off since the morning; that this witness attended and assisted at the search; that after a nice search of two hours and upwards, the very clothes the witness had described, were discovered concealed in a straw bed. He then produced the bloody clothes in court, which the prisoner owned to be his clothes, and to have been thrust in the straw bed with the intention to conceal them on the account of their being bloody.
The prisoner also waived asking this second witness any questions.
A third witness deposed to his having heard the prisoner deliver certain menaces against the deceased, whence the prosecutor intended to infer a proof of malice prepense. In answer to this the prisoner proposed certain questions to the court, leading to a discovery of the occasion of the menacing expressions deposed to; and from the witness's answer to those questions, it appeared that the deceased had first menaced the prisoner.
The prisoner being called upon for his defence, addressed the following narration to the court, as containing all he knew concerning the manner and circumstances of the death of the deceased. 'He rented a close in the same parish with the deceased, and the deceased rented another close adjoining to it; the only way to his own close was through that of the deceased; and on the day the murder in the indictment was said to be committed, he rose early in the morning in order to go to work in his close with his fork in his hand, and passing through the deceased's ground, he observed a man at some distance from the path, lying down as if dead or drunk; he thought himself bound to see what condition the person was in; and on getting up to him he found him at the last extremity, with two wounds in his breast, from which much blood had issued. In order to relieve him, he raised him up, and with great difficulty set him on his lap; he told the deceased he was greatly concerned at his unhappy fate, and the more so as there appeared reason to think he had been murdered. He entreated the deceased to discover if possible who it was, assuring him he would do his best endeavours to bring him to justice. The deceased seemed to be sensible of what he said, and in the midst of his agonies attempted to speak to him, but was seized with a rattling in his throat, gave a hard struggle, then a dreadful groan, and vomiting a deal of blood, some of which fell on his (the prisoner's) clothes, he expired in his arms. The shock he felt on account of this accident was not to be expressed, and the rather as it was well known that there had been a difference between the deceased and himself, on which account he might possibly be suspected of the murder. He therefore thought it advisable to leave the deceased in the condition he was, and take no further notice of the matter; in the confusion he was in when he left the place, he took the deceased's fork away instead of his own, which was by the side of the corpse. Being obliged to go to his work, he thought it best to shift his clothes, and that they might not be seen, he confessed that he had hid them in the place where they were found. It was true he had denied before the justice that he had changed his clothes, being conscious this was an ugly circumstance that might be urged against him, being unwilling to be brought into trouble if he could help it. He concluded his story with a most solemn declaration, that he had related nothing but the exact truth, without adding or diminishing one tittle, as he should answer for it to God Almighty.'
Being then called upon to produce his witnesses, the prisoner answered with a steady, composed countenance and resolution of voice, 'He had no witnesses but God and his own Conscience.'
The judge then proceeded to deliver his charge, in which he pathetically enlarged on the heinousness of the crime, and laid great stress on the force of the evidence, which, although circumstantial only, he declared he thought to be irresistible, and little inferior to the most positive proof. The prisoner had indeed cooked up a very plausible story; but if such or the like allegations were to be admitted in a case of this kind, no murderer would ever be brought to justice, such deeds being generally perpetrated in the dark, and with the greatest secrecy. The present case was exempted in his opinion from all possibility of doubt, and they ought not to hesitate one moment about finding the prisoner guilty.
The foreman begged of his lordship, as this was a case of life and death; that the jury might withdraw; and upon this motion, an officer was sworn to keep the jury locked up.
This trial came on the first in the morning, and the judge having sat till nine at night expecting the return of the jury, at last sent an officer to inquire if they were agreed on their verdict. Some of them returned for answer, that eleven of their body had been of the same mind from the first, but that it was their misfortune to have a foreman, who, having taken up a different opinion from them, was unalterably fixed in it. The messenger had no sooner gone, than the complaining members, alarmed at the thought of being kept under confinement all night, and despairing of bringing their dissenting brother over to their own way of thinking, agreed to accede to his opinion, and having acquainted him with their resolution, they sent an officer to detain his lordship a few minutes, and then went into court, and by their foreman brought in the prisoner not guilty.
His lordship could not help expressing the greatest surprise and indignation at this unexpected verdict; and after giving the jury a severe admonition, he refused to record the verdict, and sent them back again with directions that they should be locked up all night without fire or candle. The whole blame was publicly laid on the foreman by the rest of the members, and they spent the night in loading him with reflections, and bewailing their unhappy fate in being associated with so hardened a wretch. But he remained inflexible, constantly declaring he would suffer death rather than change his opinion.
As soon as his lordship came into court next morning., he sent again to the jury, on which the eleven members joined in requesting their foreman to go into court, assuring him they would abide by their former verdict, whatever was the consequence; and on being reproached with their former inconstancy, they promised never to desert or recriminate upon their foreman any more.
Upon these assurances they proceeded again into court, and again brought in the prisoner not guilty. The judge, unable to conceal his rage at a verdict which appeared to him in the most iniquitous light, reproached them severely, and dismissed them with the cutting reflection, 'That the blood of the deceased lay at their doors.'
The prisoner on his part fell down on his knees, and with uplifted eyes and hands to God, thanked him most devoutly for his deliverance; and addressing himself to the judge, cried out, 'You see, my lord, that God and a good conscience are the best witnesses.'
The circumstance made a deep impression on the mind of the judge; and as soon as he had retired from court, he entered into conversation with the high sheriff upon what had passed, and particularly examined him as to his knowledge of the foreman of the jury. The high sheriff answered his lordship, that he had been acquainted with him many years: that he had a freehold estate of his own of above £5o a year; and that he rented a very considerable farm besides; that he never knew him charged with an ill action, and that he was universally beloved and esteemed in his neighbourhood.
For further information, his lordship sent for the minister of the parish, who gave the same favourable account of his parishioner, with this addition; that he was a constant churchman, and a devout communicant.
These accounts increased his lordship's perplexity, from which he could think of no expedient to deliver himself, but by having a conference in private with the only person who could give him satisfaction; this he requested the sheriff to procure, who readily offered his service, and without delay brought about the desired interview.
Upon the foreman of the jury being introduced to the judge, his lordship retired with him into a closet, where his lordship opened his reasons for desiring that visit, making no scruple of acknowledging the uneasiness he was under on account of the verdict, and conjuring his visitor frankly to discover his reasons for acquitting the prisoner. The juryman returned for answer, that he had sufficient reasons to justify his conduct, and that he was neither afraid nor ashamed to reveal them; but as he had hitherto locked them up in his own breast and was under no compulsion to disclose them, he expected his lordship would engage upon his honour to keep what he was about to unfold to him a secret, as he himself had done. His lordship having done so, the juryman proceeded to give his lordship the following account. 'The deceased being the tythe-man where he (the juryman) lived, he had the morning of his decease been in his (the juryman's) grounds, amongst his corn, and had done him great injustice by taking more than his due, and acting otherwise in a most arbitrary manner. When he complained of this treatment, he had not only been abused with scurrilous language, but the deceased had struck at him several times with his fork, and had actually wounded him in two place, the scars of which wounds he then shewed his lordship. The deceased seemed bent on mischief, and the farmer having no weapon to defend himself, had no other way to preserve his own life but by closing in with the deceased, and wrenching the fork out of his hands; which having effected, the deceased attempted to recover the fork, and in the scuffle received the two wounds which had occasioned his death. The farmer was inexpressibly concerned at the accident which occasioned the man's death, and especially when the prisoner was taken up on suspicion of the murder. But the assizes being just over, he was unwilling to surrender himself and to confess the matter, because his farm and affairs would have been ruined by lying so long in gaol. He was sure to have been acquitted on his trial, for he had consulted the ablest lawyers upon the case, who all agreed that as the deceased had been the aggressor, he could only have been guilty of manslaughter at most. It was true he had suffered greatly in his own mind on the prisoner's account; but being well assured that imprisonment would be of less consequence to the prisoner than himself, he had suffered the law to take its course. In order, however, to render the prisoner's confinement as easy to him as possible, he had given him every kind of assistance, and had wholly supported his family ever since. And, to get him clear of the charge laid against him, he had procured himself to be summoned on the jury, and set at the head of them; having all along determined in his own breast rather to die himself, than to suffer any harm to be done to the prisoner.'
His lordship expressed great satisfaction at this account; and after thanking the farmer for it, and making this farther stipulation, that in case his lordship should survive him, he might then be at liberty to relate this fact, that it might be delivered down to posterity, the conference broke up.
The juryman lived fifteen years afterwards; the judge inquiring after him every year, and happening to survive him, delivered the above relation.
3. -- A man was tried for and convicted of the murder of his own father. The evidence against him was merely circumstantial, and the principal witness was his sister. She proved that her father possessed a small income, which with his industry enabled him to live with comfort; that her brother, who was his heir at law, had often expressed a great desire to come into possession of his father's effects; and that he had long behaved in a very undutiful manner to him, wishing, as the witness believed, to put a period to his existence 'by uneasiness and vexation;' that on the evening the murder was committed, the deceased went a small distance from the house to milk a cow he had for some time kept, and that witness also went out to spend the evening and to sleep, leaving only her brother in the house; that returning home early in the morning, and finding that her father and brother were both absent, she was much alarmed; and sent for some of the neighbours to consult with them, and to receive advice what should be done; that in company, with these neighbours she went to the hovel in which her father was accustomed to milk the cow, where they found him murdered in a most inhuman manner; that a suspicion immediately falling on her brother, and there being then some snow upon the ground, in which the footsteps of a human being, to and from the hovel, were observed, it was agreed to take one of her brother's shoes, and to measure therewith the impressions in the snow; this was done, and there did not remain a doubt that the impressions were made with his shoes. Thus confirmed in their suspicions, they immediately went to the prisoner's room, and after a diligent search, they found a hammer in the corner of a private drawer with several spots of blood upon it.
The circumstance of finding the deceased and the hammer, and the identity of the footsteps, as described by the former witness, were fully proved by the neighbours whom she had called; and upon this evidence the prisoner was convicted and suffered death, but denied the act to the last.
About four years after, the sister who had been chief witness was extremely ill; and understanding that there were no hopes of her recovery, she confessed that her father and brother having offended her, she was determined they should both die; and accordingly when the former went to milk the cow, she followed him with her brother's hammer and in his shoes; that she felled her father with the hammer, and laid it where it was afterwards found; that she then went from home, to give a better colour to the horrid transaction, and that her brother was perfectly innocent of the crime for which he had suffered.
She was immediately taken into custody, but died before she could be brought to trial.
4. -- An upholsterer of the name of William Shaw, who was residing at Edinburgh in the year 1721 had a daughter Catharine who lived with him, and who encouraged the addresses of John Lawson, a jeweller, contrary to the wishes of her father, who had insuperable objections against him, and urged his daughter to receive the addresses of a son of Alexander Robertson, a friend and neighbour. The girl refused most peremptorily.
The father grew enraged. Passionate expressions arose on both sides, and the words 'barbarity, cruelty, and death' were frequently pronounced by the daughter. At length her father left her, locking the door after him.
The apartment of Shaw was only divided by a slight partition from that of one Morrison, a watch-case maker, who had indistinctly heard the conversation and quarrel between Catharine Shaw and her father, and was particularly struck with the words she had pronounced so emphatically. For some time after the father had gone out all was silent; but presently Morrison heard several groans from the daughter. He called in some of the neighbours, and these listening attentively, not only heard the groans, but also heard her faintly exclaim, 'Cruel father, thou art the cause of my death!' Struck with the expression, they got a constable, and forced the door of Shaw's apartment, where they found the daughter weltering in her blood, and a knife by her side. She was alive, and speechless; but on questioning her as to owing her death to her father, she was just able to make a motion with her head, apparently in the affirmative, and then expired.
At this moment Shaw enters the room. All eyes are upon him! He sees his neighbours and a constable in his apartment, and seems much disordered; but at the sight of his daughter he turns pale, trembles, and is ready to sink. The first surprise and the succeeding horror leave little doubt of his guilt in the breasts of the beholders; and even that little is done away on the constable discovering that the shirt of William Shaw is bloody.
He was instantly hurried before a magistrate, and upon the deposition of the parties, committed for trial. In vain did he protest his innocence, and declare that the blood on his shirt was occasioned by his having blooded himself some days before, and the bandage having become untied. The circumstances appeared so strong against him that he was found guilty, was executed, and hung in chains at Leith. His last words were, 'I am innocent of my daughter's murder.'
There was scarcely a person in Edinburgh who thought the father innocent; but in the following year a man who had become the occupant of Shaw's apartment, accidentally discovered a paper which had fallen into a cavity on one side of the chimney. It was folded as a letter, and on opening it, it was found to contain as follows: Barbarous Father! your cruelty in having put it out of my power ever to join my fate to that of the only man I could love, and tyrannically insisting upon my marrying one whom I always hated, has made me form a resolution to put an end to an existence which is become a burthen to me.'
This letter was signed, 'Catharine Shaw,' and on being shown to her relations and friends it was recognised as her writing. The magistracy of Edinburgh examined it, and on being satisfied of its authenticity, they ordered the body of William Shaw to be taken from the gibbet, and given to his family for interment; and as the only reparation to his memory, and the honour of his surviving relations, they caused a pair of colours to be waved over his grave, in token of his innocence.
5. -- In the year 1736, Mr. Hayes, a gentleman of fortune, in travelling, stopped at an inn in Oxfordshire, kept by one Johathan Bradford. He there met with two gentlemen, with whom he supped, and in conversation unguardedly mentioned that he had then with him a considerable sum of money. Having retired to rest, the two gentlemen, who slept in a double-bedded room, were awakened by deep groans in the adjoining chamber. They instantly arose, and proceeded silently to the room whence the groans were heard. The door was half open, and on entering, they perceived a person weltering in his blood, in the bed, and a man standing over him, with a dark lantern in one hand, and a knife in the other. They soon discovered that the gentleman murdered was the one with whom they had supped, and that the man who was standing over him was their host. They instantly seized him, disarmed him of the knife, and charged him with being the murderer. He positively denied the crime, and asserted that he came there with the same intentions as themselves; for that hearing a noise, which was succeeded by groans, he got up, struck a light, and armed himself with a knife in his defence, and was but that minute entered the room before them.
These assertions were of no avail; he was kept in close custody until morning, when he was taken before a neighbouring justice of peace, to whom the evidence appeared so decisive, that on writing out his mittimus, he hesitated not to say, 'Mr. Bradford, either you or myself committed this murder.'
At the ensuing assizes at Oxford, Bradford was tried, convicted, and shortly after executed, still, however, declaring that he was not guilty of the murder. This afterwards proved to be true; the murder was actually committed by Mr. Hayes's footman, who, immediately on stabbing his master, rifled his pockets, and escaped to his own room, which was scarcely two seconds before Bradford's entering the chamber. The world owes this knowledge to a remorse of conscience of the footman on his death-bed, eighteen months after the murder; and dying almost inimediately after he had made the declaration, justice lost its victim.
It is, however, remarkable that Bradford, though innocent, and not at all privy to the murder, was nevertheless a murderer in design. He confessed to the clergyman who attended him after his sentence, that having heard that Mr. Hayes had a large sum of money about him, he went to the chamber with the same diabolical intentions as the servant. He was struck with amazement; he could not believe his senses; and in turning back the bedclothes to assure himself of the fact, he in his agitation dropped his knife on the bleeding body, by which both his hand and the knife became stained, and thus increased the suspicious circumstances in which he was found.
6. -- In the year 1742, a gentleman in travelling was stopped by a highwayman in a mask, within about seven miles of Hull, and robbed of a purse containing twenty guineas. The gentleman proceeded about two miles further, and stopped at the Bull Inn, kept by Mr. Brunell.
He related the circumstances of the robbery, adding, that as all his gold was marked, he thought it probable that the robber would be detected. After he had supped, his host entered the room, and told him a circumstance had arisen which led him to think that he could point out the robber. He then informed the gentleman that he had a waiter, one John Jennings, whose conduct had long been very suspicious; he had long before dark sent him out to change a guinea for him, and that he had only come back since he (the gentleman) was in the house, saying he could not get change; that Jennings being in liquor, he sent him to bed, resolving to discharge him in the morning; that at the time he returned him the guinea, he discovered it was not the same he had given him, but was marked, of which he took no further notice until he heard the particulars of the robbery, and that the guineas which the highwayman had taken were all marked. He added, that he had unluckily paid away the marked guinea to a man who lived at some distance.
Mr. Brunell was thanked for his information, and it was resolved to go softly to the room of Jennings, whom they found fast asleep; his pockets were searched, and from one of them was drawn a purse containing exactly nineteen guineas, which the gentleman identified. Jennings was dragged out of bed and charged with the robbery. He denied it most solemnly; but the facts having been deposed to on oath by the gentleman and Mr. Brunell, he was committed for trial.
So strong did the circumstances appear against Jennings, that several of his friends advised him to plead guilty, and throw himself on the mercy of the court. This advice he rejected; he was tried at the ensuing assizes, and the jury without going out of court found him guilty. He was executed at Hull a short time after, but declared his innocence to the very last.
In less than twelve months after this event occurred, Brunell, the master of Jennings, was himself taken up for a robbery committed on a guest in his house, and the fact being proved on his trial, he was convicted and ordered for execution.
The approach of death brought on repentance, and repentance confession. Brunell not only acknowledged having committed many highway robberies, but also the very one for which poor Jennings suffered. The account he gave was, that after robbing the gentleman, he arrived at home some time before him; that he found a man at home waiting, to whom he owed a small bill, and not having quite enough of money, he took out of the purse one guinea from the twenty which he had just possessed himself of, to make up the sum, which he paid to the man, and then went away. Soon after the gentleman came to his house, and relating the account of the robbery, and that the guineas were marked, he became thunderstruck. Having paid one of them away, and not daring to apply for it again, as the affair of the robbery and the marked guineas would soon become publicly known, detection, disgrace, and ruin, appeared inevitable. Turning in his mind every way to escape, the thought of accusing and sacrificing poor Jennings at last struck him; and thus to his other crimes he added that of the murder of an innocent man.
Lord Stourton was, in the year 1556, tried at Westminster Hall for the murder of a Mr. Hartgyl and his son, under very aggravated circumstances. The commission for trying him was directed to the judges, and some of the privy council. At first his lordship refused to plead, but the chief justice informed him that if he persisted in his refusal, his rank should not excuse him from being pressed to death. Upon this he confessed the fact, and was hanged in a silken halter at Salisbury. His monument was some years ago to be seen in the cathedral of that city, with the silken halter hanging over it.
The case of M. de Pivardiere is one of the most singular instances of criminal precipitation and iniquity that the annals of French justice furnish. Madame de Chauvelin, his second wife, was accused of having had him assassinated in his castle. Two servant-maids were witnesses of the murder; his own daughter heard the cries and last words of her father: 'My God! have mercy upon me!' One of the maid-servants, falling dangerously ill, took the sacrament; and while she was performing this solemn act of religion, declared before God that her mistress intended to kill her master. Several other witnesses testified that they had seen linen stained with his blood; others declared that they had heard the report of a gun, by which the assassination was supposed to have been committed. And yet, strange to relate, it turned out after all that there was no gun fired, no blood shed, nobody killed! What remains is still more extraordinary: M. de la Pivardiere returned home; he appears in person before the judges of the province, who were preparing everything to execute vengeance on his murderer. The judges are resolved not to lose their process; they affirm to his face that he is dead; they brand him with the accusation of imposture for saying that he is alive; they tell him that he deserves exemplary punishment for coining a lie before the tribunal of justice; and maintain that their procedure is more credible than his testimony! In a word, this criminal process continued eighteen months before the poor gentleman could obtain a declaration of the court that he was alive.
In the year 1770, a person of the name of Monthaille, without any accuser, witness, or any probable or even suspicious circumstances, was seized by the superior tribunal of Arras, and condemned to have his hand cut off, to be broken on the wheel, and to be afterwards burnt alive, for killing his mother. This sentence was executed. and his wife was on the point of being thrown into the flames as his accomplice, when she pleaded that she was enceinte, and gave the Chancellor of France, who was informed of the infernal iniquity that was perpetrating in the sacred name of justice, time to have the sentence as to her reversed. 'The pen trembles in my hand,' says Voltaire, 'when I relate these enormities! We have seen, by the letters of several French lawyers, that not one year passes in which one tribunal or another does not stain the gibbet or the rack with the blood of unfortunate citizens, whose innocence is afterwards ascertained when it is too late.'
It has been well observed by a modern writer that 'we are very apt to mistake the foulness of a crime for certainty of evidence against the individual accused of it, or in proportion as we are impressed with its enormity, the less nice we become in distinguishing the offender.' A striking illustration of this remark once presented itself. An atrocious murder having been committed, an unfortunate individual was accused of being the murderer, and brought to trial. The judge charged the jury that no evidence had been produced against the prisoner, and that therefore they must of necessity acquit him. To the surprise of the court, however, the jury returned a verdict of 'guilty.' The verdict being recorded, the judge requested to know upon what shadow of proof it had been brought. 'My lord,' answered the foreman, 'a great crime has been committed; somebody ought to suffer for it; and we do not see why it should not be this man!'
Among the foremost in the ranks of the fawning, treacherous, and corrupt courtiers that surrounded James the First, we discover with pain one of the greatest men that our country or the world has produced. The friends of science must ever regret that this character should apply to so sublime a genius as Lord Bacon.
The proceedings in the case of Peacham show that there never was a more deliberate enemy to the liberties of his country, nor stauncher supporter of tyranny, even to its extreme verge. This unfortunate man was put to the torture, tried, convicted, and condemned as a traitor, for certain passages said to be treasonable in a sermon which was never preached, nor intended to be so, but only found in writing in his study. The minute made upon the occasion of his torture is still preserved. It is in the handwriting of Secretary Winwood, and states that he had been examined 'before torture, in torture, between torture, and after torture' and 'that nothing could be drawn from him,' he still persisting in his obstinate and insensible denials. This monument of tyranny is signed, among others, by Bacon; and as a fit associate in so barbarous procedure, also by Sir Jervis Elwis, Lieutenant of the Tower, who was condemned and executed two years afterwards for being an accessory to the detestable and treacherous murder of Sir Thomas Overbury.
The case of Wraynham, who was punished by the Star Chamber for slandering Lord Bacon, by accusing him of injustice, is still more melancholy and instructive. He had a cause in Chancery, on which his all depended, against Sir Edward Fisher; and after expending his whole fortune, and that of several compassionate friends who assisted him, he had at last obtained from Lord Bacon's predecessor in the chancery a favourable judgment; which Lord Bacon thought proper, without any cause assigned, to reverse. Wraynham applied for justice to the king, presenting him with a statement of his case, conveyed in language which, if reprehensible, was at least pardonable in a man in his unhappy situation. The king handed over the imprudent supplicant to the Star Chamber. The lords asked him how he dared to speak in the manner which he had done of so pure and upright a character as the lord chancellor? Wraynham replied by the following simple and affecting statement:
'In making this appeal, I mustered together all my miseries; I saw my land taken away which had been before established unto me; and after six-and-forty orders and twelve reports made in the cause; nay, after motions, hearings, and re-hearings, fourscore in number, I beheld all overthrown in a moment, and all overthrown without a new bill preferred. I discerned the representation of a prison gaping for me, in which I must from henceforth spend all the days of my, life without release; for in this suit I have spent almost £3000, and many of my friends were engaged for me, some injured, others undone; and with this did accompany many eminent miseries likely to ensue upon me, my wife, and four children, the eldest of which being but five years old; so that we, that did every day give bread to others, must now beg bread of others, or else starve, which is the miserablest of all deaths; and there being no means to move his majesty to hear the cause, but to accuse his lordship of injustice; this and all these moved me to be sharp and bitter, and to use words, though dangerous in themselves, yet I hope pardonable in such extremities.'
Mr. Sergeant Crew, on the part of the crown, by way of aggravating Mr. Wraynham's guilt, pronounced a most splendid eulogium on the lord chancellor, whose talents and integrity as a judge were such, he said, that it was a 'foul offence' to traduce him. The learned sergeant farther observed, that at all events the prisoner could not accuse the lord chancellor of corruption; 'for, thanks be to God, he hath always despised riches, and set honour and justice before his eyes; and where the magistrate is bribed, it is a sign of a corrupted state.'
The result of the business was, that the chamber imposed a fine on Wraynham, which completely ruined him.
Now mark the sequel! Two years after the sacrifice of this unfortunate man and his family to the purity of Lord Chancellor Bacon, his lordship was accused and convicted by his own confession of bribery and corruption, and gave in to parliament, under his own hand, a list of the bribes which he had received during the period of his filling the office of lord chancellor. In that list how revolting is it to perceive a bribe received in this very case, from the miserable Wraynham's opponent in the suit which reduced his family to beggary, and condemned himself to spend the remainder of his days in a jail!
Preparatory to the trial of Peacham, Lord Chancellor Bacon, as appears by his own letters to the king, was employed by his majesty to overcome the scruples of some of the judges, who doubted whether the crime amounted to high treason. In this unconstitutional negociation he met with the stern opposition of Sir Edward Coke, who, after Lord Bacon had searched the record for precedents, and perverted his intellect to the utmost, in order to bring the case under the description of treason, gave his written opinion against him. The king was much enraged at the opposition, and bitterly accused Sir Edward of 'caring more for the safety of such a monster, than the preservation of the crown.'
Sir Edward Coke always displayed an unconquerable zeal for correcting abuses, for establishing the authority of the laws, and confining the prerogative to its proper bounds. In the parliament which met in 1621, he towered beyond all preceding patriots in the abilities he showed in guiding the councils of that assembly, in the strength and propriety of the arguments he urged for the authority and privileges of parliament, turning by his conduct the smiles of a court into a commitment to the Tower, and a rifling of his papers. He, to his everlasting honour, was in the succeeding reign the man who proposed and framed the petition of right. The cares of the greatest part of his life were not only for the age in which he lived, but that posterity might feel the advantages of his almost unequalled labours. He was the first who reduced the knowledge of the English laws into a system. His voluminous writings on this subject have given light to all succeeding lawyers; and the improvements which have been made in this science owe their source to this great original: the service he rendered his country in this respect is invaluable. But whilst he laboured to his very last moments to render the law intelligible, and consequently serviceable, to his fellow citizens, he was oppressed in the most illegal manner by the government. Secretary Windebank, by virtue of an order of the council for seizing certain seditious papers, entered his house at the time he was dying, and took away his 'Commentary upon Littleton,' his history of that judge's life, his 'Commentary upon Magna Charta,' his 'Pleas of the Crown and Jurisdiction of Courts,' with fifty-one other MSS., together with his will. The last was never returned, to the great distraction of his family affairs, and loss to his numerous posterity.
Bishop Burnett relates a curious circumstance respecting the origin of that important statute, the Habeas Corpus Act. 'It was carried,' says he, 'by an odd artifice in the House of Lords. Lord Grey and Lord Norris were named to be the tellers; Lord Norris being a man subject to vapours, was not at all times attentive to what he was doing: so a very fat lord coming in, Lord Grey counted him for ten, as a jest at first; but seeing Lord Norris had not observed it, he went on with this misreckoning of ten; so it was reported to the house, and declared that they who were for the bill were the majority, though it indeed went on the other side; and by this means the bill passed.'
'The King of Spain,' says Mr. Selden in his 'Table Talk,' 'was outlawed in Westmister Hall, I being of counsel against him; a merchant had recovered costs against him in a suit, which because he could not get, we advised him to have his majesty outlawed for not appearing, and so he was. As soon as Gondemar, the Spanish Ambassador, heard that, he presently sent the money: by reason if his master had been outlawed, he could not have had the benefit of the law, which would have been very prejudicial, there being then many suits between the King of Spain and our merchants.'
When the ambassador of Peter the Great was arrested for debt in London, in the latter end of Queen Anne's reign, the Czar expressed his astonishment and indignation, that the persons who had thus violated the respect due to the representative of a crowned head, were not immediately put to death. His astonishment was considerably increased when he was told, that the sovereign of the country himself had no power of dispensing with the laws of the land, to which he was himself subjected.
Christian IV., King of Denmark.
One Christopher Rosenkranz, in Copenhagen, demanded from the widow of Christian Tuul a debt of five thousand dollars. She was certain that she did not owe him anything; but he produced a bond signed by herself and her deceased husband, which, however, she declared to be forged. The affair was brought before a court of justice, and the widow was condemned to pay the demand. In her distress, she applied to King Christian IV., who promised to take the affair into consideration. 'He sent for Rosenkranz, questioned him closely, begged, exhorted, but all to no purpose. The creditor appealed to the written bond. The king asked for the bond, sent Rosenkranz away, and promised that he would very soon return it to him. The king remained alone to examine this important paper, and discovered after much trouble, that the paper manufacturer, whose mark was on the bond, had not begun his manufactory till many years after its date. The inquiries made confirmed this fact. The proof against Rosenkranz was irrefragable. The king said nothing about it, but sent for Rosenkranz some days after, and exhorted him in the most affecting manner to have pity on the poor widow, because, otherwise, the justice of heaven would certainly punish him for such wickedness. He unblushingly insisted on his demand, and even presumed to affect to be offended. The king's mildness went so far, that he still gave him some days for consideration; but all to no purpose. He was then arrested and punished with all the rigour of the laws.
A country gentleman once sent a present of a buck to judge Hales, before whom he had a cause coming on for trial. The cause being called, and the judge taking notice of the name, asked, 'If he was not the person that had presented him with a buck?' Finding that he was the same, the judge told him 'he could not suffer the trial to go on till he had paid him for his buck.' The gentleman answered, 'That he never sold his venison, and that he had done no more to his lordship than what he had always done to every judge who came that circuit.' Several gentlemen on the bench bore testimony to the truth of this statement, but nothing would induce the judge to give way; he persisted in refusing to allow the trial to proceed till he had paid for the venison. The gentleman on this, somewhat indignant, withdrew the record, saying, 'he would not try his cause before a judge who suspected him to be guilty of bribery by a customary civility.' A noble contest! between judicial integrity on one side, and honourable hospitality on the other! - a contest eminently characteristic of the English judge and English gentleman.
Williams, the lord keeper in the reign of James I., seeing a new church at Malden, inquired at whose cost it had been built? Mr. George Minors, who attended him, mentioned the name of the greatest contributor. 'And has he not a suit now depending in chancery?' said the keeper. 'The same,' answered Minors. 'Well,' said the keeper, 'he shall not fare the worse for building of churches.' This being told the gentleman, the next morning he sent a present of fruit and poultry to the lord keeper, who refused it, saying to Minors, 'Carry it back, George, and tell your friend he shall fare never the better for his fruit and poultry.'
On the trial of this nobleman for sedition, nine of the jury, with a single exception, were ineffectually challenged; but when Traquair, a minister of state, was admitted, it was no longer doubtful that the rest were industriously selected for their hostility to Balmerino, or their devotion to the crown. The experiment did not entirely succeed. One of the jurymen, Gordon of Buckie, had been engaged in the murder of the Earl of Murray, and was appointed, therefore, as a sure man on the present occasion. When the jury had withdrawn, Gordon addressed them unexpectedly in the most pathetic terms, and conjured them to reflect that the life of an innocent nobleman was at stake, whose blood would lie heavy on their souls to the last hour of their lives. While the tears streamed down his aged cheeks, he protested that his hands had once been imbrued in blood, for which he had procured a pardon from his sovereign; but that it had cost him many sorrowful days and nights to obtain a remission to his conscience from heaven. The jury were moved with this impressive address; but Traquair, their foreman, resumed the argument, that it belonged to the court to determine whether the law was severe, or the petition seditious; whether the prisoner had concealed it, was all that remained for them to decide. After a long altercation, the jury were equally divided; and, in consequence of the final suffrage of Traquair, their foreman, Balmerino was convicted of having heard and concealed a seditious petition, and of having foreborne to reveal the author. Sentence of death was immediately pronounced; but his execution, to the great umbrage of the prelates, was suspended during the pleasure of the king.
The account which is preserved in the state trials of the case of John Lilburn (afterwards Colonel Lilburn), prosecuted in the Star Chamber, 'for printing and publishing seditious books,' and written by Lilburn himself, displays much of the dauntless and noble spirit which oppression never fails to call forth, and which afterwards animated the singularly intrepid author of this curious production successfully to brave Cromwell himself, in the zenith of his power, when, to any other individual, the attempt must have been fatal.
Lilburn, at the time of his trial, was but twenty years of age. He was accused of sending over from Holland, for the purpose of being distributed in England, some of Dr. Bastwick's books; and though he was innocent of the charge, he disdained to screen himself, which he might easily have done, by taking what was termed the Star Chamber oath, because he conceived it to be unlawful. For this piece of contumacy, he was fined £500, and sentenced to be publicly whipped. This punishment was inflicted with great barbarity; and he was, the same day, in view of the Star Chamber judges, placed, with his back smarting under the pain of his lashes, on the pillory, where, in consequence of his haranguing the people, he was gagged, imprisoned in irons for two years and a half in the Fleet, and treated there with the utmost cruelty. This sentence the House of Commons, in 1641, voted to be 'Illegal, and against the liberty of the subject, and also bloody, cruel, wicked, barbarous, and tyrannical.'
A merchant in London of the name of Richard Chambers, having sustained some loss by a confiscation of part of his property by the custom-house officers, in a moment of passion unfortunately said, in the hearing of some of the privy council, 'that the merchants in England were more wrung and screwed than in foreign parts.' For this grievous offence he was brought before 'the honourable court of Star Chamber,' as it was termed, and fined £2000, for which he was imprisoned six years. The fine was by some of the members of the court considered to be too small; and, among the worthy personages who were of this opinion, we find the names of Bishops Laud and Neal, who were seldom, indeed, disposed to err on the side of lenity. Chambers appears to have possessed much of the laudable spirit of resistance which had now begun to rise in England. It was part of his sentence to sign a very mean submission, which was accordingly prepared; but when it was brought to him, he absolutely refused; and, with all the terrors of a prison in view, wrote under it, that 'he abhorred and detested it as unjust and false, and never till death would acknowledge any part of it.' In consequence of his determined opposition to the tyranny of the government, on this and other occasions, Chambers was utterly ruined; and it is painful to find, that though his case was admitted to be hard, and his conduct meritorious, the parliament in the day of retribution overlooked twenty-six years of suffering, and allowed this friendless and resolute champion of the people's rights, to die of poverty and a broken heart at the age of seventy.
When the meeting-house of the Quakers in Gracechurch Street was taken possession of by a body of soldiers, August 15, 1670, with the view of hindering them from assembling to worship God in their own way, their celebrated leader, William Penn, went and preached to them in the open air, in the immediate vicinity. The satellites of an arbitrary government were pleased to construe this into a breach of the peace; Penn, and one of his associates of the name of Mead, were arrested, indicted, and tried for the imputed offence at the Old Bailey, on the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th of September following.
Penn and his friend, agreeably to the custom of their sect, entered the court with their hats on; and on one of the officers pulling them off, the lord mayor exclaimed, 'Sirrah, who bid you put off their hats? Put on their hats again.'
Recorder to the Arisoners. 'Do you know where you are? Do you know it is the king's court?'
Penn. 'I know it to be a court, and I suppose it to be the king's court.'
Recorder. 'Do you not know that there is respect due to the court? and why do you not pull off your hats?'
Penn. 'Because I do not believe that to be any respect.'
Recorder. 'Well, the court sets forty marks a piece upon your heads, as a fine for your contempt of the court.'
Penn. 'I desire it may be observed, that we came into court with our hats off (that is, taken off); and if they have been put on since, it was by order of the bench, and therefore not we, but the bench, should be fined.'
After the witnesses for the prosecution had been examined, and the prisoners were called upon for their defence, Penn demanded to know upon what law the indictment was grounded?
Recorder. 'Upon the common law.'
Penn. 'Where is that common law?'
Recorder. 'You must not think that I am able to run up so many years, and ever so many adjudged cases, which we call common law, to answer your curiosity.'
Penn. 'This answer, I am sure, is very short of my question; for if it be common, it should not be so hard to produce.'
Recorder. 'Sir, I will you plead to your indictment?'
Penn reiterated his demand, to know on what law that indictment was founded.
Recorder. 'You are a saucy fellow; speak to the indictment.'
After some further altercation:
Recorder. 'You are an impertinent fellow; will you teach the court what law is? it is lex non scripta, that which many have studied thirty or forty years to know, and would you have me tell you in a moment?'
Penn. 'Certainly, if the common law is so hard to be understood, it is far from being common; but if the Lord Coke, in his Institutes, be of any consideration, he tells us that common law is common right, and that common right is the greater charter of privileges. I design no affront to the court; but to be heard in my just plea; and I must plainly tell you, that if you will deny me oyer of the law which you say I have broken, you do at once deny me an acknowledged right: and evidence to ion to the whole world, your resolution to sacrifice the privileges of Englishmen to your sinister and arbitrary des