Since the proclamation occasioned by my last letter, and a due preparation for proceeding against me in a court of justice, there have been two printed papers clandestinely spread about, whereof no man is able to trace the original further than by conjecture, which with its usual charity lays them to my account. The former is entitled, "Seasonable Advice,"[18] and appears to have been intended for information of the grand jury, upon the supposition of a bill to be prepared against that letter. The other[19] is an extract from a printed book of Parliamentary Proceedings in the year 1680 containing an angry resolution of the House of Commons in England against dissolving grand juries. As to the former, your lordship will find it to be the work of a more artful hand than that of a common Drapier. It hath been censured for endeavouring to influence the minds of a jury, which ought to be wholly free and unbiassed, and for that reason it is manifest that no judge was ever known either upon or off the bench, either by himself or his dependents, to use the least insinuation that might possibly affect the passions or interests of any one single juryman, much less of a whole jury; whereof every man must be convinced who will just give himself the trouble to dip into the common printed trials; so as, it is amazing to think, what a number of upright judges there have been in both kingdoms for above sixty years past, which, considering how long they held their offices during pleasure, as they still do among us, I account next to a miracle.
[Footnote 18: See p. 123. [T.S.]
[Footnote 19: See note on p. 127. [T.S.]
As to the other paper I must confess it is a sharp censure of an English House of Commons against dissolving grand juries by any judge before the end of the term, assizes, or sessions, while matters are under their consideration, and not presented; is arbitrary, illegal, destructive to public justice, a manifest violation of his oath, and is a means to subvert the fundamental laws of the kingdom.
However, the publisher seems to have been mistaken in what he aimed at. For, whatever dependence there may be of Ireland upon England, I hope he would not insinuate, that the proceedings of a lord chief justice in Ireland must depend upon a resolution of an English House of Commons. Besides, that resolution although it were levelled against a particular lord chief justice, Sir William Scroggs,[20] yet the occasion was directly contrary: For Scroggs dissolved the grand jury of London for fear they should present, but ours in Dublin was dissolved because they would not present, which wonderfully alters the case. And therefore a second grand jury supplied that defect by making a presentment[21] that hath pleased the whole kingdom. However I think it is agreed by all parties, that both the one and the other jury behaved themselves in such a manner, as ought to be remembered to their honour, while there shall be any regard left among us for virtue or public spirit.
[Footnote 20: Sir William Scroggs (1623?-1683) was appointed Lord Chief Justice of England on the removal of Sir Thomas Ramsford in 1678. One of the eight articles of impeachment against Scroggs, in 1680, was for illegally discharging the grand jury of Middlesex before the end of the term. Although the articles of impeachment were carried to the House of Lords in 1681, the proceedings went no farther than ordering him to find bail and file his answer by a certain time. Scroggs was removed, on account of his unpopularity, on April 11th, 1681. As a lawyer, Scroggs has no great reputation; as a judge he must be classed with the notorious Jeffreys. [T.S.]
[Footnote 21: See Appendix No. V. [T.S.]
I am confident your lordship will be of my sentiments in one thing, that some short plain authentic tract might be published for the information both of petty and grand juries, how far their power reacheth, and where it is limited, and that a printed copy of such a treatise might be deposited in every court, to be consulted by the jurymen before they consider of their verdict; by which abundance of inconveniences would be avoided, whereof innumerable instances might be produced from former times, because I will say nothing of the present.
I have read somewhere of an eastern king who put a judge to death for an iniquitous sentence, and ordered his hide to be stuffed into a cushion, and placed upon the tribunal for the son to sit on, who was preferred to his father's office. I fancy such a memorial might not have been unuseful to a son of Sir William Scroggs, and that both he and his successors would often wriggle in their seats as long as the cushion lasted. I wish the relater had told us what number of such cushions there might be in that country.
I cannot but observe to your lordship how nice and dangerous a point it is grown for a private person to inform the people even in an affair where the public interest and safety are so highly concerned as that of Mr. Wood, and this in a country where loyalty is woven into the very hearts of the people, seems a little extraordinary. Sir William Scroggs was the first who introduced that commendable acuteness into the courts of judicature; but how far this practice hath been imitated by his successors or strained upon occasion, is out of my knowledge. When pamphlets unpleasing to the ministry were presented as libels, he would order the offensive paragraphs to be read before him, and said it was strange that the judges and lawyers of the King's Bench should be duller than all the people of England; and he was often so very happy in applying the initial letters of names, and expounding dubious hints (the two common expedients among writers of that class for escaping the law) that he discovered much more than ever the authors intended, as many of them or their printers found to their cost. If such methods are to be followed in examining what I have already written or may write hereafter upon the subject of Mr. Wood, I defy any man of fifty times my understanding and caution to avoid being entrapped, unless he will be content to write what none will read, by repeating over the old arguments and computations, whereof the world is already grown weary. So that my good friend Harding lies under this dilemma, either to let my learned works hang for ever a drying upon his lines, or venture to publish them at the hazard of being laid by the heels.