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New Jury Court of Scotland.

jurors to try the cause are selected by ballot, their names being to be drawn by a sworn officer of the court, from the box into which they are put fairly, under the sanction of a solemn obligation.

This is doing all that human contrivance can accomplish towards the attaining a tribunal free from all prepossession.

But the grand and important feature of this tribunal for the examination of fact, is, Sdly, Publicity, or the public and open manner in which its business is conducted.

Every thing is transacted with open doors-every thing, from the commencement of the trial to its close, except when the Jury retire for deliberation, is done before an inquisitive and observing public, who, hearing the evidence, form their judgments of the correctness of the Court and Jury in drawing their conclusions so that they are secured by the responsibility of character, thus openly exposed to criticism, to form a correct and honest opinion in every case. This is aided by the constant presence of an enlightened Bar, whose learning and talents and practice in judicial concerns, are thus made subservient to the ends of substantial justice. In this way, and before such an audience, the case is sifted to the very bottom, and every part of the tribunal is always subject to the most rigid observation, and so called to the most correct attention to do justice.

This important feature of jury trial is remarkable for its happy influence on all those who administer to justice through the medium of that instition.

First. As to its influence on the witnesses. By public examination they are open to the observation of the tribunal who is to judge of their testimony, and of the value to be ascribed to it as it respects their demeanour, their capacity and intelligence and the manner of testifying. Every witness in an open court, risks his character with the public and with his neighbours, and is kept correct by that influence. The witnesses are fully examined by counsel in chief, then cross-examined by adverse counsel; and, lastly, subject to the examination of the Jury and the Bench. By being examined before a supreme tribunal, the influence of judicial au

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thority has its effect in producing correctness of deportment, and his evidence being submitted to the judgment of his fellow-subjects, the jury, he must have that circumspect attention to truth which such a situation naturally creates. Besides, in case of prevarication, the authority of a court, with sufficient power to commit, is held over him, to have an instantaneous operation.

Secondly. The effect of publicity is equally important in regard to the jury.

Their exposure to public view and observation, secures, in that respectable body, the casual tribunal, that steady attention, which is not only essential to the appearance, but to the reality of justice; and it is not unimportant to remark, that this solemnity of conduct reflects again on the surrounding audience, and secures in those who compose it, the same attention and decorum when they come to be jurymen.

The justice which they do, as I have already observed, is the subject of consideration by as many as the court will admit; the report of those present at a trial goes forth to the public at large, and the verdicts of jurymen are secured to be just, by the certainty that they must undergo the scrutiny of the whole extended and watchful community.

The evidence of which they have to judge is, owing to this publicity, and to the formation of the court, governed by rules which are calculated to exclude falsehood, and to secure the testimony of truth.

The introduction of a well-regulated law of evidence is a most important result of trial by jury. In order to exclude all evidence from the hearing of the jury, which, from its nature, may be false, and make an undue impression, the judges are called upon publicly to decide upon the admissibility of witnesses, and of questions, upon all objects of competency, as contradistinguished from those of credibility. This they do publicly upon the argument of counsel; and, here again, the subject is secured in a due and certain administration of justice in matter of fact.

This is a result only attainable by this institution, where there is authority and learning to decide, and a cause for decision. It is this which

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-New Jury Court of Scotland.

leads to the exclusion of hearsay, and of all those circumstances in proof where the fact may be false and yet the witness be correctly honest, as well as to all the exclusions of testimony arising out of the various modifications of interest or concern in the cause, or in the question or connexion with the parties.

Thirdly. As to the Bar, this institution will have its just and beneficial influence.

When I refer to that most respectable body, the Bar of Scotland, I may safely and justly enlarge upon their great learning, their integrity, their cloquence, and other high attainments; and above all, I can rely on the most rigid honour and pure correctness of their practice in their profession. Yet, great as the learn ing and eloquence is which they bring into the hitherto ordinary practice of their profession, the public and immediate efforts which they will have to make in this tribunal, cannot fail to afford a new scene for their eloquence.

In guiding the course of justice, the Judges will derive assistance from counsel, while the system of jury trial will give new occasions to the Bar of Scotland for acute and masterly dis. cussion, by watching and seizing circumstances and emergencies as they arise, as well as by previously preparing themselves upon the important features of the case; and thus these new opportunities for the display of conduct and address, by training them to a mode of exertion to which they have not been accustomed, will give new scope and enlargement to their professional talents, and render them still more useful ministers of justice in all the branches of their practice.

Fourthly. But, above all, this publicity is important, in relation to the Judges who preside-in regulating and preserving correct what I have called the permanent part of the tribunal. This happy composition in judicature, when the functions are publicly and openly discharged, invigorates all the good qualities of the judicial character of the permanent Judge, and corrects all the defects to which the judicial character is prone.

On the Bench we must call to aid, temper, forbearance, attention, cir

cumspection, a firmness in forming opinions, a readiness in re-considering them, no pertinacious adherence to first thoughts, and yet a decision calculated to enforce well-considered views, and above all, in this seat, where justice is to be distributed within a period to be measured by the strength of man, dispatch must combine with deliberation, readiness of thought with correctness of opinion.

Our duties as Judges are to be performed before a judicious public, deeply interested in the justice which is to be dispensed, and before a critical and enlightened bar, ready to disseminate with freedom, as they ought, their opinions of our errors, but equally ready to do justice to our motives, and to bestow the just reward of praise when we are right and correct.

The error to which a court, composed of a single judge, is liable, is perhaps an over-weening self-willedness: this is corrected by the discharge of the function publicly with the aid of a jury. The necessity of attending to every point for their information-a necessary compliance with those modes of conduct which such interchange of thought as this tribunal requires, and the necessity of the judge weighing well what he is publicly to impart to others, under the controuling effect of their having to decide on the spot on the correctness of his views, secures against such self-willedness.

The error into which the Judges of a Court composed of several is apt to fall is carelessness. Trusting to the efforts of his fellow Judges, the public effort and the duty to impart all that passes, and all his views of it to others on the spot, and at the moment, proves a sure antidote to this propensity in the judges of a tribunal of several.

Thus it may be said that the welldoing of the permanent tribunal is secured, and the administration of justice in matters of fact (that exteusive and ever-varying source of litigation) is better regulated by this contrivance of trial by jury, than by any that the wit of man has ever yet devised.

Such are the leading features of this institution, which we are now to try in this country, as an experiment, and as I have said in the outset, always anxiously attending to this, that it is

New Jury Court of Scotland.

not to interfere with any fixed rule, or with any part of the system of the municipal law of Scotland, and that we are only to try such issues as the Divisions of the Court of Session shall think it right in their discretion to send here: these, it may be material to observe, will be of three sorts :1st. Cases where the issue may comprise both the injury and recompence or damages.

2nd. Cases in which the Court of Session, or Lord Ordinary, having decided as to the injury, refer the damages to be assessed by a jury.

3rd. Cases where the Court of Session, or Lord Ordinary, wishes for information by the verdict of a jury to inform its understanding, so as to enable it to pronounce a judgment upon the law.

The case about to be tried is of the description last mentioned.

But in that, and in all cases, it will be easy to clear away difficulties. In the first place, allow me to observe, more particularly addressing myself to you, gentlemen, who are assembled to serve on this jury, that our inquiries here are not into bidden and occult acts of crime, where the discovery of truth may often be involved in intricacy and difficulty, and in doubtful testimony, by the very nature of the acts. But we shall have to do here with the open acts and transactions of men in the ordinary affairs of life and intercourses of the world. In such transactions, when examined into in open Court, seeing and judging of the witnesses, as I have described their examinations to be conducted, with all the fences against the admitting falsehood, and all the securities for obtaining truth, which a well-regulated law of evidence affords; with a tribunal judging from their own just and honest impressions, uncontaminated by intercourse or extraneous impressions, and only influenced by the detailed, explained, and fully delivered opinion of the presiding Judge, he being alike removed from undue impressions; there is no. thing likely to happen but an easy solution by a general verdict. But when there does occur prevarication, or contradictory testimony, that worldly sense and intercourse with mankind which those composing Juries possess, and which affords, perhaps, a better power of extrication than the learning

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of more retired men, will never fail to guide you: while the court has it in its power, according to the nature of the case, to relieve all difficulties, by directing a special verdict, or even a verdict specially, finding the evidence as given, and returning it to the Directing Tribunal; so that that court from which the issue comes will always attain, what it wants, the best possible information of the fact on which to ground its judgment.

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The case for trial will soon afford a practical instance of what I here state; and I trust by its event it will shew, though, from the great number of witnesses, it must be long, that in less than twelve hours we shall accomplish, to satisfaction, that which would not have been attained, in the ordinary course, in twelve mouthsthat we shall, by our labour oftwelve bours, put an end to all litigation; while the other course would, at the end of twelve months, only give a commencement to litigation, with a power to a litigious spirit to continue it for years to come.

If this experiment is successful, and I augur sanguinely of it, although, as in all experiments, failure may be expected at first, there will be attained for this country the great objects of justice, viz. certainty, satisfaction, dispatch, and cheapness; and with this I might conclude, but I cannot refrain from observing, before I close my address to you, that I augur success to the experiment most peculiarly, and with most certain hope, when I consider that the casual tribunal, as I have denominated the Jury, is to be derived from the body of the people of Scotland, distinguished for good education, for a most correct morality, for a love of justice, for extended information, and for a pure religious persuasion.

I trust and hope with unfeigned anxiety, that I may be able in my person to bring to the aid of this most important experiment, the qualities requisite to its success. But when I reflect that though I have, during all my professional life, been accustomed to courts thus administering justice, that I have never yet dispensed it-that, from being a critic on the acts of others in that awful station, I am now myself to be the subject of observation and remark, I cannot but be full of anxiety and ap

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Outery against the Revision of Popular Works.

prehension, in having the interests and property of my fellow-subjects submitted to my untried judicial fas culties a

In this situation, new to me, and new in the judicial jurisprudence of Scotland, I derive comfort when I look to my learned brethren on each side of me, who add to learning and a knowledge of mankind, high facul ties and practice sanctioned by the opinion of an approving public in the dispensation of justice.

When I look before me to the bar, I derive comfort from the certainty that I am to be enlightened in the seat of justice by their learning and their eloquence, and that I am sure to re.ceive comfort from their urbanity, and from the mildness of their judgments on my first exertions.

When I look to the Jury now assembled, and the succession of such a class of men to discharge this duty, there agan I derive comfort, and feel convinced that their anxiety to do justice, and their steady attention to every case, will secure against any bad effects from my want of experience or incapacity.

If I should prove' at all a service 'able instrument in giving success to this important measure of justice, while I live I shall enjoy the comforting reflection that my early education in Scotland, and my habits, have preserved unabated through life my devoted attachments to its interests and its people, and made the high station to which I have been graciously advanced an object of my most ardent desire. I will conclude, there fore, with the anxious hope, that it may be inscribed with truth upon my tomb, that the experiment has proved successful, and that I have not been useless in the accomplishment of this mighty benefit to my native land.

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But, as the same motives cannot actuate minds of a different compass, or expansion, it is scarcely justifiable in such persons to attribute to others those principles of action, which, in similar circumstances, they would not have hesitated to adopt. The selfish hypocrite is rarely able to compre bend the grasp of truly generous and enlightened minds. The man of honour should not be reduced to the same level with the sycophant. And such as conscientiously resign prefer. ments or prospects in an opulent establishment, rather than forfeit their integrity, cannot be fairly estimated by the aspiring pluralist, who defers implicitly to his superiors, both in Church and State.

I am led to these reflections, by the virulent and illiberal censures, which have been of late so often cast on the judicious and truly scriptural revisions of Watts's Hymns and Moral Songs for Children, and Melmoth's Great Importance of a Religious Life; as if such revisions had been actually "palmed upon the public," as the genuine works of the original writers, without any notice of the alterations whatsoever. Yet nothing can be fairer than the conduct of the editors, in their respective prefaces, by which all idea of deception or concealment is removed. The revision of Dr. Watts's Hymns avowedly proceeded from a lady, who "considering them defective, or rather erroneous, in some particular doctrines and phrases, judged it expedient to make many alterations in both respects, in adapting them to the instruction of her own children; and afterwards for the betteraccommodation of others in the same sentiment, and for the further early advancement of religious truth committed her useful labours to the press.” Nor was the Editor of the Great Importance less "studious to avoid involving the original author in any responsibility for the omissions of doctrines originally adopted by him, or clandestinely ingrafting his own alterations on the labours of another; earnestly hoping that no just cause of offence could be taken, by the most tenacious theologian, for the simple omission of occasional language or sentiments, thought to be derogatory from the genuine sense of the gospel of Christ, and distant from its true and even tenor." In conformity, there

Outery against the Revision of Popular Works.

fore, to these statements, and in compliance with a more correct interpretation of the Bible, all ascriptions of praise and thanksgiving are confined to the one only living and true God; and all expressions omitted which gave countenance to the common though erroneous notions of " the sacrifice of Christ as a satisfaction to divine justice;" "the eternity of hell fire as a place of future torment," and "the all-pervading influence of the devil."

Such, Sir, were the candid and honourable proceedings which have been so vehemently arraigned. Such are the alterations which, alarming the prejudices of a narrow and petulant high-churchman,, conscious of his own disingenuousness, as accessory to a secret and altogether unwarrant ed suppression, in the garb of a British Critic, or under the disguise of a Plain-Dealer, has been so idly and › slanderously assailed, But it is in vain that facts have been distorted, and conjecture substituted for proof. In vain has Mr. Nares or Mr. Norris impeached the integrity of the Revisers' motives, where all idea of deception or concealment has been so clear ly and unequivocally disavowed. And, in the face of this undeniable fact, it required no common effrontery, in a Parochial Vicar, in his "Remarks on Mr. Belsham's Letters to the Bishop of London," (pp. 11-13,) resting on their authority for his statements, to renew the slanderous and unfounded charge.

The judicious conduct of the Revisers as advocates for the supreme authority of the scriptures, correctly interpreted, in all matters of religion, was not less worthy of their beuevotent design, of rendering these deservedly admired works, as unexceptionable ir doctrine and language, as for inculcating moral virtues and Christian piety, they have long been universally approved. For how, let me ask this new assailant, has "the, beautiful_composition or Christian piety of Dr. Watts's Hymns," evaporated, or "the utility of Mr. Melmoth's Tract, for calling the attention of young minds to the observance of Christian morals, or to the knowledge of doctrines peculiarly Christian," been affected by their revision? Whilst they pretend not "to inculcate ALL the principles of the original writers,"

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what moral precept, what truly scrip. tural doefrine, has been, in either case, withdrawn? That "they are cleared of all doctrines peculiarly Christian," is an assertion as false as it is foul; unless the Vicaris prepared to shew that Christianity comprises no peculiar doctrines, when the Deity and atonement of its founder, the eternity of hell-torments, and the devil, are withdrawn. In rejecting all such unwarranted interpretations of detached or highly figurative passages, and in recurring to the uniform and consistent testimony of scripture to the divine wisdom and benevolence, the editors have essentially contributed to "the advancement of religious truth." And their little works may be safely put into the hands of children or reflecting persons without the fear of exciting those erroneous views of the dispensations of providence, which are calculated only to terrify or disgust. How can they be deemed "mutilated and imperfect," where every deficiency is so well supplied; where the genuine simplicity of the gospel is restored by the removal of excrescences which tend only, to vitiate and deform? So far from being "marred," they are meliorated both in sentiment and language; so far from being “ despoiled," they are adjusted to the legitimate standard,scripture; and instead of being “eviscerated," are lawfully cleansed from the gangrene which assails the vitals of the Christian scheme.

When the real purpose" is so explicitly avowed, and the design so judiciously executed, where does the Parochial Vicar find any traces of "that ingenious management, or that imposing artifice," which he so uncharitably ventures to impute? How is this " method of conveying instruction and persuasion inconsistent with what is generally understood by the terms, fair and honourable And with what propriety can this common and most useful practice of revising books of instruction, be so vehemently censured by the clergy of the Church of England, whose boasted scheme is nothing more than the religion of Rome marred, despoiled and eviscerated;" whose Liturgy is no better than a Mass Book altered snd revised?

But, Sir, as the whole merit of these improved works is strictly due

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