ing the fafety of the community. At the fame time, he expects that the evil, fuch as it is, be not exaggerated or misreprefented. In general, it is not unjust that, when the rich man contributes his wealth, the poor man should serve the state in perfon otherwise the latter contributes nothing to the defence of that law and constitution, from which he demands fafety and protection. But the question does not lye between rich and poor. The laws of England make no distinctions. Neither is it true that the poor man is torn from the care and support of a wife and family, helpless without him. The fingle queftion is, whether the feaman*, in times of public danger, shall serve the merchant or the state, in that profeffion to which he was bred, and by the exercise of which alone he can honestly support himself and his family.General arguments against the doctrine of necessity, vand the dangerous use that may be made of it, are of no weight in this particular cafe. Neceffity includes the idea of inevitable. Whenever it is so, it creates a law, to which all pofitive laws, and all pofitive rights must give way. In this sense the levy of hip-money by the King's warrant was not necessa

I confine myself ftrictly to Seamen ;-if any others are preffed, it is a grofs abuse, which the magiftrate can and fhould correct.

ry, because the bufiness might have been as well or better done by parliament. If the doctrine, maintained by Junius, be confined within this limitation, it will go but very little way in support of arbitrary power. That the King is to judge of the occafion, is no objection, unless we are told how it can poffibly be otherwise. There are other inftances, not lefs important in the exercise, nor lefs dangerous in the abuse, in which the conftitution relies entirely upon the King's judgment. The executive power proclaims war and peace, binds the nation by treaties, orders general embargoes, and impofes quarantines, not to mention a multitude of prerogative writs, which, though liable to the greatest abuses, were never difputed.

3o. It has been urged, as a reproach to Junius, that he has not delivered an opinion upon the Game Laws, and particularly the late Dog-act. But Junius thinks he has much greater reason to complain, that he is never affifted by thofe, who are able to affift him, and that almost the whole labour of the prefs is thrown upon a fingle hand, from which a difcuffion of every public queftion whatsoever is unreasonably expected. He is not paid for his labour,. and certainly has a right to choose his employment. -As to the Game Laws, he never fcrupled to declare his opinion, that they are a fpecies of the

Foreft

Foreft Laws, that they are oppreffive to the subject, and that the spirit of them is incompatible with legal liberty that the penalties, imposed by these laws, bear no proportion to the nature of the offence, that the mode of trial and the degree and kind of evidence neceffary to convict, not only deprive the fubject of all the benefits of a trial by jury, but are in themselves too fummary, and to the last degree arbitrary and oppreffive. That, in particular, the late acts to prevent dogftealing, or killing game between fun and fun, are diftinguished by their abfurdity, evtravagance, and pernicious tendency. If these terms are weak, or ambiguous, in what language can Junius exprefs himself? -It is no excufe for Lord Mansfield to fay that he happened to be abfent when these bills passed the house of lords. It was his duty to be present. Such bills could never have paffed the house of commons without his knowledge. But we very well know by what rule he regulates his attendance. When that order was

made in the house of lords in the cafe of Lord Promfret, at which every Englishman fhudders, my honeft Lord Mansfield found himself, by mere accident, in the court of king's bench.- -Otherwife, he would have done wonders in defence of law and property! The pitiful evafion is adap

ted

ted to the character.

But Junius will never justi

The

fy himself, by the example of this bad man. diftinction between doing wrong, and avoiding to do right belongs to Lord Mansfield. Junius difclaims it.

LET

TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD APSLEY, LORD CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND.

MY LORD,

Feb. 1775.

I

WAS a bye-stander this day, when your Lordfhip and the house of lords decided the very important cause of Philip Thickness, appellant, and Peter Leigh and others, refpondents and though unconnected with the parties, and confequently uninterested in the event, I must own I was forcibly ftruck-by a fcene fo novel and unexpected.I ftood, my lord, with filent awe, at the bar of that tribunal, which I had ever been accustomed to confider-as the laft refuge of injured juflice. I expected to hear a queftion of law, of infinite. nicety, difcuffed with wifdom, and decided with integrity.-Judge, then, my lord, my aftonifhment, when, inftead of that decency in debate, which ought to be obferved, even in the lowest courts of justice, and which I had ever thought, in a peculiar manner, characteristic of the houfe of lords, I faw proceedings that would have difgraced a polifb diet !-Yes, my lord, in all iny experience of courts of juftice, I never faw judges

fo