BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 251
thus remind you of your duty, and of your responsibility, without at the eame time being
reminded of my own; and I am not vain enough to think that such responsibility is less
necessary for me than for you. Perhaps the higher the office, and the greater the power, it is
the more useful that frequent opportunities should recur of reminding Magistrates that their
power is conferred on them for the benefit of others ; and that, in the exercise of it, they are
accountable to their superiors.”
Next addressing “ the gentlemen Sheriffs, the Lord Provost and Magistrates,”
his lordship adverted to the assize in which they had just been engaged ; and,
from a list of commitments and prosecutions officially transmitted to him, enlarged
at considerable length on the vast disproportion of crime in England and
Scotland. He said it had been stated by a political writer, that one Quarter
Sessions at Manchester sends more criminals for transportation than all Scotland
in a year.’ This enviable inferiority of his native country he attributed to its
laws and institutions-the education of youth-a resident clergy-and the
maintenance of religion. ‘‘ Let us then, gentlemen, be thankful for the blessings
we enjoy. While we venerate the general constitution of England, by our
union with which our liberties have been secured on a surer basis than by the
old constitution of Scotland, let us not undervalue our local laws and institutions,
by which essential advantages are given to us, and which we ought not rashly
to endanger by attempting violent innovations, the full bearing of which it is
impossible to foresee.”
Alluding to the Revolution in France, and the war then waging with Napoleon-
a war in which, his lordship observed, “ our very existence as a nation is
at stake,” he concluded his energetic appeal as follows :-
“ Let us, than, maintain our Constitution as it stands, satisfied with the liberty we have,
and dreading, from the example of France, that an attempt at perfect freedom may land us in
the extremity of slavery and debasement. Above all, let us maintain our Constitution from
foreign invasion. If subjection to a foreign foe be, and it is, the most dreadful calamity which
can befall a people, even when its own Government is bad, think what wonld be the misery of
conquest to us. Language never uttered-imagination never conceived-humanity never endured
the horrors which await us, if subdued by the arms of France. To be utterly extirpated would
be mercy, compared with the outrages we must suffer ! Let, then, the resolution of us all be
fixed as yours-to bring this contest to a happy termination, m perish in the attempt. Hardships
and privations we may expect ; but, when we compare them with those we shall avoidwhen
we consider them as the price, and the cheap price, of liberty such as ours-for ourselves
and our children, I trust that we shall bear them with cheerfulness, and receive our reward iu
the gratitude of posterity.”
The address of the Lord Justice-clerk was listened to with profound attention.
The peculiar interest which it excited is of course referable to the then
state of the country-agitated as it was by the fear of an immedirtte invasion
from the armies of France. It is at all events highly creditable to the spirit
and eloquence of the Judge.
On the death of Lord President Blair, in 1811, the Right Hon. Charles
Hope was promoted to his place. On taking his seat, 12th November of that
year, he entered into a warm and feeling panegyric of his gifted predecessor.
It is a remarkable fact, that the whole criminal trials in Scotland, at the autumn circuit in
1808, amounted only to eighteen ; and throughout the year they were no more than eighty ! Now,
however, they are seldom less than‘seventy at a single circuit in Glasgow alone ; and the yearly
average for the whole of Scotland may be stated 89 not under six hundred,