Whereas,
were it otherwise the spirit of revenge is so universal, there are but
few cases wherein a juror could act with safety to himself; either the
prosecuted, as where the bill is found, or the prosecutor, where it is
returned _ignoramus_, may contrive to defame the jurors who differ from
them in opinion: As I am told has happened to some very honest citizens
who are represented to be Jacobites since their opinions were know to be
against ----. And sometimes revenge or ambition may prompt men to carry
it further, as in the case of Mr. Wilmer, who in King Charles 2d's time
was very severely handled for being one of an _ignoramus_ jury.----
'Tis not necessary to say whom he disobliged by being so.----But if I
remember right his case was this.

He was a merchant, (and as I said, an _ignoramus_ juryman) had
covenanted with a servant boy to serve him in the West Indies, and
accordingly sent him beyond sea: Upon suggestion and affidavit by which
any person might have it, a writ _de homine replegiando_ was granted
against Mr. Wilmer; the sheriffs would have returned on the writ the
agreement and the boy's consent, but the court (in the case of this
Wilmer) Easter 34, Cha. 2. [_i.e.,_ Charles the Second] in B.R. ruled
they must return _replegiari fecimus_ or _elongavit_, that is, they had
replevy'd the boy, or that Wilmer had carried him away where they could
not find him, in which last case Mr. Wilmer, though an innocent person
must have gone to gaol until he brought the boy into court or he must
have been outlawed--Shower's Rep. 2 Part.

I do not say this that I think the same thing will be practised again,
or anything like it, though I know that very homely proverb, "More ways
of killing a dog than hanging him."--But I instance it to shew, the
counsels of every grand juryman should be kept secret, that he may act
freely and without apprehensions of resentment from the prosecuted or
prosecutor.

My resolution when I writ to you last, was, not to have said anything in
this concerning the power of dissolving or dispensing, but as I have
been forced to say something of the dispensing, for the same reason I
must of the dissolving power.--A power undoubtedly in effect including
that of returning, which makes me wish two men of great interest in this
kingdom, differing in every other thing, had not undertaken to defend
it, or they had better reasons for it than I have yet heard.

'Tis said, "This power is in the court as a