were sent back to prison. When they were subsequently brought up for trial
for the same offence, and pleaded that they could not a second time be
tried, their plea was overruled, although founded on one of the commonest
principles of law, and sanctioned by a thousand precedents. The reasoning
of Scroggs and North, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, is so curious
that it is worth quoting. Whitebread, after objecting that he is informed
that no man can be put in jeopardy of his life the second time for the
same cause: 'I speak it not for my sake only, but for the sake of the
whole nation; no man should be tried twice for the same cause; by the same
reason a man may be tried twenty or one hundred times.'

SCROGGS. 'You say well, it is observed, Mr. Whitebread; but you must know
that you were not put in jeopardy of your life for the same thing, for
first the jury were discharged of you; it is true, it was supposed when
you were indicted that there would be two witnesses against you, but that
fell out otherwise, and the law of the land requiring two witnesses to
prove you guilty of treason, it was thought reasonable that you should not
be put upon the jury at all, but you were discharged, and then you were in
no jeopardy of your life.'

'Under favor, my lord, I was in jeopardy, for I was given in charge to the
jury; and 'tis the case in Seyer, 31 Eliz., he was indicted for a burglary
committed the 31st of August, and pleaded to it, and afterward another
indictment was preferred, and all the judges did declare that he could not
be indicted the second time for the same fact, because he was in jeopardy
of his life again.'

C. J. NORTH. 'The oath the jury take is, _that they shall well and truly
try, and true deliverance make_ of such prisoners as they shall have in
charge; the charge of the jury is not full 'till the court give them a a
charge at last, after evidence had; and because there was a mistake in
your case, that the evidence was not so full as might be, the jury before
they ever considered concerning you at all they were discharged, and so
you were not in jeopardy; and, I in my experience, know it to be often
done, and 'tis the course of law.'

In this opinion all the judges coincided. Sad indeed was the condition of
things in poor England when all her judges could resort to such miserable
quibbles; or worse than this, could deliberately falsify the law, to
condemn to an ignominious death two defenceless prison