book as it were per hazard, and take thereout forty-eight
_following_ names, to which the word Merchant or Esquire is affixed.
The former of these are certainly proper, when the case is between
Merchants, and it has reference to the origin of the custom, and to
nothing else. As to the word Esquire, every man is an Esquire who
pleases to call himself Esquire; and the sensible part of mankind are
leaving it off. But the matter for enquiry is, whether there be any
existing law to direct the mode by which the forty-eight names shall be
taken, or whether the mode be merely that of custom which the office has
created; or whether the selection of the forty-eight names be wholly
at the discretion and choice of the Master of the Crown-office? One or
other of the two latter appears to be the case, because the act already
mentioned, of the 3d of George II. lays down no rule or mode, nor refers
to any preceding law--but says only, that Special Juries shall hereafter
be struck, "_in such manner as Special Juries have been and are usually
struck_."

This act appears to have been what is generally understood by a "_deep
take in_." It was fitted to the spur of the moment in which it was
passed, 3d of George II. when parties ran high, and it served to throw
into the hands of Walpole, who was then Minister, the management of
Juries in Crown prosecutions, by making the nomination of the
forty-eight persons, from whom the Jury was to be struck, follow the
precedent established by custom between individuals, and by this means
slipt into practice with less suspicion. Now, the manner of obtaining
Special Juries through the medium of an officer of the Government, such,
for instance, as a Master of the Crown-office, may be impartial in the
case of Merchants or other individuals, but it becomes highly improper
and suspicious in cases where the Government itself is one of the
parties. And it must, upon the whole, appear a strange inconsistency,
that a Government should keep one officer to commence prosecutions, and
another officer to nominate the forty-eight persons from whom the Jury
is to be struck, both of whom are _officers of the Civil List_, and yet
continue to call this by the pompous name of _the glorious "Right of
trial by Jury!_"

In the case of the King against Jordan, for publishing the Rights of
Man, the Attorney-General moved for the appointment of a Special Jury,
and the Master of the Crown-office nominated the forty-eight person