a list of forty-eight names, out of
which each party is to strike twelve. But the case assumes an entire
difference of character, when the Government itself is the Prosecutor.
The Master of the Crown-office is then an officer holding his office
under the Prosecutor; and it is therefore no wonder that the suspicion
of packing Juries should, in such cases, have been so prevalent.

This will apply with additional force, when the prosecution is commenced
against the Author or Publisher of such Works as treat of reforms, and
of the abolition of superfluous places and offices, &c, because in such
cases every person holding an office, subject to that suspicion, becomes
interested as a party; and the office, called the Crown-office, may,
upon examination, be found to be of this description.

I have heard it asserted, that the Master of the Crown-office is to open
the sheriff's 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, th