heir residence, attesting the incorruptibility of
their conduct, and the zeal which they had displayed in the due
execution of their duty. A farm might also be allowed to the
individual placed in this important office, if it were thought
expedient, under certain restrictions which should prevent him
from abstracting his attention from his official duties, at
periods when his professional avocations might require his
presence in the service of the public. A salary of 500L.
per annum, with the addition of these indulgencies, would be
equal to 1200L. a year.

An alteration in the judicial code appears also to be
necessary, or at least highly expedient. In the criminal court,
the judge advocate and six naval and military officers are at
present empowered to decide and try delinquents; and although I
believe that their opinions on verdicts have latterly been almost
unanimous, yet I cannot but call to recollection a period when,
painful to relate, the naval and the military were too
frequently, if not generally, opposite in their determinations:
Nor is this the least part of the evil; for evidence is on record
of persons having been bribed, or controlled, by one or more of
the members of the court then sitting in judgment, to accuse
their industrious neighbour, upon oath, of crimes which he had
never committed, in order to lay a ground for the ruin of the
unfortunate individual, merely because his industry and
prosperity in trade were objects of envy. If such a system is not
suppressed, it is not possible for the human mind to calculate
upon the termination of the mischiefs which may ensue from it; it
is not possible for humanity to look upon the probable
consequences, without emotions of horror and dismay. To prevent,
therefore, the recurrence of any circumstance so flagrant and
unjust, it is absolutely necessary to take some measures to
render the criminal and civil courts free from every kind of
prejudice; for what argument can justify the committal of the
existence or the fortunes of individuals, to the mercy or the
caprice of men who are blinded by prejudice.--Prejudice and party
must be fatal to the progress of justice; and as the preceding
remarks are nothing more than the details of facts which are
notorious to every individual who has lived long in the colony,
there is no occasion for my saying much in addition, to prove
that a necessity does exist for some change in the judicial code
of the settlement; and it is