criminal cases, were a committee of veteran villains to sit to consider of the best means to prevent the arm of justice from reaching the fraternity, with power to alter the mode of trial to their wishes, I think one of their most promising plans would be, to increase the number of Jurors, retaining the necessity of unanimity. If so, a diminution, to a certain degree, of the number, at present unnecessarily large, and suffering the majority to decide, would promote justice in the same proportion that the reverse plan would hinder it.

It may be said, that this doctrine, pushed to its full extent, would shew that a single unexceptionable juror would form the best Jury possible. I answer, so he would, were he free from human infirmities, passions, and errors. The admission of a plurality of judges, legislators, &c. is justified by experience as a mean of correcting the possible mistakes of one, by the clearer perceptions of the others; at the risk, however, of sometimes introducing error and evil, instead of preventing them. We must endeavour, in this case, as in all others, to obtain the greatest chance of good, with the least of evil,-knowing that great, certain, and unmixed good, is hardly attainable by human wis

dom.

I cannot subscribe to the unlimited assertion sometimes brought forward to palliate the present practice, that it is better for ten guilty persons to escape judicial punishment, than for one innocent person to suffer by it. They are both great evils, and to be studiously avoided; but their respective demerits to the public cannot be weighed against each other in the lump, without distinction of particular cases. There may be such, in which the punishment of an innocent individual, of great virtue and talents, may be of far more detriment to the public than the escape of ten vulgar rogues; and there may be those, in which

the escape of a subtle, accomplished, and desperate villain, may be much more injurious to the public than the punishment of an ordinary character, though innocent. Let it not be understood that I mean to defend or excuse the latter. Injustice to an individual of any class is criminal and odious; but it is the business of legislators to modify the laws, and to direct their execution so as, on the whole, to admit as little of it as possible; and by no process or mode of trial to open the door of evasion so wide for the sake of the innocent, as that the guilty may easily and commonly calculate on slipping through it.

In effecting a change of long-established practices and customs, I am aware that various difficulties may arise to prevent the benefits proposed by the alteration from following it, at least immediately. I have tasked my fancy to anticipate them in this case; but in vain. By the improvements suggested, every person concerned in the administration of justice would receive advantage; the parties, the jurors, the advocates, the judges, and the public. But should real difficulties appear, they must be formidable, and indeed insuperable, to set aside the powerful claims for protection of individual morality and public jus

tice.

I appeal to our legislature, unfettered as they are with the Juryman's cath, to the judges, and to the other magistrates, whether a compulsive unanimity in their decisions would not be a most oppressive and intolerable burden; whether it would not palsy their deliberations, frustrate their endeavours for the public good, and essentially impede the administration of justice. Jurors are men of like passions and feelings with themselves; not perhaps so well instructed, and therefore less likely to weigh accurately the opposite reasons in a doubtful case, and to be unanimous in favor of a small preponderance. Let them

I

remember, that on points of law, as well as of fact, the highest authorities sometimes disagree. Let them relieve the juror from the necessity of compounding with his conscience for a forced assent to a verdict he disapproves, and no longer compel him to "risk the laying perjury on his soul," in the discharge of a public duty, which, by its nature, of all others, should be the farthest removed from a crime so offensive and odious.

'It is said, the opinion of twelve Jurors is the test of truth; and if they do not all agree, the test fails. Answer-the opinion of the twelve Judges is the test of law, yet they frequently differ. The law, notwithstanding, is settled by that of the majority.

A

LETTER

ΤΟ

HIS EXCELLENCY

THE

PRINCE OF TALLEYRAND PERIGORD,

&c. &c. &c.

ON THE SUBJECT OF

The Slave Trade.

BY

WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, ESQ. M. P.

LETTER,

&c. &c.

MONSEIGNEUR,

Sandgate (Kent), Oct. 10th, 1814.

THE continued warfare which, to the regret of all good men, subsisted so long between France and Great Britain, was productive of this bad effect, among many others, that it prevented that mutual interchange of useful intelligence and sugges tions, that intercourse of mind, if I may so term it, which is the happy privilege of our advanced state of social civilization. This consideration is painfully forced upon me by intelligence recently received from France. I should otherwise be greatly surprised as well as much concerned to hear, that the information concerning the nature and effects of the African Slave Trade, which, having been universally diffused throughout Great Britain, has produced one concurrent opinion and feeling on the subject in all classes of our community, has been very little circulated in France; and consequently, that the same erroneous notions of that traffic are still found among you, which were so generally prevalent in this country before such information was obtained.

The Slave Trade had existed for more than two centuries, and had greatly increased within the last; and of all the nations by which it was carried on, Great Britain had by far the largest share of it. At length, the public attention having been drawn to the subject, a Parliamentary Inquiry into the nature and consequences