considerations and many more that I could offer, I now make my most earnest request that your Lordship will be pleased to take this into consideration, and appoint an attorney-general for this island and its dependencies.

The request thus earnestly presented was in a short time afterwards complied with. A real lawyer was sent out as attorney-general. But the Governor did not find much immediate profit from the acquisition, for the first functionary sent out in this character seems to have been a man of such vacillating, uncertain judgment, that it was rather a frequent habit with him, after having encouraged the Government to prosecute cases in the court, to get up in the midst of the process and intimate that he was wrong in advising it to be brought into the court at all, thus suggesting to judge and jury that they ought to give a decision against the Crown.

The increasing difficulties besetting the administration of justice, the disorderly practices which had crept into the courts, the many complaints that had arisen in reference to the decisions of the tribunals, especially of the surrogates' courts-complaints which made themselves heard within the walls of Parliament, rendered it necessary that a new and comprehensive measure should be passed by the British Legislature, adapted to the altered condition of the country. Partly in order that he might lend his advice in the preparation of such a measure, Sir Charles Hamilton went to England at the close of 1823. There he remained through the following year, though still retaining the rank of governor, the

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duties of his office in the island being performed in his absence by the chief justice.

The result of the deliberations of the ministry was the bringing before Parliament, and the passing by that body of an elaborate statute entitled, 'An Act for the better administration of justice in Newfoundland, and for other purposes.' The preamble states:—

Whereas it is expedient to make further provision for the administration of justice in the Colony of Newfoundland, it is therefore enacted by the King's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the consent and advice, &c., in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that it shall and may be lawful for His Majesty by his charter, or letters patent, under the Great Seal, to institute a Superior Court of Judicature in Newfoundland, which shall be entitled The Supreme Court of Newfoundland,' and the said court shall be a Court of Record, and shall have all civil and criminal jurisdiction whatever in Newfoundland and in all lands, islands, and territories dependent upon the government thereof, as fully and amply to all intents and purposes as His Majesty's courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer, and High Court of Chancery, in that part of Great Britain called England have, or any of them hath, and the said Supreme Court shall also be a Court of Oyer and Terminer, and general gaol delivery in and for for Newfoundland, and all places within the Government thereof, and shall also have jurisdiction in all cases of crimes and misdemeanours committed on the banks of Newfoundland, or any of the seas or islands to which ships or vessels repair from Newfoundland for carrying on the fishery.

The principal provisions of the Act of 1824 were to the effect that the supreme court should be 'holden by a chief judge and two assistant judges, being respectively barristers in England or Ireland of at least

three years' standing, or in some of His Majesty's colonies or plantations;' that it should be lawful for the Governor to divide the colony into three districts, as may appear best adapted for enabling the inhabitants to resort with ease and convenience to the circuit courts to be therein established; - that it should be lawful for His Majesty to institute circuit courts in each of the three districts, such courts to be holden at least once every year by the chief judge, or one of the assistant judges of the supreme court; that the circuit courts should have the same jurisdiction within the district in which they were severally held, as was vested in the supreme court for the whole colony, with the exception of trying certain crimes specified, or of hearing or determining any suit arising out of a violation of any Act of Parliament, relating to the trade and revenue of the British colonies in America. Such crimes and such suits to be tried, heard, and determined only in the supreme court. To persons who felt themselves aggrieved by any judgment given in the circuit court, there was granted power of appeal to the supreme court, for a reversal of such judgment. By the same Act, authority was given to the Governor to institute a court of civil jurisdiction on the coast of Labrador.

Such are the principal characteristics and aims of a statute which, with the royal charter issued in consequence of it, has formed the basis of the modern jurisprudence of the colony. By it, the old system under naval surrogates, which had to deal with nice questions of law, and give judgment thereon, a system which

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in its earliest days was recognised as having many blemishes, and which under the increasing light of recent times was seen to be utterly repulsive, was entirely swept away, and the Judicature of Newfoundland was brought into nearer harmony with that of the mother-country, and of the other colonial possessions of Great Britain.

Other points in the Act which were also incorporated in the Royal Charter may more properly be mentioned in connection with the publication of that instrument, the account of which will be given in the next chapter.

An effort of a charitable and useful character belongs to this period (1823). It was initiated in a memorial signed by a number of English merchants interested in the Newfoundland trade, and who expressed their desire to found in St. John's, with the sanction and assistance of the Government, a trainingschool, from which teachers might be sent to the different outports. They wished the academy to be established on a liberal basis, so as to meet the diversity of religious sentiments in the population. Their memorial was accompanied by a letter strongly urging its appeal, from Mr. Samuel Codnor, a man whose name is gratefully associated with the small measure of primary education provided in the country until very recent times.

His Excellency, in laying this memorial before Lord Bathurst, expressed himself as not sympathising with its proposed object, he regarding the movement as of a sectarian character, in opposition to the schools

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of the established church. It, however, received the approval and support of the British Government, which, in thus aiding the establishment of the Newfoundland School Society, procured the introduction of one of the most useful institutions in the country.

While the British settlers were in various ways labouring to introduce and establish the marks of civilisation borrowed from the old world, fresh glimpses were afforded of the unhappy and fading race, whose inheritance had been appropriated by the strangers. In the beginning of the year 1819, a person of the name of Peyton, carrying on considerable salmon fisheries in the north of the island, having for several years been greatly annoyed, and having suffered extensive injury, evidently at the hands of the natives, determined to go into the interior with the view of recovering some of his lost property, and of inducing the Indians to enter into a system of barter with him for the future, instead of supplying themselves by theft. In this journey he was accompanied by his father and eight of his own men. With these he proceeded into the interior, and on March 5, on a frozen lake, a number of the aborigines came in sight. They immediately ran away; but Mr. Peyton, by throwing away his arms, and making signs of amity, induced one to stop, who proved to be a woman, and who soon grew very friendly.

The rest of the Indians, however, approached with more hostile dispositions, and, it is said, attacked the visitors, one of them seizing the elder Peyton by the throat with the intention of taking his life. To To pre