Saturday 7 July 1781 · Supplement

nishing Jurors, for false Verdicts, principally depends. I would know whether any thing be more common, than for two Men Students, Barristers, or Judges, to deduce contrary and opposite Conclusions out of the same Case in Law? And is there any Difference, that two Men should infer distinct Conclusions from the same Testimony? Is any thing more known, than that the same Author, and Place in that Author, is forcibly urged to maintain contrary Conclusions, and the Decision hard which is in the right? Is any thing more frequent in the Controversies of Religion than to press the same texts for opposite tenets? How then comes it to pass, that two persons may not apprehend, with reason and Honesty, what one Witness or many say, to prove in the Understanding of one plainly one thing, but in the Apprehension of the other, clearly the contrary? Must therefore one of these merit Fine and Imprisonment, because he doth that which he cannot otherwise do, preserving his Oath and Integrity? And this is often the Case of the Judge and the Jury. I conclude therefore, that this return, charging the Prisoners to have acquitted P. and M. against full and manifest evidence first, and next, without saying that they did know and believe that the evidence to be full and manifest against the indicted Persons, is no cause of fine and imprisonment. In the Margin of the fol. 142, it is thus noted: Of this mind were ten judges of eleven; the Chief Baron Turner gave no opinion, because not at the Argument. And in the same fol. he saith, the verdict of a jury, and evidence of a Witness, are very different things, in the truth and falshood of them: A witness swears but to what he hath heard or seen generally, or more largely, to what hath fallen under his Senses: But a Juryman swears to what he can infer and conclude from the testimony of such Witnesses by the act and force of his understanding, to be the Fact inquired after; which differs nothing in Reason, though much in the Punishment, from what a Judge, out of various Cases considered by him, infers to be the Law in the Question before him. If the meaning of these words, finding against the Direction of the Court, in matter of Law; be, that if the Judge having heard the evidence given in court (for he knows no other) shall tell the jury upon this evidence the law is for the Plantiff, or for the defendant, and you are under the pain of fine and imprisonment to find accordingly, and the Jury ought of duty so to do, then every Man sees, that the jury is but a troublesore delay, great Charge and of no use in determing right and wrong; and therefore the trials by them may be better abolished than continued which were a strange new found conclusion, after a trial so celebrated for many hundrd Years. It is true, if the jury were to have no other evidence for the fact but what is deposed in court, the Judge might know their evidence, and the fact from it, equally as they, and so direct what the law were in the Case Though even then the judge and jury might honestly differ in the Result, from the Evidence as well as two Judges may, which often happen; but the evidence which the jury have of fact, is much otherwise than that: For, 1. being returned of the Vicinage where the Cause of Action ariseth, the law supposeth them thence to have sufficient Knowledge to try the matter in issue (and so they must) though no evidence were given on either side in Court; but to this evidence the Judge is a stranger. 2. They may have evidence from their own personal Knowledge, by which they may be assured; and sometimes are, that what is deposed in court is absolutely false, but to this the Judge is a Stranger; and he knows no more of the fact than he hath learned in court, and perhaps by false depositions, and consequently knows nothing. 3. The Jury may know the Witness to be stigmatized, and infamous, which may be unknown to the Parties, and consequently to the Court.