The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1869-01-01
MisGellaMe9Ms.
Lascyers or Osden Time.

That grim and hideous progress which
Jetfreys made in the plenitude OF civil and
military power through the Western Coun-
ties, was not without its comic interludes
and of its less repulsive scenes none was
more laughable than that which occurred
in Bristol Courthouse when the terrible
Chief Justice upbraided the Bristol magis-
trates for taking part in slave-trade oil
the most odious sort. The mode in which
the authorities of the western port carried
on this ubiquitous traffic deserves commem-
Grafton, for no student can understand the
history of any period until he has acquain-
ted himself with its prevailing morality.
At time when by the wealth of her
merchants and the political influence other
inhabitants Bristol was the second city of
England, her mayor and aldermen used
daily to sit in judgment on young men
and growing boys, who were brought be-
fore them and charged with trivial offences.
Some of the prisoners had actually broken
the law; but in large proportion of the
cases the accusations were totally fictitious
the arrests having been made in accor-
dance with the directions of the magistrates,
on charges which the magistrates them
selves knew to be utterly without founda-
ton. Every morning the Bristol tolsey or
courthouse saw q crowd of those Wretched
captives-clerks out Unemployment, unruly
apprentices, street boys without parents,
and occasionally children of honest birth,
aye, of patrician lineage, whose prompt re-
moval from their native land was desired
by brutal fathers or vindictive guardians;
and every morning mockery Of judicial
investigation was perpetrated' in the name
OF justice. Standing in crowd the pris-
oners We're informed ofthe offences charged
against them; huddled together in the
dock, like cattle in a pen, they caughtstray
sentences from the lips OF the perjured ras-
Gals who had seized them in the public
ways; and whilst they thus in a frenzy of
surprise and fear listened to the statements
of counsel for the prosecution, and to the
tabrications Of lying witnesses, agents of
the court whispered to them that if they
wished to save their lives they must instant
II confess their guilt, and implore the jus
ICES to transport them to the plantations.
horant, alarmed, and powerless, the mis-
erble victims invariably acted on this per-
hdtus counsel; and forthwith the magis-
trata ordered their shipment to the West
indas, where they were sold as slaves-the
mong paid for them by West India plan
ters 4 due course finding its way into the
pockts of the Bristol Justices. 1t is asserted
that We weather. aldermen, through eau
ton, those few grains of conscience
whlchFe often found in the breasts of con-
summaA rogues, forbore to share in the
gains othis abominable traffic; but it can
not DC gn-said that the least guilty mag
lgtrlt1Q Aw.Ix % he, .k~ 4
OF their Rther justices.
Vowingengeance on the Bristol kidnap-
pers Jeffrea entered their courthouse, and
opened prcedings by crying aloud that
me hao bright broom to sweep them
with"
The Mayotf Bristol was in those days
no common nyor; in Assize Commissions
his name wasVaced before the names Of
Judges OF ASH; and even beyond the
limits OF his jusdiction he was a man of
mark and lnduece. Great therefore was
TINS dlgnltary's stonishment when Jeffreys
ordered nlm-cNhed as he was iii official
scarlet ana 1urs- stand in the DOCK
FOR Few secondshe local potentate de-
INJURED put wherhe Chief Justice poured
upon MN catarst Of blasphemy, and
T0sed TO hang himpstantly over the en-
trance 70 the tolsey hless he complied i'm
mediately, the humid tied chief magistrate
Of the ancient borouAtook his place at the
telon's bar and receiVasuch a rating as no
thief, murderer, or rebs had ever heard
from Judge Jeffreys' aksiye mouth. I'm
fortunately the affair enid with the storm.
Until the arrival of Wilkm of Orange the
guilty magistrates werekep in fear of
criminal prosecution; bus the matter was
hushed up and covered VIII amnesty by
the new government, SO thu fright only,
which was no small one, wall the punish
ment which these judicial hnappers I'M
Ederwent; and the gains,p say,soger North,
"acquired by 80 wicked atade, rested
peacefully in their pockets" It should be
remembered that the KIDNAPPING Justices
whom the odious Jeffreys so Indignantly
denounced were tolerated and burted by
their respectable and prosperouseighbors
and some of the worst chargespy which
the judges fame has been rendery odious
ito postcrity, depend upon the tidences
OF mon who, if they were not kAappers
themselves, saw nothing pcculiat afro