Sheriff ever refused to alter the Pannel when the Court directed it until of late It hath been always done I my self with divers other Gentlemen by the direction of the Judge have gone off the Bench to serve upon the Grand Jury although we have not been returned and our Names put into the Pannel in the Court If it should not be in the power of a Court to do this farewel the Security and Liberty of the People of England But we in this County are yet in a worse condition than any other we cannot say we have a Sheriff The Bench last Sessions desired the Sheriffs company and assistance to do that Right which belongs to that Office they refused and sent word by Mr. Recorder that they were obliged to attend the Lord Mayor and could not stir out of the City If this be so what a melancholy posture is this County in where there are so many of the Nobility and Gentry and where for the most part the King himself resides with his whole Court If there should be a Tumult or Rebellion who could raise the Posse Comitatus to suppress it As sometime since there was in Naples where the Persons Houses and Estates of the Inhabitants were subject to the Rage and Violence of the meanest of the People Very ill Masters I hope both you and we shall consider this and since we can have no other relief more closely apply our selves to those legal ways and means which may prevent Riots and Tumults We have a common Enemy the Papists which notwithstanding all the Care which hath been taken we are informed still swarm about this part of the Town His Majesty hath been pleased to send Order to us about them which we shall communicate to you Mr. Clerk of the Peace pray read the Orders of the King in Council which were read viz. At the Council-Chamber VVHITEHALL the 5th of October 1681. Present His Highness Prince Rupert Lord Archibishop of Canterbury Lord Privy Seal Earl of Bathe Earl of Craven Viscount Fauconberg Lord Bishop of London Mr. Secretary Jenkins VVHereas there was this day presented at the Board a List of the Names of several Tradesmen who are Papists residing in the Parishes of St. Martins in the Fields St. Giles in the Fields St. Pauls Covent-Garden and places adjacent contrary to the Laws of this Kingdom and his Majesties Proclamations for reinforcing the same It was thereupon Ordered by their Lordships That the said List be forthwith sent to his Majesties Justices of the Peace for the County of Middlesex and the City and Liberties of Westminster who at this present Sessions of Peace are to proceed against the said Popish Tradesmen according to Law and to give the Board an account of what they shall do thereupon John Nicholas At the Court at VVHITEHALL this 11th day of November 1681. By the Kings most excellent Majesty and the Lords of his Majesties Honourable Privy-Council IT was this day Ordered by his Majesty in Council that the Justices of Peace of Middlesex and the City and Liberties of Westminster do give an account as soon as conveniently may be to this Board of their proceedings in pursuance of an Order of Council heretofore transmitted to them together with a List of several Papists who inhabit and keep Shops and exercise Trades hereabouts contrary to Law Francis Gwyn Gentlemen You see what Care the King and Council take of us I hope we shall take some Care of our selves The Papists are our known and common Enemy and watch all opportunities to disturb the Peace of this Kingdom pray be industrious to find them out and present them that they may be dealt with according to Law Gentlemen At the Command of the Bench I have as well as I can delivered you their Sence and Commands and my own Opinion who God Almighty knows have no other design than the Safety and Honour of the King the Preservation of the true Protestant Religion as it is established by Law in the Church of England and the Peace and Prosperity of the Kingdom in the preservation of their Liberties and Properties I doubt not but you and all men will joyn with us to these Ends which cannot be effected unless these Conventicles which add presumption to our Enemies be laid aside and the King who by his Power is to preserve us be with due Reverence obeyed and kindly assisted by us Gentlemen of the Bench I am but your Servant and I hope I have spoke your Sence to which the Court unanimously agreed Note That the Justices observing a person in Court to write sent for him to see what he writ which was in Short-hand They commanded him to transcribe in length which being read to them they finding it to be truely took declared it their Sence and ordered it to be printed and published to the intent the whole Kingdom may see their Opinion Per Cur. Adderley
THE PROCEEDINGS AT THE Sessions of the Peace HELD AT HICKS-HALL FOR THE County of Middlesex Decemb. 5. 1681. With His MAJESTIES Two ORDERS and Sir WILLIAM SMITH's SPEECH to the Grand Jury concerning putting the Laws in Execution against Popish Recusants and Conventicles Together with his Discourse upon the Statute of 3d. of Hen. 8. herewith printed concerning the Power of the Justices of the Peace to Impannel JURIES Printed and Published by the Order of the said Justices LONDON Printed for Walter Davies in Amen-Corner 1682. C R HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE DIEV ET MON DROIT Ad general Midd. ss Sessionem pacis Domini Regis tent per Adjornament pro Com. Midd. apud Hicks-hall in St. John-street in Com. praedict die Lunae scil Quinto die Decembris Anno Regni Caroli Regis Secundi nunc Angliae c. Tricesimo tertio The Justices then assembled directed Sir William Smith to speak to the Grand-Jury to some Points which he did as followeth GENTLEMEN IT is not usual to give a Charge at this Sessions but something I am to say to you Sir George Jeofferies is your Chair-man but a Duty incumbent upon him to be at another Place at this time would not permit his Attendance upon this Service I must confess when he first ingaged in it I promis'd to relieve him if at any time he was under a necessity of being absent I am sorry there was any such at this time It is very unhappy for you and as unhappy for me for you because you might have been assisted by his great Abilities and directed in those things which possibly may be too hard for me For me because by my discourse I shall discover that weakness which by my silence I might have concealed But before I say any thing I will recommend my self to you by a Character which I hope will give me credit with you I am an English-man who in all the publick Administrations of my Life never had any other design but the Honour and Safety of the King and the Peace and Prosperity of my Country abstracted from all private Considerations of Profit or Advantage whatsoever That I may prove this to you I will accquaint you that I have had the Honour to Sit in two Parliaments that in the year 1640. and this last Long Parliament from the beginning to the end of it No question you have heard of Pensioners I do declare before God and you that I never received nor any one for me one Shilling from the King or Crown or any Minister of State in Money Place Office Imployment or any other matter or thing whatsoever directly or indirectly to this day I have been a Justice of the Peace this Twenty years I have been and am a Deputy-Lieutenant And have been made use of in other publick Affairs none of Profit but never made one Penny advantage by them or any of them This methinks should perswade you to believe that what I shall say to you is intended for the Good and Welfare of my King and Country Gentlemen A good Physitian when he comes to his Patient endeavours to find out his Disease before he applies himself to the Cure if he doth otherwise he rather practiseth to gain Skill than to make use of what he hath This Kingdom is at present under very sad Circumstances God Almighty help us Pray let us endeavour to find out the Cause that a suitable remedy may be applyed I think I have it We have lost a Jewel a Jewel of an inestimable price in the Judgment of all Wise men What do you think this is It is Government I will describe it to you because you may know it when you meet with it It is where there be good Laws and those duely executed and where the Subjects have a reverence for and a due esteem of their Prince That we have good Laws all those who understand them must confess and if they will take pains to compare them with those of other Countries will find they are the best in the World the most equal and therefore the most easie Is it not then pity they should not be well executed If the Laws are good I am sure the Prince is better they are but Just he is both Just and Merciful His Justice appears in all his Actions and yet his Mercy is more eminent for he hath forgiven his Fathers Enemies as well as his own witness the Act of Oblivion he takes nothing from any man doth not oppress the meanest of his Subjects nor interposeth his Authority to obstruct Justice Should we not honour and esteem such a Prince Should we not assist him that he may live with Honour at Ease and be enabled to defend us from his and our Enemies Should we not for our own sakes endeavour to preserve his Life and punish those who shall contrive designs against it This ought to be done it is our Duty it is our Interest Gentlemen I told you Government was a most pretious Jewel without it a Kingdom is but a Wilderness or Forest of Wild Beasts who prey upon each other Where there is no Government do you think a Poor man will walk bare-foot by a Shooe-makers Shop and not take a pair of Shooes Or go from a Cooks with an empty Belly Or pass through Lombard-street and not supply his Pockets Without Government mankind would live in Statu Belli not that I am of Mr. Hobbs his Opinion we were created so but by known frailty and the Devils subtilty we are so and therefore without Government and a due Subjection to Law every man must stand upon his Guard and keep a Garrison in his House to defend his Goods and when he walks abroad must maintain a Guard to defend his Person and yet this will not make him safe neither for his own Garrison and Guard may if their Appetite or Interest leads them to it betray him Gentlemen God Almighty knew this when he created Man and therefore gave him a Law by which he should live and govern himself and printed it in his heart called the Law of Nature which is That Man should reverence and adore God which gave him his Being that he should honour his Parents and those are both Natural and Civil That he should live justly and peaceably with those of his own Kind and this is truly called the Law of Nature Is it not both natural and reasonable that we should adore God who made us and not Birds and Beasts or the works of our own hands Is it not natural to Honour our Parents who gave us Life and our Princes who by their Care and Power preserve it Is it not natural to live justly and peaceably with all men and not injure them in their Lives and Estates or good Names by Violence Fraud or Perjury This was not a State of War for if man had minded and attended to this Law as he ought to have done there would have been no Contentions or
number and did little more than walk through them to Conquest Methinks the ill Consequences which may be easily foreseen to arise from such plain demonstrations of a divided Nation should prevail upon the most tender Conscience not to be guilty of any thing that should bring such certain ruine upon his King Countrey and Protestant Religion especially having liberty according to Law to exercise his Religion in his own way in his own House with his own Family and an addition under sive more I have made it my business to preserve Dissenters from being prosecuted upon the Penal Laws for not coming to Church because I had a regard to tender Consciences but since the King and Parliament have been so kind to indulge them the Toleration I have mentioned I cannot but esteem it rather Humour than Conscience when they will yet offend against the Law by these publick Conventicles which are so destructive to the Peace and Safety of the Kingdom and are not suffered in any Countreys or Kingdoms that I know of I cannot tell what to say more to you upon this Matter but if I had the Tongue of Men and Angels I would make use of it to perswade and adjure you for Gods sake and your own to lay aside these publick Conventicles and keep to your own Houses and serve God there in your own way These publick Separations I must confess I take to be one Cause and that a great one of our present Troubles and if you Gentlemen of the Bench and Grand Jury be of that opinion I hope we shall kindly agree together in the remedy of this Evil. The Law of Nature which I have recommended to you teacheth us to unite and live sociably together and to do those things which may contribute to Self-preservation Gentlemen The next thing which I am to recommend unto you is the consideration of Juries I mean Grand Juries I shall desire the Statute of the 3d. of Henry the 8th for the regulating those Juries may be read The Clerk of the Peace did read it The Act the Justices may return Impannels for the King by their discretions WHereas great extortions and oppressions be and have been within the more party of all the Counties and Shires within this Realm of England by the subtilty and untrue demeanour of Sheriffs and their Ministers committed and done unto many persons in great number of the Kings Subjects by mean and making and returning at every Sessions holden within the said Counties and Shires for the body of the Shire in taking and putting in and returning of names of such persons as for the singular advantage benefit and gain of the said Sheriffs and their Ministers will be wilfully forsworn and perjured by the sinister labour of the said Sheriffs and their Ministers by reason whereof many and divers substantial persons the Kings true Subjects contrary to good equity and rightwiseness have divers times and many wrongfully been indicted of divers Murders Felonies and other Misbehaviour by their covin and falshood to the utter undoing of their Lives loss of their Goods and their Lands by reason whereof they and every of them in avoiding the untrue trouble and vexation which to them might come and ensue by reason and occasion of the same false Indictments and also sometime by labour of the said Sheriffs divers great Felonies and Murders concealed and by the said persons also by the said Sheriffs and their Ministers partially returned not presented be and have been compelled to make Fines and give rewards to the said Sheriffs and their Ministers Wherefore be it enacted ordained and established by the King our Sovereign Lord and by the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons of this present Parliament assembled and by authority of the same That all Pannels to be returned which be not at the Suit of any party that shall be made and put in by every Sheriff and their Ministers afore any Iustice of Goal-delivery or Iustice of Peace whereof one to be of the Quorum in their open Sessions to enquire for the King shall be reformed by putting to and taking out of the names of the persons which so be empanelled by every Sheriff and their Ministers by discretion of the same Iustice before whom such Panels shall be returned And that the same Iustice and Iustices shall command every Sheriff and their Ministers in his absence to put other persons in the same Panel by their discretions and that the same Panels so resormed by the said Iustices be good and lawful And that if any Sheriff or any their Minister at any time do not return the same Panel so reformed that then every such Sheriff or Minister so offending for every such offence shall forfeit xx li. Sterling Maney of England the one half thereof to our Sovereign Lord the King or his Heirs and the other half to him or them of his Subjects that will Sue for the same by Action of Debt at the Common Law or Bill or Complaint where it shall fortune any such to fall and be and that none Essoin ne Protection be allowed for the Defendant or Defendants in that Action or Plaint nor that the said Defendant nor Defendants therein be admitted to wage their Law And that the Kings Pardon shall be no bar against the party and parties in the same that any such Action shall Sue Gentlemen Juries are a Hedge about our Liberties and Lives and the Wisdom of our Ancestors took great care they may be such as they ought to be as you may see by this Statute 'T is not reasonable that the Lives and Fortunes of the People should be at the dispose of an under-Sheriff certainly all men must think them more safe in the hands of Judges who are sworn and are Learned in the Laws and Justices of the Peace who are men of Estates and Interests in their Countrey An under-Sheriff as the Statute expresseth may be corrupted how can then either the King or his Subjects depend upon the Justice of the Law if the under-Sheriff shall have the absolute power to return Juries and no room left to reform the Pannel after the Sheriff hath returned it Certainly the Statute never intended this but so it would be if the Sheriffs refusal to alter it be a barr to the alteration of it For what signifies the Penalty of 20 l. nothing at all The Statute never could intend the Matter should rest there for if so it is useless and the mischief recited in the Preamble remains When a Sheriff hath returned a Pannel into the Court the Court is then possessed of it and the Hand to put out any returned and put in others is but a Circumstance in my opinion and to be done by any the Court shall direct if the Sheriff should refuse I hope the Judges who are Expositors of the Law will consider this Point which is so important both for the King and all his Subjects I never heard that any