uS PAST AND PRESENT OF stormiest period's in the world's history. The United States of had fought for and won independence from Great Britain . The French revolution had burst forth, con¬ vulsing Europe. Britain was marshaling her powers to guard the very threshold of the Empire. In such a time little thought could be given to the government of the colonies. Redress of wrongs came slowly or never came. Ill-considered measures on the part of Britain gave rise to new colonial grievances. In this period the land question had its birth and in many other ways this Island felt to its disadvantage the effects of the European turmoil. The administration of affairs within the colony was rendered more difficult. It would be hard to conceive of conditions less favorable to the organiza¬ tion of a new government and the solution of the grave problems incidental to such a task. To these difficulties must be added the natural friction arising from efforts on the part of the new colonists to adjust themselves to each other and to their strange surround¬ ings. All those outside conditions, as at all times, were mirrored in the courts of law, whose very docket is a page of his- t<>r\. The range of work done by the courts was wide, the procedure more complicated and the powers not so well defined as in the present day. To select from the statute and common law of England such as was appli¬ cable to the colony and reject the rest, to in¬ terpret the untried statutes of the Island and fit them to their place was no simple task. The chief justices came to the bench having little or no acquaintance with the conditions of the country. The assistant judges had no professional education. Difficulties in¬ numerable had to met and overcome. The procuring of juries from such a sparsely set¬ tled community was oftentimes impossible. Though fines for non-attendance were lib¬ erally imposed their effect was uncertain. In June term, 1793, eleven grand jury¬ men were fined. Next time none appeared. Not infrequently the court had to be post¬ poned from time to time in order to obtain a jury. When they did attend their work was not always satisfactory to everybody. Fre¬ quently their verdicts were assailed as being contrary to evidence and common sense and occasionally they were required to "guess again." An action was brought for a fifty-pound debt. The jury, not being satisfied that the full amount was due, found a verdict "that the defendant is not indebted to the plaintiff in the sum of fifty pounds" and left it at that. The severity of the penalties prescribed for criminal offences was another obstacle in the path of those charged with the admin¬ istration of justice and this obstacle re¬ mained far down into the following cen¬ tury. In many cases where the offense was proven juries refused to convict, choosing to violate their oaths rather than render a true verdict which would work cruel wrong in its execution. In one case the accused was proven beyond any doubt guilty of grand larceny, the penalty for which was death. The jury returned a verdict of "not guilty." When asked to account for this remarkable finding the foreman of the jury explained that though they had no doubt of the pris¬ oner's guilt the jury considered the fact that he had a wife and seven children dependent upon him and that, to hang the head of a family would not only disorganize his house¬ hold but impose a burden on the community. Even when a jury did convict the pris¬ oner needed not always to abandon hope.