PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. 129 The case of the woman sentenced to death on a conviction of robbery in 1778 for a time seemed desperate. Full preparations were made for the execution. Captain Thomas Mellish , a retired army officer, who was at that time acting provost marshal or sheriff, issued advertisements throughout the Island offering a large sum as a reward to the per¬ son who would undertake to execute the sentence. No response came. He suggested that the event be postponed until the opening of navigation when he expected that some one from the "continent* would be found for the purpose free from insular prejudice. This proposal seems to have been rejected by the acting governor. The day appointed for the execution was at hand. No substi¬ tute could be found for money or fame and the prqvost-marshal, though trained to the profession of killing men, had a strong prejudice against banging a woman. The provost marshal was in a tight place. There was but one way of escape for him and be took that way. He resigned. It was now for the executive to solve the problem. They tried to fill the vacant office, but no one could be beguiled or coerced into accepting it until the prisoner was released. After all due allowance is made it ap¬ pears that the courts of this early period guarded well the people's rights and main¬ tained the high standard of British justice. The century, which was then new, found the supreme court constituted as follows: Pete*: Stewart, chief justice; Robert Gray and James Curtis , assistant judges; Peter McGowan , attorney general; Charles Stew ¬ art and John Wentworth , attorneys; Robert Hodgson , clerk of the crown. Towards the close of the year 1800, hav¬ ing finished the work of the fall term of the 9 court, the chief justice resigned his office after a faithful service of twenty-five years. On the 10th of November, A. D. 1805, he died. He was succeeded by Thomas Cochran , whose stay in the colony was too short to leave much impression. Soon after his appointment he obtained six months' leave of absence on account of the death of his father and then his colonial career seems to have closed. His successor was Robert Thorpe , who held office from 1802 to 1807. He failed to make history, from which fact it is fair to assume that he succeeded in his office. In his time in the dawn of the new century "Black Jack" appears in an unfortunate position. Someone accused him of stealing something which the jury found to be worth tenpence. He called on Mr. Brecken and the clerk of the crown to give hjita a character. They gave him one. The court gave him the cus¬ tomary slow inarch from the gaol to the stocks, from the stocks to the wharf and return to the gaol to the tune of sixty lashes.. • June term of 1804 was marked by settle strenuous proceedings. First one barrister was examined on the "Voire Dire." Then folowed a trial for the offense of having carried a challenge to fight a duel. The ac¬ cused was found not guilty after a most ex¬ citing trial, but, in the subdued language of the record, "on account of something that happened at the trial the court was pleased id order" that a barrister of the court and three others should be bound over, each in the sum of one thousand pounds, with two sureties each in the sum of five hundred pounds, to keep the peace and be of good behavior for the term of three years. In 1807 two applicants for admission to the bar appeared, each furnished with a li-