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cense from the lieutenant governor. The court took time to consider, but no decision has yet been recorded.

On the Ist of May, 1807, Caesar Col- clough was appointed chief justice. He was a barrister of the Irish bar and had evidently won some distinction in the courts of his native land.

The late Israel Longworth, in a most in- teresting letter to the press, tells of him. Mr. Colclough, with several other barristers, had arrived at Balinla ferry during a storm so violent that the ferryman feared to cross. Mt. Colclough, fearless of danger, flung his saddle-bags into the boat and ordered the boatman to row him over. -

One of‘his friends, left upon the shore, took out his tablets and thus noted the event:

“Whilst meaner souls the tempest keeps in . awe

Intrepid Caesar Crossing Belinla

Shouts to the boatman shivering in his rags

You carry Caesar and his saddle—bags.”

He came. he saw and for some time he conquered. But troubles, chiefly political. soon began to gather around him. The po- sition of chief justice of this Island had been, and until a much later day, continued to be, one of great difficulty. He was usually a member of the council, and as such, was supposed to take an active and responsible part in the government of the colony. The Législative Assembly watched with a jeal- ous eye each act of the excutive, and when they found a grievance were not slow to voice it in the clear and forcible language of that time. The good opinion at first enter- tained by the assembly of the chief justice gradually veered round to the opposite point. In 1812 some of his friends in the assembly,

PAST AND PRESENT OF

not realizing the full extent of the change, introduced a resolution that the thanks of the assembly should be presented to the chief justice for the firm and dignified conduct he had evidenced in his judicial capacity since his arrival in this Island.

The object, evidently, was to strengthen his hand in a contest then going on between him and Governor DesBarres, but the reso- lution was voted down, twelve to four. and thus became a weapon in the hands of his opponent.

The majority in the assembly followed up their triumph by passing a direct vote of censure upon the chief justice, setting forth that in certain proceedings taken in his court against members of the “Loyal Electors,” a society formed by the settlers in opposition to the proprietors, he had acted as solicitor, prosecutor and judge, and that, by seeking to appoint the sheriffs, he also aimed at having the choice of juries. His conduct was characterized as so dangerous to the lives, liberties and properties of His Majesty’s sub- jects as to render it inadvisable that he should longer be continued in the discharge of the functions of his office. In accordance with the resolution an address was presented by the speaker, Honourable Ralph Brecken, to the lieutenant governor, praying for the suspension of the chief justice until His Majesty’s pleasure should be known. The governor lost no time in granting the prayer of the assembly and the suspension took effect in October, 1812.

Shortly afterwards Governor DesBarres was recalled and the chief justice reinstated, but his usefulness in this field was gone.

During the same period the chief justice of Newfoundland had managed to surround himself with difficulties very similar to those evoked by Colclough. His history challenges