For frauds and deceits, I do chiefly commend to your care the frauds and deceits in that which is the chief means of all just contract and permutation, which is, weights and measures; wherein, although God hath pronounced that a false weight is an abomination, yet the abuse is so common and so general, I mean of weights, and I speak upon knowledge and late examination, that if one were to build a church, he should need but false weights, and not seek them far, of the piles of brass to make the bells, and the weights of lead to make the battlements: and herein you are to make special inquiry, whether the clerk of the market within the verge, to whom properly it appertains, hath done his duty.

For nuisances and grievances, I will for the present Nuisance. only single out one, that ye present the decays of highways and bridges; for where the majesty of a King's house draws recourse and access, it is both disgraceful to the King, and diseaseful to the people, if the ways near-abouts be not fair and good; wherein it is strange to see the chargeable pavements and causeways in the avenues and entrances of towns abroad beyond the seas; whereas London, the second city at the least of Europe, in glory, in greatness, and in wealth, cannot be discerned by the fairness of the ways, though a little perhaps by the broadness of them, from a village.

For the last part, because I pass these things over Breach of briefly, I will make mention unto you of three laws. statutes. 1. The one, concerning the King's pleasure.

2. The second, concerning the people's food.

3. And the third, concerning wares and manufactures.

You shall therefore inquire of the unlawful taking King's partridges and pheasants or fowl, the destruction of pleasure. the eggs of the wild-fowl, the killing of hares or deer, and the selling of venison or hares: for that which is for exercise, and sport, and courtesy, should not be turned to gluttony and sale victual.

You shall also inquire whether bakers and brewers Food. keep their assize, and whether as well they as butchers, innholders and victuallers, do sell that which is whole

Manufactures.

some, and at reasonable prices, and whether they do link and combine to raise prices.

Lastly, you shall inquire whether the good statute be observed, whereby a man may have that he thinketh he hath, and not be abused or mis-served in that 5 Eliz. c. 4. he buys: I mean that statute that requireth that none use any manual occupation but such as have been seven years apprentice to it; which law being generally transgressed, makes the people buy in effect chaff for corn; for that which is mis-wrought will mis-wear.

There be many more things inquirable by you throughout all the former parts, which it were overlong in particular to recite. You may be supplied either out of your own experience, or out of such bills and informations as shall be brought unto you, or upon any question that you shall demand of the court, which will be ready to give you any farther direction as far as is fit: but these which I have gone through, are the principal points of your charge; which to present, you have taken the name of God to witness; and in the name of God perform it.

The Lord Sanquhar, a Scotch nobleman, having, in private revenge, suborned Robert Carlile to mur

der John Turner, master of fence, thought, by his [greatness, to have born it out; but the King, The respecting nothing so much as justice, would not suffer nobility to be a shelter for villainy; but, according to law, on the 29th of June, 1612, the said Lord Sanquhar, having been arraigned and condemned, by the name of Robert Creighton, Esq. was before Westminster-hall Gate executed, where he died very penitent. At whose arraignment my Lord Bacon, then Solicitor-General to King James, made this speech following:

IN this cause of life and death, the jury's part is in effect discharged; for after a frank and formal confession, their labour is at an end: so that what hath been said by Mr. Attorney, or shall be said by myself, is rather convenient than necessary.

My lord Sanquhar, your fault is great, and cannot be extenuated, and it need not be aggravated; and if it needed, you have made so full an anatomy of it out of your own feeling, as it cannot be matched by myself, or any man else, out of conceit; so as that part of aggravation I leave. Nay, more, this Christian and penitent course of yours draws me thus far, that I will

agree, in some sort extenuates it: for certainly, as even in extreme evils there are degrees; so this particular of your offence is such, as though it be foul spilling of blood, yet there are more foul: for if you had sought to take away a man's life for his vineyard, as Ahab did; or for envy, as Cain did; or to possess his bed, as David did surely the murder had been more odious.

Your temptation was revenge, which the more natural it is to man, the more have laws both divine and human sought to repress it; Mihi vindicta. But in one thing you and I shall never agree, that generous spirits, you say, are hard to forgive: no, contrariwise, generous and magnanimous minds are readiest to forgive; and it is a weakness and impotency of mind to be unable to forgive;

Corpora magnanimo satis est prostrasse leoni.

But howsoever murders may arise from several motives, less or more odious, yet the law both of God and man involves them in one degree, and therefore you may read that in Joab's case, which was a murder upon revenge, and matcheth with your case; he for a dear brother, and you for a dear part of your own body; yet there was a severe charge given, it should not be unpunished.

And certainly the circumstance of time is heavy upon you: it is now five years since this unfortunate man Turner, be it upon accident, or be it upon despite, gave the provocation, which was the seed of your malice. All passions are suaged with time : love, hatred, grief; all fire itself burns out with time, if no new fuel be put to it. Therefore for you to have been in the gall of bitterness so long, and to have been in a restless chace of this blood so many years, is a strange example; and I must tell you plainly, that I conceive you have sucked those affections of dwelling in malice, rather out of Italy and outlandish manners, where you have conversed, than out of any part of this island, England or Scotland.

But that which is fittest for me to spend time in, the matter being confessed, is to set forth and magnify to the hearers the justice of this day; first of God, and then of the King.

My lord, you have friends and entertainments in foreign parts; it had been an easy thing for you to set Carlile, or some other bloodhound on work, when your person had been beyond the seas; and so this news might have come to you in a packet, and you might have looked on how the storm would pass but God bereaved you of this foresight, and closed you here under the hand of a King, that though abundant in clemency, yet is no less zealous of justice.

Again, when you came in at Lambeth, you might have persisted in the denial of the procurement of the fact; Carlile, a resolute man, might perhaps have cleared you, for they that are resolute in mischief, are commonly obstinate in concealing the procurers, and so nothing should have been against you but presumption. But then also God, to take away all obstruction of justice, gave you the grace, which ought indeed to be more true comfort to you, than any device whereby you might have escaped, to make a clear and plain confession.

Other impediments there were, not a few, which might have been an interruption to this day's justice, had not God in his providence removed them.

But, now that I have given God the honour, let me give it likewise where it is next due, which is, to the King our sovereign.

This murder was no sooner committed, and brought to his Majesty's ears, but his just indignation, wherewith he first was moved, cast itself into a great deal of care and providence to have justice done. First came forth his proclamation, somewhat of a rare form, and devised, and in effect dictated by his Majesty himself; and by that he did prosecute the offenders, as it were with the breath and blast of his mouth. Then did his Majesty stretch forth his long arms, for Kings have long arms when they will extend them, one of them to the sea, where he took hold of Grey