party, for whom he appeared, his hand was cut off, if he loft the battle.

From the custom of judicial combat, in those days of barbarity, arose what amongst the moderns is called a point of honour, which is at present, for very good reasons, moft religiously obferved among gentlemen, without which no more decency nor order would be preferved amongst them, than what we obferve amongft porters and watermen. Honour is a thing no person can define, nor laws preferve unviolated: they only know it, who in their own breast contain it.

In judicial combat, the accufer began by declaring before the judge, that fuch a perfon had committed fuch an action: the accused immediately anfwered he lied; upon which the judge gave orders for the duel. It then became an established rule, that whenever a perfon had the lie given him, it was incumbent on him to fight; and, when a man declared he would fight, he could not afterwards depart from his word: if he did, he was condemned to a penalty.

B 3

t

penalty. Hence arofe the rule, that whenever a perfon had engaged his word, honour forbad him to recal it.

Gentlemen, armed at all points, fought one another on horseback; villains fought on foot with a bafton: hence à bafton was looked upon as the inftrument of infults and affronts; becaufe to ftrike a man with it was treating him like a villain. None but villains fought with their faces uncovered, fo that none but they could receive a blow on the face: therefore a box on the ear, or a pull by the nofe, became an injury that must be expiated with blood; because the person who received it had been treated as a villain. A gentleman was not obliged to fight a villain, except he him. felf was the appellant. When a gentleman challenged a villain, he was obliged to prefent himself on foot. with buckler and bafton; but if he came on horfeback, and armed like a gentleman, they took his horfe and arms from him, ftripped him to the fhirt, and obliged him to fight in that condition with the villain,

The

The trial by water was highly ridiculous: the accufed perfon was obliged to put his hand into boiling water, then put it into a bag or pocket made for the purpofe, where it was to remain three days; and, if there appeared no marks of fire upon the hand, when it was taken out of the bag, the perfon was declared innocent: if the magiftrate found the hand burnt, he pronounced the perfon guilty.

The trial by hot iron was another barbarous cuftom, which however continued long in use here. The method was this: many red-hot bars of iron were put at proper distances : the fufpected perfon, blindfold, walked over that ground: if he touched one of the bars, he was guilty; if he escaped them all, it was looked upon as a sufficient proof of his innocence. The other forms by confecrated cake, &c. were equally abfurd and fuperftitious. St. Lewis abolished the judicial combats in the courts of his own demefne, but not in the courts of his barons, except in the cafe of appeal of false judgment; for he found fuch

B 4

fuch difficulty to establish his inftitutions, that at length he was forced to leave the lords at liberty to follow which way they pleased, either the king's establishment, or the ancient practice; but when they had pitched upon one, in any cafe, they could not afterwards have recourfe to another. One inconvenience, and that a great one too, attended the difufe of judicial combat. Duels had introduced a public form of proceeding; fo that the attack and the defence were equally known: but when people became more learned, writing more general, and the forms of proceeding according to St. Lewis were improved, and became more in practice, then a fecret form of proceeding was introduced; and as every thing before had been public, every thing now became fecret: the interrogatories, informations, re-examinations, confronting of witneffes, recourfe to proceedings on record, &c. were introduced. Law in its commencement was not an intricate fcience, and was more governed by maxims of equity, which feem obvious

to

to common sense, than by numerous and fubtile principles, applied to a variety of cases by profound reasonings from analogy; but the chicanery of law was foon introduced, and it became a fcience, in which knaves have the greatest interest. Then the world was filled with members and profeffors of the law, who were often ftrangers both to law and juftice; then reason, juftice, and common fenfe, were loft in volumes of writings; knavery found knaves to fupport it, and law was made to approve what juftice condemned; then what was designed for people of common understandings, like the plain inftructions of a father to his family, became fubtile, logical, quibbling or fophiftry, and men were reasoned out of their property and fenfes, by nice fubtilties, fine founds, and well-turned periods.

THE genius of the feudal government, uniform in all its operations, produced the same effect in small as in great focieties: the territory of a baron was in miniature the model of a kingdom. The cafe was the fame with

the