518 ANNUAL REGISTER, ISH. 



purchased them by his jobs ; and 

 this is frequently done, with httle 

 regard to conscience or duty, or 

 real value of the alleged free- 

 hold. 



Another source of immorality 

 lay in the hasty mode of pronounc- 

 ing decrees upon Civil Bills, which 

 was common before Assistant Bar- 

 risters were nominated for the se- 

 veral counties. All these con- 

 curring causes, however, created 

 such a contempt for oaths, that I 

 have often lamented it to be my 

 painful lot to preside in a Court of 

 Justice, and to be obliged to listen 

 to such abominable profanation. 



I now come to another source 

 of vice and mischief, with which 

 you are, perhaps, unacquainted, 

 " Illicit Distillation." From this 

 source, a dreadful torrent of evils 

 and crimes has flowed upon our 

 land. The excessive increase of 

 rents had induced many persons to 

 bid rents for their farms, which 

 they knew they could not fairly or 

 properly discharge ; but they flat- 

 tered themselves, that, in the 

 course of years, the value of those 

 farms would rise still higher, and 

 that thus they might ultimately 

 acquire beneficial interests. In 

 the mean time, they have had re- 

 course to illicit distillation, as the 

 means of making good their rents. 

 Hence the Public Revenue has 

 been defrauded to the amount of 

 millions. Nay, it is a fact, that at 

 one period not far back there was 

 not a single licensed distillery in an 

 entire province, namely, the north- 

 west circuit, where the consump- 

 tioa of spirituous liquors is, per- 

 hapji, called for by the coldness 

 and humidity of the climate. The 

 old powers of the law having 

 i*ioved unavailing, the Legislature 



was compelled to enact new laws, 

 which, though clashing with the 

 very first principles of evidence 

 under our happy Constitution, 

 were yet called for by the exigency 

 of the times, laws, which qualify 

 a prosecutor to be as a witness in 

 his own cause. If he feared not 

 the consequences of perjury, he 

 gained the suit, and put the money 

 into his pocket. Hence, a kind 

 of bounty was necessarily tendered 

 to false swearing ; and, we all 

 know, the revenue folk are not 

 very remarkable for a scrupulous 

 feeling in such cases. These oaths 

 were answered again by the oaths 

 of the parties charged, who, in 

 order to avoid the fine, denied the 

 existence of any still upon their 

 lands. Thus have I witnessed 

 trials, where, in my judgment, the 

 revenue officer, who came to im- 

 pose the fine, was perjured, the 

 witnesses who came to avert it, 

 perjured, and the Petty Jury, who 

 tried the cause, perjured, for they 

 declined to do their duty, because 

 they were, or might be, interested 

 in the event ; or because the easy 

 procurement of those illicit spirits 

 produced an increased consump- 

 tion of grain for their benefit. 

 The resident gentry of the county, 

 generally, winked with both their 

 eyes at this practice, and why ? 

 because it brought home to the 

 doors of their tenantry a market 

 for their corn; and consequently 

 increased the rents of their lands ; 

 besides they were themselves con- 

 sumers of those liquors, and in 

 every town and village there was 

 an unlicensed house for retailing 

 them. This consumption of spirits 

 produced such pernicious effects, 

 that at length the executive pow- 

 ers deemed it high time to put an 



